FINAT's new European Label Forum to stimulate business acumen

The European Label Forum has been formatted to help redraw the map of the industry in a way that, I believe, will secure its future success. For the keynote opening session on the second conference day, I’m honored to have Herman van Rompuy presenting, former Belgian Prime Minister and past EU president. In a global business environment characterised by national priorities, cultural diversity, language challenges and different underlying social-economic conditions, it will be of great value to learn from his experience on the geo-political scene. Other top-level keynote speakers from all around the world include:

• Rasmus Anksersen, a Danish entrepreneur, business advisor and bestselling author, is the opening keynote presentor. He will share worst case histories of world leading companies that became complacent, and best practices of others that managed to avoid this trap and stay hungry – as such translating his experiences from arts and sports into business reality

• Ramses Dingenouts, a Dutch packaging business leader at Heineken, will discuss bringing the success story of a world-class brand that managed to re-invent itself using innovative packaging and label design

• Gordon Crichton, the British director of MAI will explain how to capture innovation with strategic customers and why FMCG companies have come to realise that the majority of innovations come through better relations with strategic suppliers

The ELF event will offer three parallel agenda streams for the first time to serve the needs of different business priorities within the specific context of labels and packaging:

• Sales and marketing
• Manufacturing and technology
• Management and corporate affairs

Topics include:

• The future of retailing in the face of increasing online shopping
• The emphasis on label design as a sales tool in today’s market
• The challenges and opportunities of 3D printing
• Lean manufacturing workshop

There will also be an exclusive preview of the upcoming third edition of FINAT RADAR, our association’s new, in-depth half-yearly market overview. FINAT RADAR is just one of the up-to-the-minute knowledge and information resources which FINAT today offers for its members.

We know that the definition and role of ‘a label’ has evolved dramatically in recent years with the advent of new product decoration technologies, from sleeves and in-mold labels to printed electronics. At the same time, print technology – in particular the reel-to-reel processes that are used for high-speed package printing – has diversified.

Brand owners and retailers are increasingly international while consumers are social and online media experts. This creates a challenging scenario for label converters. The European Label Forum intends to deliver an information-sharing and educational platform to our membership so attendees can together explore best practices across a number of disciplines that are key for running a successful, profitable business in the 21st century.

The label converting industry, both in Europe and outside of the region, has its roots in the eager adoption of the self-adhesive label as a leading competitor to wet-glue labelling back in the 1970s. The raft of small, entrepreneurial print companies it spawned have been one of the outstanding success stories in the packaging sphere.

Nonetheless, the tsunami of change that is impacting all of us in this industry means that knowledge and expertise of one imaging technology, one packaging style or one set of materials is simply not enough. What is more, we need to take account of brand owners’ accelerating requirement for ‘special versions’ of both packaging and labels in support of their increasingly ambitious campaigns to attract, and retain, consumer loyalty to their products.

A major feature of our industry is its plethora of family businesses – and here the need for managed succession planning is paramount. Selling your business when the time comes is another critical activity in family companies. Both of these specific topics will be discussed within the European Label Forum agenda.

As a second-generation leader of the FINAT Secretariat myself (many of you will remember my father Mans, who served the association for a number of years), I feel confident in inviting the industry’s leaders in all its many and diverse disciplines, to join us in taking the first steps as a joined-up group to identifying and activating a pathway to providing brand owners and their customers what they need and want in the way of product identification; and securing the successful future for our industry.