To predict is difficult. To predict the future is even more difficult. However, this is Morten B. Reitoft from INKISH, giving it a shot! With more than five million COVID deaths, the pandemic is an issue that will continue into 2022. Families are influenced, businesses are influenced, and with the new Omikron variant, the pandemic is still a fact that will influence 2022.

Hunkeler Innovationdays is already postponed (Feb 2022). The increased spread will influence shows, at least some and for sure the number of visitors. The postponing or canceling of shows is not only because of the pandemic but, most likely, initiated by it!

During 2020 and 2021, vendors realized that sales had not been dramatically influenced despite the canceled shows - some even exceeded their expectations! We have on INKISH written quite a lot about this since we believe there is a need for physical shows in the future - but the form needs to adapt to the new normal. Many, if not all, vendors have built showrooms, and they can both do physical events and virtual events, one-on-one presentations, and more. I am confident that vendor-side events will be dominant in the future. Tradeshows MUST develop to be relevant, and for now, I haven't seen any actual development.

What to expect? More and more vendors ask for end-to-end solutions, which in the old formats are almost impossible to do. The upcoming (June 22) Amplify print is also, in my mind, an excellent idea since it's a smaller event focusing on a narrow topic. Focusing verse major events like drupa, I believe, is the future. Some exhibition organizers claim it will lead to more traveling annoying PSPs, but I am not sure. I am not sure about this because most PSPs are pretty focused on what they invest in before attending a show, so the show is not so much about exploring new things anymore. One of the recurring things I hear is that PSPs are way better prepared for what they want to invest in before reaching out to a vendor, and when asked, most use the internet to find the needed information. We see this trend as well, as vendors are changing their communication to be more comprehensive, customer-centric, and educating!

Another unfortunate situation that will continue from 2021 is the supply shortage. All printing companies experience a shortage of almost all types of consumables, which stresses the PSPs a lot. Paper is a very serious and important shortage, and publishers are now pre-ordering capacity and paper to secure future supply. Nobody has explained why paper suddenly has become such a problem, but numerous people tell me that situations will improve in mid-2022. Blaming the supply on the COVID alone can't, in my mind, be true, but let's hope things will soon revert to more normal!

Labor is also an essential resource in demand. Almost everywhere recruitment is becoming a bigger and bigger challenge. We will, in 2022, initiate a project in Europe called 'Young Rita'. The project is about developing interest among young people for print - we are excited about this. We will later in 2022 develop a similar project in the US together with Deborah Corn!

The next important topic in 2022 is, of course, the environment. Not only do brands demand sustainable products and productions, but governments will be focusing more and more on everything that can reduce the environmental impact. This applies to both CO2 and equivalents and, of course, plastic. Of course, the printing industry is interested in delivering the right solutions, which will consist of at least three driving mechanisms:

1 - Reduced waste - which also includes only producing what's needed!

2 - Technologies to replace plastic and production on sustainable substrates!

3 - Closer to the source productions - minimizing shipping (and time).

All three topics are already addressed in the printing industry by developing equipment with a more efficient job setup, technologies replacing plastic with organic fiber-based materials, change from UV to LED-UV so print on thinner plastic becomes an option (which will not eliminate, but dramatically reduce) and many more things.

Unfortunately, we will see more "organizations" in the market trying to monetize from doubtful environmental programs, and we will also see many companies trying to "green-wash" their products.

So the environmental agenda is here to stay, and each of us has to figure out how to contribute to the objectives - if not because of the regulators, then because our customers will demand it!
INKISH will publish our first magazine in 2022 addressing environmental topics, and we are very excited, of course :-)

Inkjet and workflow automation are among the most spoken topics in the industry. As inkjet technology evolves, printers look into how Inkjet can be a future investment. Commercial, label, packaging, ceramics, printed electronics, textile, everything is moving into Inkjet - and whether Inkjet drives the demand for smaller and faster print runs, or the decreased order-sizes creates a need for Inkjet is a good question! The fact is that smaller print runs are here to stay, and the value chain in all segments is changing rapidly!

The Inkjet adventure changes the global print scene dramatically. If a digital print vendor were the smaller company in the past, they now become the new big players that will set the agenda for the next decades. The PSPs that love Inkjet understands that entering into a fully digital service changes everything within an organization. The conventional PSPs may miss the train.

The organizations will be challenged because sales will change. Rather than getting orders from Mr. or Mrs. Jones or the companies they work in, the orders in the future may partly come from anonymous APIs collecting orders from various sources delivering the files, the orders, the job tickets directly to the productions.

Printers become factories - buyers buy from elsewhere. This mantra I wrote about years ago, and it's now becoming a reality. As an example - see how Amazon works. A publisher advertises/markets its books on Amazon. Rather than buying books, put them in a warehouse, and ship them out one by one, Amazon or their partners now print on demand and ship directly to the customer. The publisher is no longer the customer. Amazon is or will they print the books on equipment owned by Amazon? Today, many vendors supply equipment to Amazon-owned and operated print facilities, so no question - the business changes rapidly!

A printing company today MUST be efficient like never before, and the number one objective is to have a production profitable of printing copies of one!

Workflow Automation, Inkjet, and efficient binding equipment become even more necessary. Part of the future - maybe not in 2022 - but for sure soon is automated logistics solutions where AGVs, Robots, Cobots, Palletizers, automatic plate inserters (for those still using offset) become a standard that you must have when producing commodity products!

AND speaking of commodity products! If you choose to be a commodity printer, scale is a must. Therefore, you must consider how to get customers, have an extremely lean operation, and a future where you may need to be profitable on low margins. The market, however, is not big enough for all printers to be efficient commodity printers.

The printers that find a niche and use their technology to create unique products will have a great future. I believe many can expect high margins. But that requires re-thinking your business and identifying products and services where you can differentiate (not on price). That is a good exercise for all companies! Some printing companies even return to the good old days, where they develop products/brands where they control everything from customers, websites, payments, products, production, etc. Photobooks are just one example, but I've seen PSPs setting up online shops selling personalized facemasks during the pandemic - and so many creative things that today can be produced on the equipment the PSPs already own. Smart and guaranteed more profitable than 'just' supplying commodity products!

However, I am almost sure that 2022 will be a goodbye to many printing companies. Sad for the owners and families that have run these companies for generations, but good for the rest of the industry as supply and demand align pricing and competition!

In 2022 we will see more APIs from all the vendors you already work with. Computers will influence your business more and more in everything from daily operation to where your orders come from! Services like Cloudprinter, HP Siteflow, Gelato, or what about Canva? Once a service to the online printing companies and others - but now becoming a competitor! And more will continue to grow, and we will see more companies offering a 'middle-man' service that in the past would have been called a 'print-broker' and today is a vital software component. Your dependency on these services will be vast, which imposes a new risk that you will need to address. How can you continue to be the supplier chosen by the API?

A trend that you will see in 2022 is also APIs and software able to negotiate across vendors, customers, and equipment. Some tailor-made, some use IoT to enable a new level of remote monitoring of your production. Some of your vendors will also become customers, where using software to create content can be used to create new products and services. One of the first examples of this is HP, which extends its Siteflow solution to CREATE books from blogs, social media, etc. Photobooks made from the content of channels like Facebook and Instagram already exist and are creating value for both buyer, seller, and producer.

I believe 2022 will mainly deliver iterations of existing solutions on the hardware side. Inkjet is maturing and looking at the new Koening & Bauer/DURST VariJet; the format, speed, and quality are comparable to the Landa presses that, from what I see, haven't been a major success. You could call it nemesis when Landa at the past drupas announced - who dare to invest in Inkjet with nanography just around. Now around for a long time and only delivered to a few companies, the Landa-fever has cooled. Almost every other vendor has brilliant solutions addressing the mid-segment market, which Landa spoke about at the last drupa. I can't help but think that the once hip drupa with hip vendors like Landa has become a once-been-hip thing - the really smart companies focus on new channels and new ways of engaging with customers.

Take a look at the Canon EMEA events where a mix of physical and virtual has started to show its potential - and by many seen as a better, more innovative way to engage with customers. Printing Expo Online and Connexion took the exhibition online in 3D environments. Though both have good deeds, I still find it a bit strange to navigate in a 3D space that, in my opinion, doesn't bring value in itself, but according to both companies behind the shows, popular by both exhibitors and visitors.

Canon's iX platform seems successful, and Ricoh announced their Z75 B2 inkjet press to be ready in the second half of 2022. Inkjet has mainly been roll-based, but now sheet-fed machines are coming to market—all riding on the wave of both Inkjet and the tremendously successful HP-Indigo platform. New players (sort of) like Kyocera has also delivered their first sheet-fed inkjet machine to market - and with memjet as an OEM, the company rolled out attractive partner solutions with companies like well-established MGI to new players like Ophrys.

Digital is by all means dominant. In the label segment, digital is growing even faster. With the BOBST Mouvent label presses, Screen, Domino, MPS, HP, Durst, and others are getting competition - and competition where the speed and quality are now on par with the flexo-presses! (almost)

On the binding side, I am impressed with how Hunkeler, Tecnau, MBO, Horizon, and Müller Martini push the boundaries and create automation 'monsters' that create beautiful finished products even faster than the print engines delivering printed sheets or rolls!

On the enhancement side, companies like DPE Steinemann, Scodix, MGI, and Kurz push the boundaries for what's possible in digital enhancement, and it looks GREAT. We have been with printing companies that use, i.e., Eagle Systems cold-foil in the past weeks, enabling overprint and creating stunning results. The value enhancement of print is extremely important to growing profits, and with the technologies mentioned above, more PSPs now have options to consider!

What about the offset vendors? Well, all of them keep developing fantastic machines, but only Koenig & Bauer seems to have direct investments in Inkjet. Komori continues to work with Landa and Konica-Minolta but merely rebranded machines. Heidelberger Druckmaschinen has a similar arrangement with Ricoh. So the innovation in digital from the offset vendors seems mainly to be from Koenig & Bauer, who deliver on two tracks - the RotaJet and the VariJet.

Of course, the offset market still dominates the total volume, but I talk to many PSPs that today look at Inkjet as a viable alternative.

In that perspective, it's important to mention that Inkjet is still more expensive than offset. Still, the comparison is wrong since digital offers many many advantages when the print run decreases - and therefore, the cost models will be different and the value chain different - we will have a webinar about this in 2022.

2022 will be an exciting year with many changes. The more dominant ones I have mentioned above (maybe), and what will happen is that announcements of new products and technologies will NOT wait for a tradeshow but be announced when ready to the market! That will change the competitive situation, which is always an advantage!

Happy new year - and we look forward to bringing you new films, articles, and a few new products and services we believe will continue supporting our industry.