Delivery certainty of supplies crucial, costs less important

EVENT - During the second 'round table discussion' at Sign&Print Expo 2022, the focus was on costs and prices as a result of the current economic situation. Oscar Jager of Veldhuis Media said that a good relationship with suppliers is the basis for sufficient consumables. Costs are then often less important than thought.

The session on costs, prices and returns made it particularly clear that money played less of a role than expected, despite the fact that keynote speaker Marco Boer of IT Strategies mentioned the fact that, for the first time in 30 years, companies were forced to increase their prices because their suppliers had also increased their prices (sometimes substantially) in recent months. Marco Boer is originally Dutch and lives in Boston and therefore held his keynote in Dutch, with a humorous American 'supplement' here and there.

Companies that have neglected their relationship with their suppliers are now paying the 'price' and ending up in awkward situations, due to a lack of deliveries.

Prioritising paper relevance in communication value

At the table were: Dick Naafs (KVGO), Fred Brouwer (Agfa), Marcel Lamain (GOC), Wouter Haan (Simian) and Oscar Jager (Veldhuis Media). On the one hand, the picture was painted of a sector in decline in terms of numbers of companies, employees and, in the current economic conditions, costs as well.

However, it turned out that costs were not really the big problem. It is not only online companies that are increasing their costs, more traditional companies are as well. At the table, the opinion was shared that the current economic situation cannot be ignored by anyone, and that no one in the chain can be surprised that costs will increase everywhere. Prices can be raised appropriately without restraint, without too much 'fuss' about it.

René de Heij, after the session: "We must stop always having a negative basic attitude. It takes so much energy to defend print from that position. People who come to our 'Printing Wonderland' can see with their own eyes that we don't just charge a price per square metre of paper, but build applications in print that are relevant to customers. Price plays hardly any role in this."

After the keynote session by Marco Boer of IT Strategies, in which the current economic situation was put into perspective compared to the past 30 years, it became clear that the communi-cation value of print applications should remain central.

Image, labour market and sustainability

When it became clear that the current economic situation would not be able to be turned around unilaterally within the industry, the discussion around the table naturally shifted to entirely different aspects, which are at least as relevant. The image of the industry should be linked much more to the image of the applications that are made within the various markets and that are relevant to the customers. Only then will it become clear what print does in chains, also in relation to digital alternatives. This requires a modern and flexible labour market, with young people who are really interested in modern process-driven print media companies. And within this context, extra attention to sustainability (demanded by the public) is justifiable, giving the industry the chance to finally rid itself of the eternal comparison with cutting down trees and deforesting the world. If all these things are in order, then raising the price by some 'temporary hassle' is no problem at all, was the opinion at the table.

A nod to the session on offset, inkjet and toner

Both Marco Boer and the speakers at the table referred directly and indirectly to the first day's session on the positioning of digital in general and inkjet in particular. In the current economic climate, digital offers plenty of opportunities, both in the print production process and especially in front-end automation.