Looking Ahead with HP

In a continuation of his nearly 20-year tenure with HP, Carles Farre took on the role of vice president and general manager, HP PageWide Press, about a year ago, after relocating to the U.S. in 2018 to work with then-VP/GM Eric Wiesner, responsible for its PageWide Press Commercial business. In this Q&A session, he talks about his background, current role and views of the future of HP’s production inkjet business and the industry at large, including both commercial and corrugated applications.

Printing News:  Thanks for speaking with us, Carles. Let’s start with a brief overview of your background.

Carles Farre:  I am an inkjet guy … I started with small consumer printers. Then over time, I moved to wide format in Barcelona with different roles in technical support and operations. Eventually, I moved to the “big” PageWide presses with an initial focus on the commercial market with applications like transactional, book and direct mail printing. When Eric retired, I took over responsibility for the entire PageWide Press operation, which also includes our corrugated solutions.

PN:  Talk to us about the general state of the industry and how you see your technologies being able to move the industry forward. 

CF:  If we look at the high-volume production printing industry across the different segments, I think there is a growing demand for high-speed inkjet solutions. It all comes down to the megatrends of those industries. There is a megatrend towards personalization to deliver more value with the printed product, with a focus on the quality, rather than the quantity of the printed pieces. Another megatrend is the need for supply chain optimization. Let us stop wasting paper and useless inventory. Let us stop repulping books; that is a clear need.

PN:  And there is also a sustainability impact with the ability to produce closer to the point of need, right?

CF:  Right. The runs need to be shorter, more purposeful, and printed closer to the end customer. And finally, on top of everything, is the need to reduce the environmental footprint. Inkjet allows you to tackle all of those things, from the environmental aspect, to the short runs, to the personalized content, to a more efficient supply chain – at the right speed and with the right economics so that you can replace conventional printing technologies. So in book printing, there is a need to print on demand, close to the end customer. In direct mail, this combination of the need of personalized valuable content for you, the end customer; but also how we, the OEMs, are bringing new capabilities that are able to deliver with inkjet.

PN:  What trends are you seeing in the corrugated market?

CF:  Corrugated is a massive opportunity. This segment will collapse unless and until someone comes with a more responsive supply chain. From the demand side, the brands want more relevance in the supermarket and to reduce time to market. Conventional technologies cannot deliver on a more efficient supply chain and faster time to market. It’s impossible. And that’s why we see in corrugated an opportunity for digital solutions. Unlike the commercial market, which has been adapting digital technologies and building expertise for years, corrugated is not there yet. The way to accelerate adoption of digital technologies in corrugated is to deliver end-to-end solutions; you need to deliver more than just a printing device to the customer. You need to provide them with a fully digital printing in-plant in order to be successful.

HP PageWide Web Press T250 HD with HP Brilliant Ink 

PN:  You have both pre-print and post-print offerings in corrugated. Where do you see these two solutions going?

CF:  You need to look at the type of company and process. If you are downstream in the converting process, you can only do post-print, and that’s where the PageWide C500 fits. If you are further upstream, closer to the corrugator or laminator, then pre-print is the solution. But it requires volume, and it requires being close to the corrugation or lamination processes. That’s where the PageWide T1100 Series fits. In the digital journey, post-print is an easier way to start. Sometimes people will jump directly to pre-print, but often they start the journey with a C500 and migrate to the T1100 Series later down the road when the volume goes up enough to justify a pre-print solution.

PN:  HP tracks the volumes that your equipment prints. On the commercial side, what did 2020 look like compared to 2019, and how do you see it shaping up in 2021?

CF:  Overall, the industry has been resilient during the pandemic; and that’s an important message we need to bring to the market. I’m saying this because when I look to our installed base, the page count in 2020 was higher than 2019, by about 3%, because our mix of applications got us to a positive place, especially because books were strong throughout. Transactional print was down; and direct mail was down in the beginning but came back later in the year. So we ended the year with positive page count growth. Obviously, there was a significant slow-down in hardware placements. Given the uncertainty, customers did not want to invest.

If we look now to 2021, we will be growing supplies and pages double digit, and in terms of equipment placements, we are reaching the same level or higher than we saw in 2019.

PN:  In commercial, what do you see as the biggest opportunity in 2021 and beyond?

CF:  For us and for the market, we believe direct mail is the biggest opportunity. If you look at transactional, it is going to go down; electronic distribution will win there. Books are strong and will be very strong going forward, but we also have a very strong position already in book printing. Direct mail, all the analysts say, will grow double digits – 13% to 15% in the years to come. There is still a lot of offset shell printing, and most of it will move to digital. That’s because all of the OEMs are coming to market with better solutions for this application. For example, the new PageWide T250 HD, the post-coater and the HP Brilliant Ink we have introduced, this will boost not only direct mail, but commercial applications and full-color books as well.

PN:  What can we expect to see in terms of new developments from HP?

CF:  We never stop. We are raising our R&D investments significantly across all segments. In commercial, we introduced in 2020 the PageWide T250 with HP Brilliant Ink. These inks can now print on coated stocks; but there is a hidden gem: we have increased the gamut a lot, enabling the accurate printing of many more of the brand colors in four-color. The next step will be how we use these inks across the rest of the portfolio. We always focus on four areas for R&D investment: the press platform, inks, print heads and then all the software and workflow. You will see exciting new developments coming from these investments. In corrugated, we announced the PageWide T470 with six colors, adding orange and violet inks. We had them available for the PageWide T1190, and now we are bringing them to the PageWide T400 HD Series for corrugated.

PN:  How did the pandemic affect the way HP worked in sales, installation and training?

CF:  Our industry is very much about face-to-face interactions and being hands on with the equipment during the sales process. In sales, I think we did a good job with our virtual setups. We were even able to sell a press to a new customer with a virtual demo. In installations, we evolved to a hybrid set-up, with our local service technicians doing the installs, remotely supported by our team specialists using smart glasses. 

PN:  Do you see this hybrid approach continuing in the future?

CF:  I think it will be a blend. We will leverage the things we can do virtually. But I also think our relationship with customers is like a bank – you have an account filled with trust. And the way to fill that account with trust is to visit them, learn from them, and establish this trust. So I think where we are going to go is to less massive events and trade shows, and more personalized, meaningful conversations with customers. Our demo centers in San Diego, Atlanta and Barcelona are already very busy. We have also invested a lot in virtual training, sufficient for customers to ramp up, supplemented by the local service technicians.

PN:  What is your position on returning to in-person events?

CF:  I think they will come back. And I think the OEMs will participate and HP will participate. But we will be very selective, investing in fewer shows.

PN:  What about Dscoop?

CF:  Dscoop for us is an important platform. We want to support the community, and we want to find a way to bring more and more inkjet into that community.

PN:  With the broad product portfolio HP has, how is the sales force configured to present these solutions to potential customers?

CF:  We have technology sectors across the product categories. The glue comes two ways: Our go-to-market team in commercial sells everything, and they need to present the entire portfolio, including Indigo. In corrugated, our sales team presents both pre- and post-print solutions. In terms of wide format, we don’t see that much overlap. There are some commercial customers who have wide format, but it is not that common that large format is an important part of their business. But our Industrial organization encompasses Indigo, Scitex and PageWide production presses. And for larger accounts, we have global account managers who can work across all the segments.

PN:  Anything else you would like to add before we close?

CF:  It is important that we give a message of optimism and positive energy for this industry. It’s a combination of three things: the industry megatrends towards digital printing. Second, the resilience and strength of our customers and how they have been able to cope with the pandemic is just one proof point. But in general, I believe our customers are willing to invest and willing to transform the way they work. And finally, the OEMs – the printer manufacturers, their finishing partners and their software partners – I see investment. I see a bet on high volume printing. And I think it is a good business to be in, from the end customers down to the OEMs.