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The crisis shows strength

Thoughts about my INKISH Over-the-Skype conversation with Rainer Wagner, Senior Technical Consultant LATAM, Costa Rica

By Andreas Weber

Nothing stays the way it will be! — Experience from the new world: Rainer Wagner is a first-class print expert, with around 40 years of experience at the forefront. Nothing escapes him. And he can immediately classify and structure everything new. Rainer born and trained in Germany has lived and worked for over 30 years in LATAM, i.e. South and Central America, without losing ties to Germany. For INKISH D-A-CH and Andreas Weber, the conversation revealed a very interesting field of tension between: something old meets something new. Without compromises! 

The situation in LATAM is delicate. But the people there react with more creativity, more flexibility. And the will to radically stop what is no longer possible. The European maxim of adhering to the status quo, preserving what’s already achieved, wanting to compensate for economic decline through public debt etc. is out of the question in LATAM for a variety of reasons. 

Instead, the insight bears: if things can no longer be held, you have to adapt. Ability to change in the most drastic form becomes the business principle that will completely change the print industry. According to Rainer Wagner, the 2008/2009 crisis created the best conditions for dealing with the brutal effects of the corona pandemic. A new form of ”digital“ Darwinism is emerging: not the stronger, the bigger wins, but the agile, the smart, the knowledgeable, who can act in real time to realign things.

Rainer Wagner's most important observations and assessments: 

1. Knowledge is key. Successful print shops in LATAM organize their procurement and investments themselves. And no longer trust the portfolio of large, dominant manufacturers. The knowledgeable print shops rely on artificial intelligence. The goal is not only to automate production, but to make the entire business processes including customer management one hundred percent transparent in order to identify agile and flexible unpredictable at an early stage. 

2. Less is the new more. Integration meets diversification meets hybrid technology. Successful printers confidently mix offset printing, flexographic printing and digital printing (toner, electro-ink). What is running is expanded, what is not working well is switched off. Changes can be made in weeks and a few months. In addition to up-scaling, down-sizing must also be possible at any time if sales break down and the order volume shrinks extremely quickly and sustainably. 

3. One man's meat is another man's suffering. Commercial printing as we know it will not be revived. Commodity products without differentiation and without unique selling points are dead. Bingo! — The only thing that stays alive is what inspires transactions and buying experiences. As a result, packaging printing, in all its facets (corrugated, labels, flexible packaging, POS material, etc.) will flourish and prosper. 

4. Thinking outside the box, eliminating dependencies. While many in the D-A-CH region (Germany, Austria Switzerland) think that art lies in specialization, things are completely different in LATAM. There is a demand for professional, overarching generalists who are able to set up their production facilities broadly and to move up and down or rearrange in order to implement new customer requirements quickly and easily with maximum creativity in line with requirements and the market. For this purpose, specifically smart printing companies acquire others in order to firmly integrate creative minds from design, advertising, photography in the printing house. 

5. Courage to take risks. Anyone who is slow and inflexible as a supplier to print shops in LATAM and only acts with a focus on their own interests and makes promises that relate to the old world of print, falls through the grid and is sorted out. Preferred are providers of AI solutions that bill for their services online and seamlessly integrated on the basis of pay-per-use.

By the way, Rainer Wagner noted: ”While we are talking here in the interview, right now, we have reached a turning point. (...) I'm glad about it and full of confidence. Because actually I've been waiting for 20 or 30 years for things to change completely and radically in the print business!“ 

My recommendation Watch and share the full video on INKISH.

My Take 

Using his insights of developments in LATAM, Rainer Wagner outlines how necessity becomes a virtue. And how print can rise from the ashes even in times of disaster like Phoenix. The "new world of printing" only has in common with the old that ink comes on printing material. 

How, with which concepts for production and marketing, with what kind of creativity, speed and quality, that differs fundamentally. Key factors are artificial intelligence in production, administration and business strategy, supported by a new form of digital "brainware" for managers in the printing houses. And everything always in real-time dialogue with customers / clients. 

Rigid system worlds and technology concepts will not survive. Print shop customers require their print partners to adapt flexibly and agile to the new Post-Covid consumer behavior in order to only produce print pieces that are successfully oriented to the respective sales process. So it’s all about transaction, conversation and customer benefit. 

And above all: The transformation in print is not about a change from analog to digital, but about a radical mindshift from traditional supplier thinking (based on speculations like what I can manufacture and market, where and when best possible) to the agile design of needs-based, adaptable at any time real-time solutions to optimally serve changing customer needs.

[Original German text version via valuetrendradar.com]

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