"One-to-One Marketing Is Crucial for Digital Printing"

Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG highlights the future of customer relationship manage- ment and one-to-one marketing at CeBIT

At CeBIT 2002, which is being held in Hanover over the period March 13-20, 2002, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) will be ringing in the future of digital printing. Under the banner "Discover the World of Digital Print", the company will be setting out its stall as a supplier of complete solutions for all aspects of digital printing.Heidelberg is looking to consolidate its leading position in this highly competitive market and to set itself apart from its competitors Xerox and HP. Using the example of a shared application with Audi, the company will show how digital printing is set to revolutionize the growth markets of customer relationship management (CRM) and one-to-one marketing. Visitors to the Heidelberg stand will be able to configure their own dream Audi TT Roadster on a PC using the Car Configurator. The high-tech NexPress 2100 will then print the configuration in the form of a four-color catalog. Heidelberg board member for Marketing & Sales Holger Reichardt explains, "Individualization instead of mass producti- on - that is what will attract customers in the future. Customized brochures offer enormous potential for manufacturers, advertising agencies and direct marketing agencies."

The Heidelberg solutions cover the entire value-added chain of digital printing - from prepress and press to finishing in color and black-and-white. This is a very lucrative sector for the company. The market researchers at CAP Venture (in their study "Black and White Print On Demand: Catching the Next Wave") expect annual growth of over 20 percent in the global printing-on-demand business up to 2005. This forecast is based primarily on the growing importance that companies are attaching to customer support. For example, nearly 70 percent of German IT decision-makers want to find out more about their clients by means of improved customer management. This was demonstrated by the Dialego study "Everything worth knowing about the all-important customer" commissioned by the "Handelsblatt Netzwert newspaper". Another growth area is one-to-one marketing. According to KPMG's study "One-to-one marketing in the B-to-B sector", a one-to-one strategy has a positive impact on business success. It is also becoming increasingly important for companies to improve their responsiveness to customers' specific requirements. The managers surveyed by KPMG believe that, by 2006, the marketing strategy and a one-to-one approach will have acquired a rating of 6.08 on a scale from 1 to 7. By way of compari- son, five years ago the rating was only 3.5, and today it is 4.76. "The grow- ing role of marketing in corporate strategies indicates that we are right to place such emphasis on digital printing. After all, one-to-one marketing is crucial for digital printing," says Holger Reichardt.

In addition to the NexPress application with Audi, Heidelberg will be using the trade show to exhibit the Digimaster 9110 with various software and finishing applications. It will also be unveiling the Inline Hole Puncher 9110 for the Digimaster. The black-and-white digital printing system not only provides print-on-demand capabilities, it also ensures that the print run and delivery date can be tailored to the customer's individual requirements. The DataXceed software bundled with the system supports practically any file format encountered in computer centers. In showing this technology at CeBIT, Heidelberg particularly hopes to attract potential customers from industry, administration, banks, insurance companies and telecommunica- tions. The connection between proven digital offset and digital printing is made by the Quickmaster DI 46-4 Pro, which Heidelberg will also be exhibi- ting at CeBIT. The focal point of the presentation will be the end-to-end digital workflow that extends right through to the press. The Quickmaster
DI Pro is aimed particularly at prepress firms, digital printers and advertising agen- cies that want to break into the expanding short color run market.

Visitors to the trade show will also be able to obtain information about the various training courses available at the Print Media Academy relating to the "World of Print Media", the first multimedia offering of its kind in the graphic arts industry. Heidelberg will also be demonstrating the Linotype Library stock of typefaces (comprising 5,500 different fonts) by focussing on "Corporate Type" and "Font Explorer". For those interested in starting a career with Heidelberg, there will be Human Resources staff available. Heidelberg can be found in Hall 1, Stand 6 a2.

Image:
The graphics show how you can get from customer-entered data a individualized digital print job.

For further information:
Business Press:
Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG
Thomas Fichtl
Tel.: +49 (0)6221 92 4747
Fax: +49 (0)6221 92 50 69
E-mail: thomas.fichtl@heidelberg.com

Trade Press:
Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG
Matthias Hartung
Tel.: +49 (0)6221 92 50 77
Fax: +49 (0)6221 92 50 46
E-mail: matthias.hartung@heidelberg.com