The industrial printing industry is changing at pace. The disruption of the last two years has accel-erated its digital transformation. While this transformation has occurred in response to the unex-pected nature of the pandemic, the process has been about more than just implementing new tech-nologies – it has helped many to completely reimagine their companies.

Many PSPs have started to reposition themselves and are better able to meet the evolving needs of brands as a result. At the same time, these businesses are becoming more attractive to younger tal-ent now considering a career within industrial printing.

Growth Through Innovation

As part of this evolution, the industry has and will continue to benefit from an opportunity to grow through innovation into the next year. For example, the pandemic created a sudden shift in needs for labels and packaging particularly – demand for some verticals skyrocketed, while others natu-rally declined in line with restrictions on movement and stay at home mandates.

Only converters equipped with flexible digital production tools were able to move from declining to growing verticals. In addition, tensions on the global supply chain provided an advantage for large, vertically integrated suppliers. Unpredictability is something we’re still experiencing, and flexibility remains crucial.

Similarly, one of the most notable trends over the last year has been the upswing in online business through e-commerce and web-to-print. In addition, small brands continue to grow with more peo-ple revisiting their life journey goals following the COVID crisis.

More emphasis on production flexibility and application versatility is exactly why label printers are adopting new digital production technology serving a diverse job basket in the most effective way. Digital printing is also enabling converters to streamline production by keeping traditional machin-ery dedicated to the very long runs and diverting more production to digital printing.

At HP, our vision for the label industry is a shift to an Indigo-first mindset, which means that an incoming job will be printed digitally unless it is very long, simple, or otherwise has characteristics that make it more appropriate for conventional tools. This is the opposite of the previous analog-first mindset, that simply isn’t sustainable for the future.

We power this Indigo-first mindset through our “Digital Label Factory.” The Digital Label Factory is based on a full end-to-end ecosystem giving label converters the agility they need to operate in today’s fluctuating markets. It is built on a combination of presses that can handle all types of job baskets and is a blueprint for customers to move from ‘next-week’ to ‘next-day’ delivery, with less labor required and higher Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE).

The next big jump in the adoption of digital print in PS label will take place with the introduction of the HP Indigo V12. A production floor combining HP Indigo 6K, the backbone of digital label printing and the HP Indigo V12 running at 120 meter/min will allow converters to shift from ana-log first to indigo first mindset, moving many mid and longer run jobs from conventional to Indi-go.

Security and Brand Protection

On top of ensuring production flexibility, the rise of e-commerce and the threat of counterfeit prod-ucts is something that will continue to evolve and become more sophisticated as the disruption continues.

Growth in e-commerce is beneficial for counterfeiters – with people trying new and unfamiliar channels, retailers and brands can be easier to deceive. Brands in this situation face not just lost revenue, but also the concern that consumers could be harmed by fake versions of their products.

In response, brands, retailers, and converters will need to continue to work collaboratively to fight against counterfeit goods, with each player having a crucial a part to play. Ever-emerging threats will require vigilance and continued investment in new solutions – like security inks, substrates, track & trance, and origination software for those brands vulnerable to counterfeit goods and pack-aging.

The global market for brand protection investments in print technologies will continue to grow and will become increasingly important. Unfortunately, no brand is completely immune to counterfeit-ing and security breaches. It’s a digital world and a changing world, meaning every major brand today needs to think about how they deal with counterfeiting, both for now and in the longer term.