Xeikon road show exceeded organisers’ expectations as label and packaging companies down under learnt the tricks of the trade from successful UK company CS Labels. The company says the roadshow, which began in Auckland and then Melbourne, before Sydney, was in response to the growing number of Xeikon clients in Australia and New Zealand. Speaking with Australian Printer, Grish Rewal, chief executive at Absolute Electronics, which is the Australian supplier of Xeikon, says as the Xeikon cafe in March could not be synchronised with PrintEx the company decided to host the road show.
L-R Filip Waymans, Grish Rewal, Bent Serritslev
He says the tour is focused on helping Australian companies propel themselves to the next level by transforming their company from flexo to digital. Rewal says, “Exhibiting a machine is exhibiting a machine and that is all. We wanted to do something that was going to bring ideas to our customers, hence the discussion with Xeikon and CS Labels, who were happy to share their story. “The feedbacks we have been getting so far are that the convertors are getting a lot of value. We don’t have people sharing that sort of information locally because everybody wants to hold on to their intellectual property. “They don’t want to share it because it is seen as giving information to your competition but the guys from CS have been happy to share their ideas and innovation as they don’t see Australia as competition.” Filip Weymans, Xeikon label and packaging director, says packaging and labels have come a long way. “Packaging and labels have gone through the age of information, to the age of attraction, and the future of packaging will be the age of emotion,” Weymans says. He says today companies are focused on producing labels and packaging that triggers an emotional response and digital printers have the capability to print high quality products that can do that. Weymans says the road show was designed to ensure Xeikon customers heard from those who have successfully integrated their business into a complete digital operation. He says, “We could have made this an ego centric thing with Xeikon talking about how good we are, but we felt the need to show how European printers are taking digital on board and how it contributes to their business’ bottom line. “Therefore we brought CS Labels on the road so they could share their experience, which I think for the label industry here is great to understand. “So far we have seen a lively interaction between the attendees and the guys from CS Labels which shows that the customers are getting value out of the event.” Weymans says the positive feedback has encouraged Xeikon to host more similar events in the near future. “The audience interaction has been great and we wanted to focus on small numbers so that sense of personal touch and one on one is not lost,” he says. “We are planning on hosting another event similar to this in the next few months and this time we will go around Australia to ensure we reach everyone.”
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