By Editor Morten B. Reitoft

At the Think Smart Factory event in Kyoto, head of Press & PR Patrick Piecha from Onlineprinters in Germany gave an inspiring speech about the success of Onlineprinters. Onlineprinters is among the three biggest European online printers with revenue exceeding €200 million ($220 million) and with 1500+ employees. The European market has for a long time been a very competitive market and with relatively high labour cost, and very low prices on print companies like Onlineprinters, of course, also looks into automation. In Patrick Piecha's presentation, he obviously told about the strong partnership the company has with HP, Heidelberg, and obviously Horizon. 

Among the exciting headlines in his speech was the customer acquisition cost that according to Piecha can be up to €150 in some channels and markets - if one doesn't control their marketing approach. He mentions the high acquisition cost as one of the reasons why nobody can afford to lose customers. What customers need is consistent quality, delivery on time, and a reasonable price. Reasonable price is, of course, attractive because what is a fair price? In the interview I did with Patrick Piecha afterwards, he explains that Onlineprinters prices vary from country to country in the 30 countries they operate. The price is a relation between competition in the market and the purchasing power of the specific market. This all sounds sane, but when Piecha explains that 'prices don't have to go down' I am asking him whether online printers, in general, are the main responsible for the intense focus on prices - and also lower prices on commodity products? He, of course, didn't buy into that entirely but explains that with all industrial and commoditized products that lower prices are only natural. He also explains that the scale of operation has given Onlineprinters a higher margin, since with high revenue comes the scale of size advantages. 

In his presentation, he showed a graph that indicates that margins over time have increased though the sales prices have lowered. Of course, I don't question his numbers, but of course, speculate (even publically) over this statement, since an increased margin from a lower base isn't the same actual number in any currency. This, of course, is not important to a company like Onlineprinters as long as the company keeps growing since companies don't live on margins in per cent, but in cash.

The story of Onlineprinters is, regardless, fascinating, and the impact the online printers have in the European market can't be under-estimated. According to Patrick Piecha, the main thing is, of course, for any printer to have a business model that delivers what customers need, and this Onlineprinters seems to be good at. As we are the Think Smart Factory event in Kyoto, we, of course, also had to talk about the future of workflow and automation. Patrick Piecha is the head of Press & PR. He is a very open and honest person and also stated that he doesn't have much knowledge about the details of the technical side. However, he also said both in the interview and on stage, that he believes that automation and workflow can't support all processes in a printing company and that some of the available options may not be so interesting for Onlineprinters. One of his examples is that Onlineprinters have binding equipment dedicated to each of the products they do, so they don't spend time on the setup from job to job. This might be the case, but I am confident that even Onlineprinters can improve their operations looking into some of the VERY smart software and hardware solutions offered today.

That said - very warm and respectful congratulations on what you have achieved till date!