Exclusive Interview with Zeid al Jehni, General Manager at Heidelberg Middle East
Saudi Arabia boasts one of the top twenty economies in the world, and the largest economy in the Arab world and the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is part of the G20 group of countries. The country has always been an attractive market for manufacturers of printing equipment including Heidelberg. The German giant has a very strong presence in the kingdom. Nevertheless, Covid pandemic has rattled the economies all over the world and rich countries were not immune to its devastating effects. In order to find out more about the printing industry situation in the Kingdom we sat down with Zeid al Jehni, General Manager at Heidelberg Middle East. He says despite the shattering effects of Coronavirus customers of Heidelberg in KSA will conclude their investment by the end of 2020.
In your opinion how damaging was Coronavirus crisis for the printing industry in Saudi Arabia?
The Covid 19 Pandemic had a devastating effect in all aspect of life. Business was no exception. The luck down of people movements and shut down of almost all types of businesses was particularly damaging to the printing industry in Saudi Arabia and worldwide. A notable exception to this rule was the packaging industry. Almost all our packaging customers maintained a high level of production outputs to meet the demand of the food and the consumer’s industries.
Do you think The effects of Covid 19 Pandemic will force printers in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East to rethink the way they do business and try to diversify into other areas of the printing industry?
Obviously, the Pandemic will force many businesses to rethink the way they do business, Printing industry is no exception. Business will review their processes and work habits in order to adapt better practices to achieve positive results, reduce costs and increase efficiencies. In addition, I think many printers will evaluate diversifications within their domain. Be it into packaging, label printing, Digital and display areas.
How did Heidelberg in Saudi Arabia handle the situation?
We in Heidelberg Saudi Arabia have had our full management team engaged in Managing the crisis. We had an emergency operating plan drawn and implemented very early on. We have adapted our policies and procedures, our work habits, our staff and our resources (logistics and manpower) to ensure our employees’ health and safety, our customers minimal disruption to their production and our spare parts and consumables’ availability. The major Challenge we faced was securing permissions for our engineers to travel and service our customers during Curfew hours, and securing opening of our stores for spares and goods delivery.
Do you feel the printers in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East region still have an appetite for new investment?
Actually, yes I do. We are still in discussion with our customers who had plans to invest in this DRUPA year 2020. We believe that many of those investment plans will be concluded before the end of this year.
Heidelberg pulled out of Drupa do you think now with drupa out of picture regional events such as Gulf Print or Saudi Print are more important than ever?
No, I don’t. I think that now is the time to adapt innovative approach to products’ exhibiting. Regional shows will never replace DRUPA. They are too small to handle such big display of products and exhibitors.
Do you have plans for any virtual events for your customers in Saudi Arabia?
Our plans will be in line with our principals’ plans in this arena.
What was Heidelberg’s contribution to mitigate the Coronavirus crisis in Saudi Arabia?
Heidelberg was instrumental in extending its support to us and our customers in the area, kept the smooth flow of needed parts for our service department, the service hot line was very helpful in supporting our customers and engineers. We also took advantage of online connection of our machines at customer sites with Heidelberg factory to carry out needed diagnostics whenever the case required.
