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DEFINING
AND MONITORING
THE
FUNDAMENTAL
DRIVERS
On the occasion of the FINAT Congress 2012 in Athens,
the FINAT Managing Director presented the results of
the initial work of the FINAT Industry Trends subcom-
mittee to identify and monitor underlying fundamen-
tal trends relevant to our industry. Drivers were
ranked in accordance with 4 major mega-drivers:
Market Drivers; Technology and Innovation Drivers;
Sustainability Drivers and Corporate Drivers. Videos
containing statements to illustrate these drivers can
be viewed on the FINAT website. Below a -non
exhaustive- listing of factors.
MARKET
DRIVERS
• Demand for self-adhesive labels in western markets
has reached the mature state of its lifecycle
• Self-adhesive labels are not only competing with
conventional label formats
• Labels more and more connecting the consumer with the product via virtual reality – packaging as an interactive
communication medium
• ‘It’s a buyers’ market’, demanding additional skills over and above production/technical > starting point at the other
end of the value chain, working your way back
• Retailer private labels the dominant force
• Potential for label companies to become solutions providers instead of just ‘contract printers’, in marketing as well as
functional, security and logistics
DRIVERS
FOR
TECHNOLOGY
AND
INNOVATION
• Digital has made its breakthrough since 2008 as the fastest-growing installed base of presses
• Advances in inks and drying
• Tactile varnishes
• Substrates: downgauging in both facestocks and release liners
• Linerless re-emerging
• Collaborative innovation to accelerate developments in sustainability, product safety
• Evolutionary changes are bottoming out – we need to get more radical
• Innovative capacity of label industry as a differentiator
SUSTAINABILITY
DRIVERS
• Growing focus on CSR from both ends of the supply chain: role of label printers as the connecting factor
• Recycle, re-use: spent materials as possible source of ‘secondary’ revenue
• Growing raw materials scarcity: incentive for re-use and recycling, downgauging, material efficiency, lean management
• Liners are only one fraction of process waste > how to be proactive and create an interest in making their waste
stream a value stream?
• How to convert sustainability from a perceived threat to an opportunity and incorporate this into the value proposition
• Growing interest in labels and packaging as instruments to avoid product and food waste, as part of the solution
rather than the problem
CORPORATE
DRIVERS
• Choices for label printers to be made: globalisation versus re-localisation; diversification versus specialization;
merge, partner or remain independent?; Sell or plan the succession?
• Label industry intermingling with other sectors of the packaging industry
• Label companies to identify the right strategy for the future
• Learning from other industries
• Benefiting from a networking and knowledge platform like FINAT
Chart 9
67
FINAT YEARBOOK
2013
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