That’s the prediction of a senior manroland executive visiting PacPrint.Peter Kuisle, manroland’s executive vice-president, sales, told the PacPrint Daily the move to direct representation is in line with the company’s global sales strategy.
   
“The market today more and more demands that we supply directly,” he said. “We worked with Ferrostaal for almost 50 years but business has changed and also the philosophy and strategy of what we see Ferrostaal doing, especially with the ownership change they recently had. We don’t see ourselves as their core business in the future.
   
“As the direct supplier, we focus on service first, and this is something we can only do directly. A trading house has to operate differently – their core competence is trading; our core competence is building and servicing presses.
   
“Australia is a very important market for us and over the past 25 years or so we have really built up the web side with large newspaper and commercial installations,” he said.
   
Kuisle said plans to beef up service have had a head start in Australia, as a web service site was founded jointly with MAN Ferrostaal some 18 months ago.
   
He said manroland has an established footprint, especially in web, but the blueprint is to build up the sheetfed side on the back of a direct market presence.
   
In terms of product, manroland is highlighting inline cold foiling with wider colour gamuts, a development that has had a strong response in the Australian market for the company.
   
Format upgrades will usher in 64-page sheetfed and 96-page commercial web technologies.

Comment below to have your say on this story.

If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at editorial@sprinter.com.au.  

Sign up to the Sprinter newsletter