The 2018 Digital Packaging Summit was held November 5-7, 2018, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. The unique event was created by nGage Events and the Packaging Group of the North American Publishing Company.
The event focused on how far-reaching current developments are redefining the future of label and packaging printing. Although runs are shrinking and shorter runs are becoming more common, the overall volume of the market is growing. The workflows and economics of traditional offset and flexo printing are severely limiting converters' productivity and profitability.
The Digital Packaging Summit explored, among other things, how the digital printing market will respond to the imperatives of shorter runs, faster turnarounds and new technical benchmarks in customization and personalization. One of the objectives was to provide strategic-level insights into how leading companies in the printing and converting industries are optimizing their operations, and how current and digital production technologies and software solutions will impact their business and investment decisions in the future.
It was a highly successful event, thanks to the more than 70 companies in attendance and the top-notch speakers. CloudLab attended the Digital Packaging Summit for the first time, and was represented by Marc Horriar (founder and CEO of CloudLab) and Steven Antoni, who was recently promoted to President of the U.S. office.
Steven's new role reflects the successful expansion of CloudLab into the U.S. market. Sales of our printQ system, which is based on the Magento eCommerce system and offers an unparalleled all-in-one solution for the online design and distribution of print products, have been successful in the U.S. and neighboring markets to date.
We were asked to present a case study from the folding cartons market segment and chose our customer Saxoprint, a decision that was extremely well received: CloudLab won the Sponsor Award for this and beat top-class competitors such as HP, Heidelberg and Highcon, all of them very innovative and strong players in the packaging sector.
In addition, CloudLab was one of four finalists for the Company's to Watch evaluation. The others were Koenig & Bauer, Domino and Screen, all of them innovative industry leaders.
Steven and Marc gave the presentation. After briefly introducing Saxoprint, they described not only the history and process of the project, but also the tasks and challenges that the development team overcame during the project cycle. Special attention was paid to our new and unique 3D Packaging Design Extension, which allows users to design their own packaging completely freely, and which recently won the 2018 InterTech™ Technology Award.
Through lively personal exchanges and extended networking, we had the opportunity to further establish our position as a leading developer and provider of eCommerce solutions at the Digital Packaging Summit.
We look back with pleasure at the Digital Packaging Summit 2018, an event that proved to be an inspiring and innovative platform for new concepts, networks and ideas.
