Development

Over a long succession of years, we can say that demand will develop in line with the national product growth.
Paper, as an information carrier, is a natural part of the multi-media product range. The demand in the various segments is further determined by the size of marketing budgets and the available spending power.
The market on the demand side is becoming more professional and, especially within the business-to-business segment, is continuously looking for the most effective form of media. This can lead to major changes to and from the printed product, as well as between the various printed product forms.

In all markets served by the business units Print Productions and Marketing Communications, there is ample capacity supply. Professional publishers, confronted with fast declining advertising incomes, are now entering the segment of sponsored magazines which is served by MediaPartners Group.
Replacement investments, in combination with technological developments, still form the basis for ample capacity supply in the international market served by Roto Smeets.
The number of parties in the market has thereby hardly declined. In this market for printing mass information, national boundaries hardly play a role anymore. Only throughput time and distribution determine the playing field in north-western Europe.

The influence of electronic media, of which the internet forms the most appealing component, has become a natural part of the multi-media landscape.
In the consumer market served by Roto Smeets, no volume erosion has occurred until now as a result of the rise of the internet. On the contrary, there are many examples of the internet giving the printed product an extra boost.
The business-to-business market has seen some decline in the directory and catalogs segment. However, this decline has been smaller than had been expected two years ago. At the same time, Roto Smeets Group only has a small position in these segments.
Roto Smeets Group extensively uses the increasingly important digital techniques, both in the production environment, whereby the segment traditional printing is being replaced by printing on demand, and in the form of transport such as network infrastructures for internal as well as external use.

Roto Smeets Group has state-of-the-art production equipment, a minimum condition to be able to keep operating successfully in the highly demanding magazines, catalogs, directories and retail market segments. The production of this mass printed product is a process industry with the characteristics of being capital intensive, having large operating cash flow and high fixed capacity costs.
Complete utilisation of the capacity is thereby a condition for profitability, in addition to a highly motivated labour factor. Only man can give a machine a heart.