After having some good food during one of most important Chinese holidays, Lunar New Year in early Feb, I had to kick start my crazy travel schedule again...starting with Guangzhou in South China - the city full of commercial, manufacturing and finished goods trading activities. Compared against my impression of Guangzhou, full of loaded trucks, people, and traders, this time I noticed the traffic seemed to be better, probably due to the impact of the economic crisis. After eating a few dinners in some of the good restaurants - the number of crowds made me believe that the Chinese are still putting all these behind them. Most Chinese people always believe good food should come first in whatever economic situation. Thanks to past 10 years strong growth in the Chinese economy!

 

I had good opportunities to spend some valuable time with key newspaper customers to understand the financial impact and their future direction. Almost all of them told me that, yes the amount of advertising spending is lower this year with obvious drop in advertising pages, and China government direction (all newspapers in China are government owned) is very clear now - you have to find extra revenue to justify your print! Management has to find extra revenue, and find solutions to reduce cost so business show can good margin.

 

Having been involved with Kodak for the past few years has built my confidence that Kodak solutions will help these newspaper printers achieve their objectives - find new revenue and reduce operation costs. So, how?

 

Kodak Versamark CIJ(Continuous Inkjet) technology provides a great match for newspaper printers to grow new revenue. They can offer their advertising clients some creative ways to advertise their business, which includes interactive ads to reach their target audience.  Not forgetting, newspaper companies can also introduce gaming, contest, drawings etc with Versamark to increase circulation.

 

Prepress technology from Kodak such as Staccato Screening Ink Optimizer and Squarespot imaging have also proven to help newspapers reduce their total operation cost - mainly from pressroom saving. These technologies deliver consistent & stable printing plates with high repeatability and accuracy, making printing job much easier and predictable - they can see the reduced waste such as paper, ink...immediately.

 

Unlike other prepress players in the market, Kodak is probably the only company that can provide a total solution with not just prepress technology only but also press & post press.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.org

Independent industry consultant John Zarwan recently wrote a report about the offset plate-making process, focusing on the environmental aspects and plate chemical usage and waste - a worthy and often neglected perspective.   You can download his report for free.

Chemical usage is very difficult to nail down - partly because every vendor measures it in a different way and partly because it can vary dramatically from one customer's setup and needs to another's.  Given those large variables, a "one size fits all" comparison isn't possible.  There are a few areas that you should go deeper into when making a plate system decision for your own business:

Should you base decisions on volume of chemistry consumed and disposed of?

• From a business perspective, the analysis should be cost-based, not volume-based.
  
  
• Include the cost of the processing equipment itself.  More complicated processors like the Fuji ZAC aren't necessarily economically feasible for low-to-mid volume customers
  
  
• Cost-based analysis closes the gap between processed plates and "Chemistry Free" plates, because the price of the "Chemistry Free" chemistry is significantly higher by volume than normal plate developer.  
  
  
• Don't get fooled by chemical concentrate systems like Fuji's ZAC!  While the advertised replenisher volume may be lower, concentrates cost more and generate just as much waste after dilution.  The only clear winners are true non-process plates like Kodak's Thermal Direct and Fuji's Pro-T. 
  
  
• From an environmental perspective, chemical volume means very little because a large percentage of the volume is water.  The concentration and impact of the actual chemicals that affect the environment vary dramatically from product to product.  Specifically, I take issue with claims of low chemical usage where the volume may be lower, but the concentration is much higher.  The net result may be little if any environmental benefit.  Ideally for the environment, you would compare chemical usage and waste excluding the water content - which is not available for obvious competitive reasons.  (Kodak will gladly participate in such a study if an independent Notary can get objective and comprehensive data from every major vendor's primary products)
  
  
• Don't get me started on the whole "Chemistry Free" thing... I'm with Derek Awalt on that one.
  
  
• Pre-press chemical usage is only a tiny part of the total economic and environmental impact of your plate choice.  For example, saving 50% of the chemistry per plate means nothing if you have to do multiple sets of plates to complete your press run, or if you generate more make-ready waste.  First, you should determine which products will perform adequately to your prepress and pressroom performance needs, second, analyze all prepress or pressroom benefits and costs, and third factor in other environmental impacts to decide between the feasible choices.
  
  
• Kodak takes the environment seriously - this is not an area to take marketing liberties.  Before making any environmental claims, we have a rigorous internal approval process that demands proof points and supporting documentation - something that I fully support, and would encourage every  vendor to rigorously implement. 
  
  

John's report is a start to making the right choices for the environment - give us a call and Kodak will help you ensure it's also the right choice for your business.

If you're a veteran marketer, I'm sure you'll recognize this: the discussion about the value of tradeshows in your marketing mix. Are they truly worth all the effort and your valuable marketing dollars or euros?

This very fundamental question is in today's recession even more gripping than ever. But if you decide not to do tradeshows, how will you engage your customers effectively and how will you compensate for the lost sales opportunities, because let's not forget in the graphic arts industry a lot of sales are still generated by tradeshows...

The answer seems to come from Switzerland, from a company you would not associate with marketing, but rather with finishing machines. That company is named Hunkeler. What started out several years ago as a small open house event of a supplier of finishing machines, has grown of the past few year to a 4 day event in the Lucerne Messe, with over 4000 visitors of all corners of the earth with all the major vendors of digital printing equipment participating.

Now you might be inclined to say: 'so what?' But Hunkeler has found this unique balance between having an industrial look and feel, combined with an operational excellence that you could only expect from the Swiss and still a scale of operation with the warmth of a family type organization. That's the true secret of the Hunkeler Innovation Days and why they attract experts of all over the world to come and visit. All visitors are experts in their fields. No tire kickers nor brochure hunters, but production people, owners, managers, all here to get updates on the latest technological solutions in digital printing and finishing. As such the Hunkeler Innovation Days has become what people call in German language: Experten Messen, tradeshows for the experts.

This Hunkeler Innovation Days from 16-19th of February, will be my 3rd event and I cannot wait to talk to people there.

Grüezi mittenand aus Luzern (hi to everyone from Lucerne)