What do you feel were the main trends and key industry developments in 2021?
For the print industry, 2021 was a time characterised by abrupt fluctuation in demand for labels and packaging. While demand for some verticals skyrocketed, others declined, meaning those converters equipped with versatile digital production tools could more easily adapt to shifting brand needs. Important trends including the growth of e-commerce alongside increased focus on sustainability and automation of processes brought exciting new opportunities to those businesses that embraced Indigo solutions alongside traditional printing methods.

Do you feel that any trends have been accelerated because of the pandemic?
The printing industry is continuing to change at pace. Digital printing and digital transformation are trends that have been accelerated by the pandemic and will persist into the future. The time is now for converters to reposition themselves and appeal to the evolving needs of brands, which include addressing the need for on-demand delivery in conjunction with more sustainable solutions. More emphasis on production flexibility and application versatility is exactly why label printers are adopting new digital production technologies. Similarly, digital printing is also enabling converters to streamline production by keeping traditional machinery dedicated to the very long runs and diverting more production to digital printing.

What do you expect to be the main trends and key industry developments in 2022?
Climate change and waste reduction is a global priority for everyone to address. The challenge for brands will lie in evolving new and existing products to become more sustainable, accessible, and flexible, all while remaining high quality. The packaging industry will have an opportunity to show the same level of innovation and forward-thinking progress with inclusivity and accessibility as it has done with sustainability so far and adapting to unforeseen disruption.

Personalisation will continue to be a growth area for the industry, and it will be exciting to see how much more the boundaries between physical and digital are going to be blurred when it comes to transforming the physical experience of product packaging. In the future, offerings will be tailored not just to stated preferences, but also behaviours.

What do you think will represent the single biggest opportunity for print businesses in 2022 and why?
The supply chain crisis has forced decision-makers to revisit their vendor and production tools strategy. Now more than ever, supply chain resiliency should be seen not only as a nice to have, but a necessity. No one will want to stop printing because they run out of media, parts, or inks. A global, vertically integrated supplier and production tool that can print on any media will become the preferred choice. During times when you need your partner expert onsite quickly, you would rather be them a short journey away than have to catch a flight.

What does the industry need to do differently in 2022?
Our vision for the label industry to outgrow the market converters is to undergo a shift to an Indigo-first mindset, which means that an incoming job will be printed digitally unless it is very long, or otherwise has characteristics that make it more appropriate for conventional tools. This is the opposite of today’s analogue-first mindset in which most of the volume is printed using conventional tools. In a world where hiring, training, and retaining employees is becoming a major challenge, digital equipment will become more attractive to the younger workforce as it is easier to operate.

Two vectors will propel this transition. One is the trend towards shifting more volume into the digital print sweet-spot and the second is the availability of more productive Indigo digital presses. Adopting an Indigo-first mindset is a journey, training your salesforce to sell the value of on-demand, multi-SKU, variable data and adding automation to minimise human touchpoints and more. Converters really need to act today. In the coming years, the production floor of a winning converter will be a combination of HP Indigo 6K, the backbone of digital printing, the HP Indigo V12 running at 120m/min or the HP Indigo 8K for smaller converters and an Indigo 25K for larger label, pouches and shrink sleeves.

Note: This prediction is taken from a special Briefing article in the new issue of Printweek featuring insights from industry suppliers, hence it does not follow the same question template as the other predictions.