Heidelberg’s customer communications to become individual and digital

07/08/2020

  • Innovation cycles becoming shorter and require new ways of communicating with customers
  • Heidelberg focusses on new, virtual trade fair concepts and regional events
  • “Innovation Week”, both digital and face to face, to take place in October
  • Participation in next year’s drupa trade fair cancelled due to unforeseeable effects of Covid-19

The trend towards ever shorter innovation cycles in the print media industry has accelerated very quickly. Data-based digital business models are emerging in very short time intervals and are constantly being modified to align with current specific customer requirements. Customers thus need to be informed about the latest trends quickly, flexibly and on an ongoing basis. This trend also affects customer communications at Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg): The company will focus on offering more new, digital options to present products and innovations.

Innovation offensive in packaging as a growth market – complete interconnection of end-to-end printshop processes to be seen live for the first time
Images
Important note
HD-logo-jpeg_IMAGE_RATIO_0_75

Masahiro Kaneko
Marketing Email: masahiro.kaneko@remove-this.heidelberg.com

Heidelberg’s customer communications to become individual and digital

07/08/2020

The trend towards ever shorter innovation cycles in the print media industry has accelerated very quickly. Data-based digital business models are emerging in very short time intervals and are constantly being modified to align with current specific customer requirements. Customers thus need to be informed about the latest trends quickly, flexibly and on an ongoing basis. This trend also affects customer communications at Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg): The company will focus on offering more new, digital options to present products and innovations.

Innovation offensive in packaging as a growth market – complete interconnection of end-to-end printshop processes to be seen live for the first time

The kick-off will be at the “Innovation Week” from 19 to 23 October 2020. Under the slogan “Unfold your potential”, Heidelberg will be presenting a wealth of product innovations that focus on packaging and commercial, including autonomous printing, end-to-end solutions, Smart Print Shop and Push-to-Stop. The Innovation Week will take place via livestream as well as face-to-face at the Wiesloch / Walldorf location. Heidelberg has already had positive experience of using digital channels in its presentation of the innovations that had been planned for this year’s drupa.

“We will be investing more in new, virtual trade fair concepts to ensure closer and more individual customer communications as well as in regional events in our growth markets.

This means we will be able to consistently align ourselves with our customers’ expectations”, says Rainer Hundsdörfer, CEO of Heidelberg. “The Innovation Week will now enable us to communicate with our customers as soon as possible and to present our innovation offensive.”

Face-to-face dialogue will continue to be the focus at the unique Print Media Centers in Wiesloch/Walldorf, Atlanta, Shanghai, Sao Paulo and Tokyo, where we can engage with our customers specific needs directly on-site. At the centres, Heidelberg offers all of its customers and other interested parties market-specific access to product and solution demonstrations, a multitude of possibilities for direct communications with applications specialists as well as extensive training courses. The Print Media Centers have already become established locations for customers to experience live demonstrations and for validating investments. Heidelberg generally welcomes several thousand customers annually to its own demo spaces around the world.

Covid-19 has accelerated the move towards digital and local events. Although there is no way of knowing what the impact of corona will be next year, Heidelberg has to make a decision now. So the company has decided to not participate in international trade fairs next year and will thus not be taking part in drupa. In 2021, drupa will be a very different event – global travel restrictions and hygiene regulations mean significantly fewer visitors and constraints on communication. Traditional international trade fairs with busy booths and halls will very probably be difficult to implement and will likely lose their status as global meet-up events for customers and manufacturers. As a long-time partner to drupa, Heidelberg will be happy to continue to offer its experience when it comes to bringing future trade fair concepts into line with new digital possibilities and customer requirements.

Images

Photo 1: High customer interest: Heidelberg Print Media Center Packaging at the Wiesloch-Walldorf site.

Photo 2: Innovations: Heidelberg Print Media Center Commercial at the Wiesloch-Walldorf site.

Photo 3: Smart Printshop: Heidelberg Print Media Center Commercial at the Wiesloch-Walldorf site.

Photo 4: Growth market: Heidelberg Print Media Center at the Shanghai site.

Important note

This press release contains forward-looking statements based on assumptions and estimations by the Management Board of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen Aktiengesellschaft. Even though the Management Board is of the opinion that those assumptions and estimations are realistic, the actual future development and results may deviate substantially from these forward-looking statements due to various factors, such as changes in the macroeconomic situation, in the exchange rates, in the interest rates, and in the print media industry. Heidelberger Druckmaschinen Aktiengesellschaft gives no warranty and does not assume liability for any damages in case the future development and the projected results do not correspond with the forward-looking statements contained in this press release.

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Masahiro Kaneko

Marketing

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