The "and" era of print poses new challenges and opportunities for printers

Today's print shops need both offset and digital printing capabilities to meet the ever-changing market demands and achieve sustained business growth. This "and" era of print also confronts printers with challenges which Kodak addressed in its much-anticipated customer roundtable debate at drupa 2024.

Lee Reeves, Operations Director of Pureprint Group, UK, was part of the panel of experts discussing how printers can succeed in todays "and" era of print. Strongly committed to sustainability, Pureprint Group is a commercial print and marketing services company with more than 400 employees across three sites in East Sussex and Newcastle. With a dedicated digital factory (6 digital presses) and an offset factory (3 high-spec sheetfed presses), as well as print finishing, storage, fulfillment and mailing facilities, Pureprint is a prime example of a company successfully navigating the "and" era.

As Lee Reeves explained, Pureprint were "very early adopters of digital. We first invested in digital printing more than 20 years ago." Based on this experience, Reeves had a strong opinion about how staffing and training requirements have evolved and what new skills have become essential for the workforce to handle both digital and offset printing. "Where we are is a real mix. We've got people putting their hands up, saying can we cross train, we want to integrate into digital," Reeves said. "Business needs are changing on a daily basis, and we are constantly evolving, and the staff are coming with that. We are now seeing more offset press operators saying we want to know more about digital, so they're volunteering for this cross-skilling which is great for our business."

Another point of discussion was how the printers present on the panel evaluate capital expense versus ongoing operating cost when considering an investment in a new press – digital or offset. Lee Reeves' position on this was clear: "That decision will be made on how you would finance something. Obviously, margins are tight throughout the industry, so when you are buying something you have to make sure you've got a really robust ROI behind it. Then it's down to the finance guys to give it a tick of approval." Looking to the future, he continued: "We follow the market or leave it. For example, we've got four slabs in our factory built for offset presses and we're actually saying it's not going to be far away before there's something different sitting on one of these slabs. But we don't know what that will be at the moment because there is so much change going on in the market."