Joining Frazer Chesterman at the 2022 FuturePrint Leaders Summit to discuss methods of keeping innovation and leadership simple is Graham Kennedy, Director of Industrial Inkjet at Ricoh Europe; Mike Rottenborn, Group CEO of Hybrid Software; Steven Wilson, CEO of Inca; and Jan van der Spoel, Writer, Speaker, and Trainer, about trust in leadership and company culture. We share some notable insights from this thoughtful panel discussion.

What is the one innovation that your company is delivering this year that you are particularly proud of?

Kennedy: “Our plant-based ink. One of the hot topics recently has been the environment and sustainability. We're not really known as an ink company but coming up with a concept like plant-based ink, which doesn't require drying and has non existent CO2 emissions, has done very well with the market.

“We’re well known for being an office printer vendor, and we’ve had to transform quickly as people are going into the office far less regularly. Ricoh has very successfully turned into a solutions provider and has launched successful ‘Work Together, Anywhere’ campaigns.”

Rottenborn: “I’m proud of our innovative shift from being a component provider to a full solutions provider. We’re six companies, but at our heart we’re a RIP company. Our customers want full solutions, and our most proud innovation is called SmartDFE. It’s a RIP with high speed rendering and screening, printhead drive electronics for media, colour management, uniformity and inspection.”

Wilson: “Within our campus of companies, the Speedset product has been put together over the last few years, and this work has all been during COVID. I'm proud that our teams have been able to innovate during difficult times.”

van der Spoel: “I created a new product called the 360º Trust Compass, which will be published in December this year in Dutch and is soon to come in English.”

What are the things keeping customers up at night?

Kennedy: “Supply chain issues in many components in the chain, including the availability of chips and drive motors.”

Wilson: “A big issue is the availability of paper.”

Rottenborn: “What's happened in Scandinavia has frightened people across the world. If they can't get paper, they’re not making any money.”

How do you view challenges as an opportunity to innovate?

Wilson:”What’s important is getting the most out of the materials you can print on, and having the flexibility built into the print process so you can tune it depending on the product.”

Do we overcomplicate our offering?

Kennedy: “We overcomplicate without listening to the needs of the market so we advocate for keeping things simple and doing things that work. We always encourage developing something that works, builds on your offering and isn't over complicated.”

Wilson: “As tech matures, it gets easier to make a more user friendly product. As we move into packaging, we find different customers who have less familiarity with inkjet devices so it's a bit like going back in time 20 years ago.”

Are we futureproofing our technology for the customer and ourselves?

van der Spoel: “If you look at the word ‘futureproof’, it's what we all strive to be. If you look at waterproof or bulletproof, it’s about being resistant. What we want is to be future-excited and future-adapting!”

Wilson: “Futureproofing is important in the business model, in terms of how you sell the machine to the customer, but also in the industry there are a lot of trade printers that sell to each other and can be very profitable. I’d be interested to know where the trend in the industry will go.”

Rottenborn:  “Brands are a bit resistant to digital as they dont want to tamper with processes that work, but I think they will eventually drive change.”

—

To watch the full panel discussion click here.