Christophe Lievens: The sudden uncertainty delayed overall capex investments

2020 in review
The sudden, unexpected pandemic really turned our lives upside down. The year was supposed to be a special one, with the usual launch of new products during Drupa and Labelexpo. None of that happened. So we had to be creative and respond quickly. Zoom meetings, customer demo sessions using video streaming, all of that quickly became the new standard. The sudden uncertainty delayed overall capex investments. On the other hand, we did see an increase in consumable purchase in the packaging industry. Despite a slow first half of the year, we did experience a catch-up movement over the last months, bringing our overall sales very close to our initial targets.

Doing business during pandemic
The investment wave in India had a bit of a delay compared to a lot of other countries but the actual negotiations are looking promising and offer an outlook for a good start in 2021.

Plans for 2021
As part of our new Catena plate processing solution, we offer a product called ProServX. It allows us not only to offer remote support but also provides detailed information on all components of our equipment so we are capable of offering preventive maintenance in order to maximise the uptime of your equipment. So automation and intelligent support become vital to keep your production up and running.

Most popular kit in 2020
The introduction of our ThermoFlexX Catena plate processing equipment, despite the pandemic, has been a real success. It brings together all of our knowledge on equipment and plate technologies, resulting in state-of-the-art equipment for processing flexo plates. We launched an entire range of modules over the last six months.