{"id":741,"date":"2020-07-15T15:49:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-15T15:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/?p=741"},"modified":"2024-01-26T13:18:00","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T13:18:00","slug":"heidelberg-facing-forwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/?p=741","title":{"rendered":"Heidelberg facing forwards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\" The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last November Heidelberg started reinventing itself for the digital age. Actually that isn\u2019t quite right. Last November was a turning point because Heidelberg Druckmaschinen\u2019s digital reinvention began earlier. The most visible indicator of that process was the company\u2019s much vaunted relationship with Fujifilm to sell a rebadged version of the JetPress 720s sheet fed digital press. Heidelberg was also doing its best to build online subscription models for customer service and support. Was an industry stalwart finally getting the digital message and aligning that digitalstep with the company\u2019s environmental one: no inventories, printing close to the point of use and so on? No, not really, not deep in the Heidelberg heart. Despite the warm words of digital encouragement drupa 2016, when things were supposedly changing, feels like a lifetime ago. Sadly it didn\u2019t work out. The \u201cbirth party for the new Heidelberg\u201d, as then CEO Dr Gerold Linsbach described drupa 2016, is looking far less festive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today the Heidelberg Primefire is no longer and the company is labouring heavily under debts of \u20ac465 million with liabilities of \u20ac834 due within a year and another \u20ac1.1 billion on a further horizon. With \u20ac635 million in cash and receivables there is still a gap of more than a billion Euros. Ouch. Has Heidelberg turned into an ugly posterchild for the industry it serves? Maybe that\u2019s too bleak a view. There is more to it and the more might mean a happier future, nostalgia aside, for Heidelberg. The company is reinventing itself to provide products which have a greater likelihood of generating long term revenues than digital presses in an oversaturated market. These products relate to climate change mitigation and sustainability, but they have little to do with Heidelberg\u2019s traditional markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company ditched Primefire as part of its restructuring into Heidelberg Digital Technology and Heidelberg Lifecycle Solutions segments. The former focuses on the company\u2019s established sheetfed offset business including label printing, print related data processing and digital printing. That means the Versafire EP and the Versafire EV digital presses, rebadged Ricoh Pro C9200 Pro C7200 engines respectively. The difference between what each company supplies is in the digital front end systems. And the relationship with Ricoh is getting closer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other segment, presumably the one where most investors interest lies, is about \u201cthe lifecycle business, solftware solutions and platforms.\u201d As well as printing presses, Heidelberg develops and sells charging systems for electric and hybrid cars. The company started offering various models of these units earlier this year and claims several thousand customers already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is great news for the sustainability of motoring and probably of Heidelberg itself, so it marks an important transition point in the history of Heidelberg Druckmaschinen. The company is continuing to serve its traditional market whilst pivoting towards a very different future. Not participating in drupa 2021 is part of that move. Heidelberg\u2019s future is about sustainability in many new and possibly unexpected dimensions. It\u2019s a new direction, not just for Heidelberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Laurel Brunner<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was produced by the Verdigris Project,<\/a> an industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print\u2019s positive environmental impact. This weekly commentary helps printing companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how environmentally friendly business management can help improve their bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following companies: Agfa Graphics<\/a>, EFI<\/a>, Fespa<\/a>, Fujifilm<\/a>, HP<\/a>, Kodak<\/a>, Miraclon<\/a>, Ricoh<\/a>, Spindrift,<\/a> Splash PR<\/a>, Unity Publishing<\/a>and Xeikon<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Last November Heidelberg started reinventing itself for the digital age. Actually that isn\u2019t quite right. Last November was a turning point because Heidelberg Druckmaschinen\u2019s digital reinvention began earlier. The most visible indicator of that process was the company\u2019s much vaunted relationship with Fujifilm to sell a rebadged version … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1801,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions\/1801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}