Print4All Conference 2023, seen as the road towards the next Print4All trade fair to be held at Fiera Milano from 27 to 30 May, 2025, turned out a be a great success attracting over 300 participants.
A key event to exchange communications and information, the conference was organised by ACIMGA and ARGI, in collaboration with Fiera Milano, on 6 July, 2023, at the magnificent Regina Palace Hotel in Stresa, the picturesque resort town on Italy’s Lake Maggiore.
The conference was a representation of an annual scenario update leading the industry towards the 2025 trade fair, by focusing on market trends and challenges to be faced in the next two years, which was broken down into the three vertical elements that constitute the pillars of Print4All: packaging and labelling, commercial printing and graphic arts, and industrial and wide format.
Italian and international operators in the printing and converting sector, machine manufacturing, systems and support for printing and packaging, as well as representatives of trade associations and institutions, media persons, and other stakeholders participated and contributed to a day full of insights into a lively, innovative, and constantly evolving market.
Creating a system, working together, promoting convergence in printing, and above all, being aware of representing a lively market attentive to change, were the key messages and considerations that emerged during the meeting where ‘Convergence’ was the central theme: the convergence of technologies, applications and markets in the future of sustainable and effective printing, across all industry segments, from graphics to marketing, packaging, and industrial sectors.
Besides convergence of markets and applications, the conference also delved on the need to create effective prints on innovative materials, sustainability and waste management, and application of eco-friendly inks. All these elements are the result of changing customer needs, a situation that has led print service providers to make choices that immediately takes into account the possibilities offered by their investments with respect to the above mentioned principles. For this very reason, the conference highlighted that more and more printing houses were equipping themselves with multiple choices of printers – from offset to digital, from flexo to rotogravure. These changes are also seen in the online market which offers a wider range of products under a single platform. Daniele Barbui, President of ACIMGA, and Antonio Maiorano, President of ARGI, spoke in depth about these considerations.
Industry experts shared the podium with their knowledge and experience on the conference’s central theme. American senior business analyst and consultant Pat McGrew spoke of the importance of management based on proven processes that generate an automated and flexible workflow, stressing that only this kind of efficiency allows suppliers of printed products to optimize costs while guaranteeing healthy profitability.
Mark Hanley, founder and President of international strategic consultancy firm IT Strategies, offered the audience a look at global trends in printing and converting. Through his research findings, Hanley demonstrated that the increase in costs faced by the industry is one of the main challenges faced by the printing and packaging service providers. He believes that increase in costs for print buyers must come with more value addition, a challenge that printing and converting companies can overcome by not only automating processes and enhancing connectivity and the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) control of the entire process, but also by redefining business models by benefitting from the potential of digital printing and greater openness to convergence than the printing market can offer.
Reassuring data were also presented on the Italian market of machinery manufacturers for the graphic, paper, and converting industries and related sectors, showing a robust growth in the first-quarter of 2023 in terms of turnover, largely brought on by exports under the ‘Made in Italy’ initiative.
The Stresa conference also gave voice to a series of brands and realities operating in the large-scale distribution market through two round tables led by Armando Garosci, Director of consumer goods magazine Largo Consumo, with sessions on investments in sustainability, making packaging increasingly capable of communicating corporate values, and the importance of visual tools in the new distribution scenario.
Over 70 international companies representing 20 countries were welcomed as part of a historic and fruitful collaboration with ITA (Italian Trade Agency), the government agency that supports the development of Italian companies abroad.
The Print4All Conference was organised by ACIMGA (Association of Italian Manufacturers of Machinery for the Graphic, Paper and Converting Industries) and ARGI (Printing Industry Suppliers Association) in collaboration with Fiera Milano, and with the support of ITA.
