MÃ¼ller martini webinar

Müller Martini is one of the most recognized OEMs of binding equipment. In a webinar on June 21st, the Head of the Print Finishing Center in Zofingen, Switzerland, Christoph Müller, presented the Primera Pro line. As with almost all webinars, you experience a few technical hiccups, but when the demo started, you got a good presentation of the machine, how to operate it, and the strength of technology like the Primera Pro.

In the past few days, I have followed three webinars and decided to share my considerations and the value in my opinion about the webinars. Is it fair to compare? 100% no. Demonstrating software is considerably easier than hardware - however, I compare these webinars on a few important topics. What do you learn - including the business/value proposition, how to use the technology, what advantages it gives you, and finally, how the execution of the webinar, in general, is handled? For the Müller Martini webinar, I rate it 3 out of 5 stars.

However, before telling you WHY I rate the webinar 3 stars, let's understand what Müller Martini is presenting.

As with almost all binding equipment, not only from Müller Martini, the Primera Pro can be configured pretty much how you want it. Essentially you have feeder sections, a stitcher, and a trimmer. Müller Martini offers various feeder solutions so that you can choose whether you feed folded signatures or sheets. The machine produces up to 14,000 finished saddle-stitched products per hour, so it's a pretty fast machine. In the demo, Christoph Müller shows a changeover in format from A4 to A5, and as expected, the changeover is quick, and most of the settings are managed from the display the operator use. I have met Christoph Müller before - and he is a very skilled person, with super knowledge of the technology - so I wasn't surprised that the demonstration went pretty smoothly. After seeing what the machines are capable of, there is a Q&A session.

This is where it gets a bit strange for me. On my Mac, the Chat is greyed out, and I cannot ask any questions - yet questions are asked. I suspect that the questions are prepared and that Müller Martini, on purpose, hasn't opened for real Q&As. The questions are excellent and relevant, but it's a shame when you have such a great demonstrator as Christoph Müller, you don't have the guts to let any question through! A few questions come via Text/SMS to the reps and are answered - sometimes even by showing. Great to have multiple cameras in a webinar - and even more incredible when a demonstrator can explain and show LIVE.

So why am I not so thrilled about this webinar? The first 'issue' in my mind is that it's more of a product presentation - so who is the webinar for? It is for operators - then the details are not in-depth enough. If it's for the potential buyers, there is almost no talking about the business, which this machine is great, where it is placed in the marketplace, and how Müller Martini (obviously) understands where the Primera Pro outperforms competitors and their legacy products. I also miss Müller Martini's view on the future of the commercial print space if I was a buyer. A buyer needs to understand the market development, and a vast supplier like Müller Martini has most likely done a lot of research to position the Primera Pro right.

As mentioned, you can't compare webinars, but I will give Müller Martini a few things to consider - compared to the webinar by Printbox. Printbox included the business objective - justifying the investment. They also made a demo, like Müller Martini. Then Printbox included a customer in the presentation - and regardless of how staged this can be, it gives the viewer a sense of credibility to the product. They have tried the product in a real-life environment, so they have a way higher credibility than any vendor, regardless of how great they are. Finally, Printbox spoke about availability and price models (which I understand isn't an option on binding equipment), and then they had a few samples. Then the dot over the 'i', they included an anecdote from the CEO's life and background - and the execution of cameras, engaged employees, etc., to me made them a four out of five against your three stars. I will also tell you - to be dead honest - the third star was given because I believe Christoph Müller presents and represents Müller Martini in such a great way!

Looking forward to the next webinar - I have visited so many Müller Martini customers in the past years, so involve them and earn more stars :-)