EskoWorld 2017 roared into Charlotte, NC from May 9-11. Setting up shop in the Sheraton Charlotte/Le Meridien Charlotte complex in the heart of downtown, 646 attendees came to get a look at the newly announced Platform for Brands software from Esko and MediaBeacon, see product roadmaps for many of the company’s offerings, hear presentations and get answers directly from Esko product specialists to their questions.
For the first time, EskoWorld 2017 also featured an Executive Summit, a one day focus on “inspiring business owners and decision makers about solutions and opportunities to improve their businesses,” Esko said.
Photo courtesy of Esko
Tuesday morning began with a welcoming and opening address from several Esko executives; among them, Esko Director Solutions Management and EskoWorld 2017 Master of Ceremonies Jan De Roeck, Americas Vice President Mark Quinlan and President Udo Panenka. “From the first idea of a new product, to when it’s on the shelf, we’re basically serving the entire packaging process,” Udo stated.
Following was a keynote delivered by Alan Beaulieu, president of ITR Economics, titled “A Perspective on the U.S. Economy.” Alan zeroed in on the food industry as a leading indicator for future growth patterns—something packaging professionals are familiar with, as the segment regularly captures a large percentage of overall demand.
“My forecast for 2018 calls for a smaller rise in the rate of food,” he told the audience. “Not a downturn, just a slower rise.”
Alan also touched on the potential for U.S./Mexico trade disruption caused by the current administration, acknowledging it could lead to an increase in labor rates and some material costs.
Other presentations on Tuesday covered changing packaging regulations and how to keep on top of them, improving quality control, expanded gamut (EG) in flexography, and packaging preflighting best practices. Hands on sessions gave in depth looks at a variety of Esko products, including Cape Pack, Studio Visualizer, Studio Toolkit, ArtiosCAD and more.
On Wednesday, attendees listened to motivational speaker Michael Broome. He touched on a huge range of topics and shared a number of anecdotes: conflict, the importance of brevity and laughing in the face of adversity, adopting children, having his family’s land taken by eminent domain to construct the Charlotte airport in the 1970s, former presidents like Abraham Lincoln, hypocrisy, the tendency to long for the past (“I don’t know when the good times were”), providing service that is of value to its recipients, marriage, accepting we will make mistakes and intending to learn from them. “We’ve always had problems, and we’re always going to have problems,” he admitted.
To a room of several hundred printing professionals, he highlighted the oft forgotten practice of handwritten notes to customers, as a personal act of gratitude. It’s human to neglect existing relationships, Michael said, but nurturing them is important, especially in a world of impersonal digital communication.
He recalled the infamous—and misquoted—line from Green Bay Packers Coach Vince Lombardi. “Winning isn’t everything—It’s the only thing,” Michael pointed out, omits a crucial piece: “What he actually said was, ‘The will to win isn’t everything—It’s the only thing.’”
Closing his speech, Michael questioned why so many of us look at the world and find reasons to be miserable and depressed, and challenged listeners to look on the bright side. “Whatever adversity you face, it’s not as formidable as the spirit within you.”
EskoWorld 2017 Press Conference Details Company Strategies, Product Roadmaps
An afternoon press conference was held for roughly a dozen members of the media, who sat to hear from Esko executives on roadmaps, product announcements and company plans.
Joakim Weidemanis, Danaher Corp.’s group executive/VP product identification platform, opened the meeting with a look at Danaher’s structural makeup and the companies, including Esko’s part in things. He said Danaher’s Product Identification Platform, which includes Esko, MediaBeacon and recent acquisition AVT among other companies, has a combined $2 billion in sales and 8,000 employees worldwide. Danaher’s vision, Joakim said, is to help customers bring great products to market, and sustain and protect the quality of human life. It accomplishes that by simplifying the packaging value chain.
“EskoWorld is the place [brand owners, printers, etc.] can connect with each other,” remarked Udo. He said out of the more than 500 customers in attendance for EskoWorld 2017, more than 20 percent were brand owners.
Udo then showed a picture of Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail, standing on a box with hundreds of people turning their backs to her in order to take selfies with the former First Lady, to illustrate a point—consumers are increasingly focused on themselves. He called attention to three things brand owners are chasing; what he said really matters:
- Growth: “Better packaging can drive growth,” Udo stated, pointing to Lean Cuisine’s growth numbers—7 percent in a declining category—as proof
- Compliance: Spurred right now by the impending Nutrition Label update, but in general a growing number of laws and regulations, and the ability to ensure compliance and trace mistakes to their sources
- Costs: The printing industry lags other manufacturers in defined management processes, Udo said
Jijo Dominic, Esko director web of applications, introduced its Platform for Brands, which “is designed to help brand owners meet the challenges of today.” The solution’s target uses are CPC product launch campaigns, and life sciences packaging and communication. It leverages Esko’s acquisition of MediaBeacon two years ago and “combines the creation of brand assets, including packaging, with the management and actual publication to all distribution channels,” Udo said.
Jijo ran through the six step process to take a package from concept to consumer:
- Collaborate: Making sure people are involved with the process, only when they are needed. Based on automation, transparency and doing the right task at the right time
- Specify: A system that gives an intelligent way of specifying what deliverables are needed, as well as templates that pull data from external sources
- Create: Speeding up the creation process by 50 percent
- Manage: A “single source of truth” through asset management and eliminating rework
- Publish: Having a unified representation of the brand, both physically and digitally
- Analyze: Analyzing asset and campaign performance data to make informed decisions
“We give the customer the opportunity to choose where they want to start,” Jijo said of the Esko Platform for Brands—it is both modular and flexible, and can be purchased as a software as a service (SaaS) or on premise deployment. MediaBeacon’s Director of Product Management Tim Sixta next revealed the results of 150 interviews with brand executives conducted across North America and the EMEA region:
- 90 percent of brand executives said enabling omnichannel experiences are necessary to delight consumers
- 85 percent will invest or increase their investments of time, personnel and money to do that
- 61 percent plan to increase the amount of rich media content produced in the next two years
- About half do not have and do not plan to implement a digital asset management solution
“We believe we can improve time to market by 50 percent while improving customer experience, lowering costs and increasing speed to market,” Tim said.
Bernard Zwaenepoel, Esko senior vice president of software business, and Thomas Klein, Esko vice president of hardware business, closed the press conference with a look at the company’s software and hardware roadmaps, respectively.
EskoWorld 2017 attendees were invited to the NASCAR Hall of Fame that evening for dinner and drinks, a chance to explore the venue and compete against each other in a race simulation.