Executive Q&A: Bosy Colak, President, Kernow North America and Sales and Marketing Director, Kernow Coatings Global

PN: Tell us a little about your company, the segment of the market it serves, and what you consider to be your "core" users/customers.

Colak: Kernow Coatings is the global leader in optimized high-performance coatings for print, security, engineering, and industrial substrates. Printer OEMs and leading national brands trust and certify Kernow for wide format and narrow format specialized print media—synthetics, self-adhesives, colors, fabrics, metallics, wall coverings, floor graphics, and much more. Kernow media is recognized as the benchmark for quality, consistency, and best-in-class performance. Proof is in the Printer OEM Recommended Media Guides, where Kernow is certified with virtually every one in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Whether wide format, narrow format, or even something completely new, Kernow builds more than 43 years worth of innovation, trust, and reliability into each of its substrates—serving markets as diverse as print for pay, high-speed, narrow-format print, high-fidelity engineering drawings, security layers, and so much more. Kernow is also a vital R&D resource for companies. Kernow is the provider behind most known, leading brands in the market.

PN: How did you get involved with the company? What is your background before that?

Colak: Before I got involved with Kernow I was actually a customer of their specialty films. Kernow, who is based in the UK, provided us with tinted films for various aviation applications, which needed to meet the most stringent standards.

Prior to being president of Kernow North America and also sales and marketing director for Kernow Coatings Global, I was the business development manager with NowDocs, a global leader in web-based document management solutions, having led e-commerce solution development and commercialization of platforms including web job submission software and distribution of web printing services. 

I’ve also held marketing and sales leadership roles with Xerox in both the US and Canada. As business manager of document solutions, I had P&L responsibility for the group and led numerous development program teams creating such diverse product lines as high-speed-printer ID cards, xerographic lightweight papers, specialty labels, and digital print media.

PN: What do you consider your greatest achievement in this market to be?

Colak: Working with a major OEM we introduced the first full range of synthetic solutions to the market in 2006 when printing on synthetics was not common. We grew sales by an average of 40% a year for a decade, while print pages were declining each year and established the market for dry toner synthetic printing.

PN: If there was anything you could change, either about your career in regards to the print industry, your company, or the market as a whole, what would it be and why?

Colak: The Print market as we know it faces major challenges and one thing we should do is encourage younger people to enter our industry with fresh ideas. In going to many shows and visiting customers, it’s obvious most people have been in the industry a long time. We need to create the buzz in industry with more millennials who have a different way of thinking, balancing the exiting, experienced printing workforce with a new generation of creative thinkers and risk takers.

PN: What do you consider the greatest challenge to be for the industry right now? Why?

Colak: One of the greatest challenges in our industry is commoditization of our products and solutions. Instead of working with customers to develop more new and creative applications, which generate value for our end users and grow profit, we see many distributors offering “me too” products. By chasing after existing applications and business with inferior solutions, they are ultimately hurting themselves and the market as a whole as it becomes a race to the bottom from a profitability standpoint.

PN: What do you consider the greatest asset to be for the industry right now? Why?

Colak: Changing and investment in technology is very exciting in the industry right now. Having been in the print market for more than 30 years, we have gone from putting little black marks on paper in the toner fusion space, to being able to print on various unique substrates like thick synthetics, fabrics and metallics—on top of that, to do it in color with options for personalizing and versioning. Our industry is continually adding unique ways of making print fresh and distinctive so we can provide solutions to our customers by adding value and solving problems, which is what it is all about.

PN: In your opinion, what have been the biggest changes to the way we communicate with one another in the past few years? How would you recommend this industry take advantage of that?

Colak: Communications over the last few years have become more indirect. We used to have more meetings where we could more easily collaborate and come up with solutions in front of each other. We moved towards more phone communication and then we talked even less, communicating primarily through email and other electronic means and applications. There certainly is a need to communicate more effectively and quickly but without more direct communication it will be much more difficult for value added organizations to provide new solutions to customers.

PN: Looking ahead, what major innovations or technologies do you believe will shape the future of the industry? Why?

Colak: The merging of data and print technologies has and will continue to revolutionize our market. Our print market needs to continue to evolve and understand we can continue to be relevant without having to only look at how many images we’ve printed and sold. Print is communication and how we figure a way to deliver our customers’ messages to their customers in unique and forward-thinking ways will determine our fate.

PN: What is the biggest piece of advice you would give to printers and others involved in this industry?

Colak: We all need to find ways to add value and solve problems for our customer’s everyday. I believe my first responsibility is to make customers happy, in fact our motto is “kill them with kindness”. The more complex the problem we can solve for our customers, the more I know we have a chance of helping them now and keeping them in the future!

PN: Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?

Colak: We are in an industry that is changing quickly and while many people see it as static and slow all that is for certain is that change is constant. We know that it will be a struggle, so we need to use our skills, creativity, and intelligence to adapt to changing needs, solving problems, and providing our customers with products and solutions that save them time and money; this will help us all succeed in the ever-evolving print world.