Alon Bar-Shany Q&A – Transformations; The Keys to Success
Graphic arts, printing and packaging have been going through a digital transformation since the late 1980s. We first saw the shift in design and prepress, then to commercial print and of late, packaging and industrial print and production.
Alon Bar-Shany has been on the front line of this transformation for over 25 years at HP, rising to general manager of HP Indigo, one of the leaders in the transformation to digital printing. Since leaving HP, he has continued his journey in industry transformations, most recently as the Chairman of Highcon, Executive Chairman of Redefine Meat Ltd. and Chairman and CEO of Twine Solutions.
While we can see the similarities of digital printing and digital finishing transformation, what does the production of plant-based meat, or the treatment of thread and yarn have in common with digital printing?
Recently, I sat down with Alon Bar-Shany to discuss the dynamics of industry transformation and what has driven him and kept him going down this path.
David Zwang: So, if you're leading a company that is developing and manufacturing a new technology and has the vision, I would guess that it's not just about technology, it’s also very much about people. How, do you get people to begin to appreciate that the need for transformation is important and to take that leap?
Alon Bar-Shany: I think today when I look back, first of all, being out of Indigo for a year and a half, you have a little bit of a different perspective. I've been doing things in other similar industries with Highcon, but also in the fashion world with Twine Solutions, and in food with Redefine Meat, in addition to some other things I'm doing. So in the end, I agree a hundred percent. It's way beyond the technology. It's about people, the people you bring into the company, their values and how they work together. But also it's about being extremely close to your customers. And one of the values that I learned from my time at Indigo is launch fast, talk to your customers and then constantly approve. Don't go to the next thing, and don't launch too broadly so that you create a total chaos, but most importantly work with your customers.
I have to say one of the most fun parts of being at Indigo and in the printing industry is that to large extent, we worked with entrepreneurs and with startups that were saying, "I'm going to transform my company from analog to digital, and I'm going to partner with Indigo." The people we worked with were content experts. They love what they're doing, and they actually drove us, and we helped them.
From there we created advisory boards and personal relationships with schools, other affiliations and through trade shows. We had this joint mission of changing the industry in line with the customer needs, and the needs of the environment. So it's the right people who sort of enjoy this innovation and who enjoy, in this case, working very intimately with very emotional and demanding customers. We loved that. I love that. That's what I'm doing today with other businesses and industries. Some people don’t enjoy that, and they feel they're not good at that, but they're very good at other things, and ultimately you need both skills to make a transition.
DZ: How do you change behavior? It's really not just about technology. It's almost about creating a movement. It seems that's kind of what you did and that's how and when everybody begins to feed off each other and create that momentum, and even get people to get over the reluctance to make the leap.
ABS: Yes, including the jump from saying, "I'll buy your machine, but promise you're not going to sell it to anybody else in the Chicago area,"
Eventually every business becomes commoditized. And then the next wave of innovation comes. But working together as a community and sharing was one of my "aha" moments in the United States initially and then globally. It was also fun because in the end we develop relationships where we can get into philosophical discussions. Like the value of virtual events vs. trade shows. By the way, personally, I hate that. Life is short and you want to be with people and you want to work and negotiate hard. Then you want to go and have a good dinner, a drink, tour, dance and discuss other things in life beyond printing. And then the next day go back to work and continue this movement as you call it. I think it's very hard to transform without creating this community and this sharing.
DZ: Does this process work for other industries?
ABS: Highcon has gone through a pretty significant transformation over the last two years since Shlomo Nimrodi became the CEO. There was a redefinition of the purpose and the focus primarily around packaging, folding carton and corrugated, but the focus is packaging. What I did learn from Indigo is an understanding that it needs to be an end-to-end solution, or you get stuck with an analog process for finishing. It doesn't matter if it's folding cartons, corrugated, labels or making photo books. The bottom line is that the bottleneck very quickly moves to the finishing.
Today, all of the megatrends are working in the favor of a need for transformation of many industries, even in the production of plant-based meat in the case of Redefine Meat. As the chairman of Redefine Meat, which is based in Israel, but expanding quickly to Europe and beyond, the intent is to develop, market, produce and sell a product, which looks and tastes absolutely the same as today's meat, but there's nothing there from animals, it's all plant based.
There is a lot of technology there. It's complicated technology. It’s chemistry. There's a printing element involved, because we take components and convert them through printing and artificial intelligence into slabs, which are basically whole cuts. But more importantly is that we've tried to reverse engineer meat to understand, what is it that people love about it?
There's also a lot of marketing. There's a lot of relationship building with printers, with chefs, and if you think printers are interesting and emotional, spend some time with chefs! But, it's fascinating, and again there are a lot of lessons that carry over of how you build the brand, how you build the community, how you launch and learn, because the product may not be perfect at launch. But ultimately it's a transformation of the meat industry from analog to digital, and there are compelling reasons to do it since the environmental impact is mind-boggling. With more than 7 billion people on this planet, and a billion cows that we use for milk and food. The cows and all the humans have about the same negative impact on the environment in terms of carbon footprint, water usage, waste, etc. If you can convert 10% of the meat people consume today to plant based, the impact on the environment is fantastic.
In the case of Twine, they have developed a machine that it's a bit like an Indigo, but instead of putting color on paper or plastic, it puts color on an individual thread. So you put in a white color, and out comes any color you want. It replaces very complicated and environmentally detrimental water and dying solution with on-demand, digital solution which is much better for the environment. But it's also still about transforming an industry, and convincing conservative people that have solutions that have worked well to change. In this case, the motivation is also a result of the supply chain issues' wake-up calls related to the global pandemic, and people are looking for ways to move production back locally. In the end, transformation is still really about business. You have to have a return on investment to the shareholders, but there's also a mission of literally making the world a better place.
More to Come …
I would like to address your interests and concerns in future articles as it relates to the manufacturing of print, packaging and labels, and how, if at all, it drives future workflows including "Industry 4.0." If you have any interesting examples of hybrid and bespoke manufacturing, I am very anxious to hear about them as well. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] with any questions, suggestions or examples of interesting applications.
