What do you feel were the main trends and key industry developments in 2024?
Probably one of the most important developments, if you can put in under that heading, was that Drupa was successful – both for us as a business, for many of the suppliers that we have discussed it with, and for those end-users who attended. There is still something about face-to-face meetings and discussions that cannot be replicated online. For us as a business, we enjoyed the successful launch of a significant number of new products.

Speaking more generally, the hot topic at Drupa was automation. Firstly, automation is significantly less prone to errors, and it also doesn’t take tea breaks, or holidays, and doesn’t need sick leave! Secondly, people are expensive. Automated equipment has an upfront cost, for sure, but generally it will pay for itself over a given time, and once it’s paid for, the ongoing cost is minimal. Then, thirdly, we have the skills shortage – older, apprenticed tradesmen are retiring. There isn’t the number of industry trained professionals coming through the system to replace them.

What do you expect to be the main trends, key industry developments, and biggest opportunities for printers in 2025?
From our own perspective, we are still working hard to expand the Plockmatic and Morgana names across a number of significant territories of the world. Our ongoing expansion in the US is top of our agenda, with both online and offline products. That might of course be rather 'Trump dependent' in 2025 – watch this space. Another major market we are very keen to expand in is India. It’s a massive country, and a print-hungry one. A new strategic partnership with Monotech Systems that has just been announced, will be important with regard to that ever-growing area of the world.

As for industry trends, I’m quite sure that automation, particularly in finishing, will be increasingly important. As raised above, the issue of the skills gap that is already being experienced across all sectors of the industry will continue to be front-and-centre for many employers, along with, one might suspect, the increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions.

Further in-roads by inkjet presses into the B2 print sector will most likely continue, as too might the consolidation of printing businesses, with the industry still seeking the ideal size of the future print producer.

What are Morgana’s own hopes and aims for 2025? Can you tell us about anything exciting in the pipeline?
From a product perspective, we have another significant new bookletmaker on its way from the PowerSquare family. Providing for wire stitched booklets of up to 224 pages, with formats including 297x297mm square, and A4 landscape, which we anticipate opening even more doors to Morgana/Plockmatic equipment. New additions to our digital die-cutter range are also on the way – this being an area of major growth for us with the ColorCut products shown at Drupa. Many of our customers are looking to get into value added labelling and small packaging products and the ColorCut range is an ideal complement to their cutsheet digital print engines to allow them to do this. With the wide variety of label stock now available for digital print, it’s easy to introduce a simple workflow to produce them.

How can suppliers better help printers navigate the challenges and seize the opportunities in 2025?
Suppliers do still need to understand and listen to the needs of the customer. We believe that we have done so, hence our focus to help them automate and streamline post-press processes. We also need to listen regarding how we show potential customers our latest developments. Drupa is important to many larger print houses, certainly, but the vast majority of businesses that make up the printing industry are smaller companies, and the owners of these cannot afford the time, or cost of a trip to Düsseldorf for the best part of a week. Smaller local events and open houses are ever more critical in order for those users to get “hands-on” experiences – finding out with face-to-face meetings with company specialists demonstrating ways to make the print business more effective, more efficient, and more profitable. Video demonstrations have their place, but seeing people in person is still vital.

What did you think of Drupa? Do you plan to attend the show in 2028?
Overall, Drupa was a great success for Plockmatic, including Morgana and Intec. It was the largest ever stand for the combined group, with the largest number of products on show – including a number of inline and offline finishing units on several other exhibitors' stands. Whilst sales to end-users were important, obviously, we see shows the size of Drupa as a terrific opportunity to meet with the large number of dealers that represent our products from across the globe, meet with new potential distribution partners, and meet with key industry partners, such as the digital print engine manufacturers.

Length of show – possibly too long by a couple of days, but our equipment is relatively easy to set up and to take down at the end of a show. If the event is trimmed back even more, the bigger litho press suppliers might well object, and simply vote with their feet. Then the costs of the event will be impossible to spread to a smaller cohort of exhibitors.