Epson Group participated in a Virtual Fair held last month. Epson Group DTF Sales and Marketing Director Paolo Crespi, whom we had the opportunity to interview during the fair has made his statements to our magazine. While defining Turkish market, Crespi said,‘ It continues to be one of our most important markets for us with its rapidly digitalizing structure.’
Q. Would you give us brief information on the atmosphere and the effectiveness of the event ?
A. This is the first virtual fair we have taken part in and we have joined it with great enthusiasm. At a time when physical events with professionals in the sector have been suspended, our presence is important for reaffirming what is essential for us: that technological innovation in this sector never stops. This is certainly a great challenge for speaking about products and technologies, which were traditionally seen and observed by people directly. On the other hand, however, the virtual fair has no limits with respect to space and time. It is active 24 hours a day, so it can be viewed by anyone around the world, and we believe it is a great opportunity to continue to interact with our clients at this time. With our technicians, sales agents, and experts, we are ready to answer and virtually meet all those who want to visit us.
Q. Would you compare online seminars and workshops with physical fairs you are attending? What are the advantages and disadvantages of attending virtual shows?
A. Undoubtedly the lack of physical events, such as trade exhibitions, is a big limitation but the virtual space in a historical moment like the one we are experiencing is a great opportunity that can help us not to lose contact with our customers and textile professionals. However, in a B2B sector like ours, the personal, one-to-one relationship still makes the difference. The opportunity to meet and show the product, as we usually do in Epson Textile Solution Centers in various countries, allows us to understand the specific needs of customers and to do the tests they need with them. Today the network allows you to communicate immediately and effectively all over the world, with videos and images, and to collect the interest of customers and prospects.
The key to offer more value within a virtual event like this is giving access to specific content, digital and video brochures, which can be viewed and downloaded at any time - truly H24. Furthermore, digital technology allows immediate profiling and therefore makes it easier for visitors to access content of interest. During Innovate Epson hardly worked to clearly share our vision and key messages not only through materials but also through all possible spaces for interaction, thanks to the opportunities that the platform offered us, in particular real-time communication through live chat and video meetings. .
We are an international company and, for Epson, participating in this event means involving countries from all over the world, from America to Japan. This allowed us to be virtually always online. We also used our social media, a channel we usually use, to intercept the public, offer relevant content and invite them to virtually meet us at the fair.
Q. What are the main technologies you are presented to the visitors and exhibitors? What are the distinctive features of these range of exhibit?
A. Epson is participating in Innovate with its complete range of solutions for the textile sector, from sublimation with the Epson SureColor F series to DTF (direct-to-fabric) printing with the Monna Lisa series, the first digital printer for the textile industry that has revolutionized the sector, becoming the reference for high-quality printing.
Epson continues to renew and expand its range of solutions for textile printing to enable clients to meet the needs of an increasingly demanding and competitive market. Epson’s exclusive quality, high productivity, and long-lasting colours are the keys to standing above the competition. Epson PrecisionCore innovative proprietary printing technology also allows unprecedented high production quality to be combined with even greater reliability.
More in details, at Innovate we are showcasing: our Monna Lisa ML-8000, the latest evolution of the Monna Lisa series that combines performance and usability to meet the needs of the digital textile market for flexibility and sustainability and set new standards in textile printing image quality; Monna Lisa ML-64000, which with its 64 PrecisionCore printheads is built for high productivity (maximum printing speed of 779 sqm/h) without compromising the printing quality; Monna Lisa Evo Tre 32, the most flexible solution with selectable channels configuration and available in standard 8 colours or 16 channel configuration (two types 8+8 or 16 channels); Monna Lisa Evo Tre 16, where flexibility is assured thanks to Acid, Reactive, Disperse and Pigment inks (available in 3 or 10 liters capacities); Epson SureColor SC-F10000, our first 76-inch large-format printer, a sophisticated, dye-sublimation printer specifically developed for several applications, including fashion, sportswear, home furnishings, promotional goods and soft signage.
Q. What strategies are you in pursuit of towards sustainability and environmental protection? What are the commitments of Epson for the industry and for the stakeholders in respect to greener environment?
A. Our goal is to develop technologies to let our customers not only produce more, but especially produce better. Today it’s important to reduce the environmental impact as much as possible and digital printing is key to reduce water and energy consumption, as well as to limit chemical consumption. Epson takes a leading role in addressing and meeting the need to reduce environmental impact, and takes the challenge by offering fashion brands quality, durability and environmental sustainability.
Driven by the need to respond to the demands of the “new consumer” - increasingly committed to making sustainable purchases - brands are now realising, with growing awareness, how important it is to ensure sustainability throughout the entire supply chain. For professionals, Epson’s Monna Lisa offers the certainty of being able to entrust fabric printing - an essential and defining part of the production phase - to a system that guarantees sustainability in terms of the quality, durability and environmental sustainability, both of the production process and of the end product.
In terms of sustainability, the Monna Lisa project aimed at achieving three specific objectives: reduced consumption and use of raw materials, shortened production processes, and production versatility.
In addition, Epson’s continuous research has enabled the company to develop the GENESTA line of pigment inks, which produce high-quality, durable, glossy results both on traditional natural fibres and on innovative fibres, fully in line with the chemical requirements of the OEKO-TEX® STANDARD100. The use of pigment also makes it possible to shorten the printing process by a third, given that there is no need for the final steaming and washing of the fabric. This saves even more water and energy, generating further benefits in terms of sustainability.
Q. Would you inform readers on ‘’Cloud Solution PORT’’ platform and its main functions with the advantages offered?
A. For customers looking to increase their productivity and improve planning and costing of their print production, Epson has introduced Cloud Solution PORT. Accessible via its own portal, the platform is a cloud-based service that supports Epson’s large-format printers and can be accessed from multiple devices including PCs, smartphones, and tablets.
The solution enables customers to monitor printers across several locations - from the production floor, or remotely - using configurable dashboards with clear graphics to analyse productivity and receive operational updates about the print jobs, ink levels and maintenance status. Their aim, again, is to minimise downtime and disruption to print runs.
The first service to be offered on the platform will be Production Monitor, which will examine the status of production in real-time. Customers can see when jobs have been completed, or the remaining time left to complete a job, giving them the information to accurately plan production. It generates daily reports that highlight production bottlenecks or opportunities where productivity can improve.
At launch, supported Epson models are the SureColor SC-F3000 and SureColor SC-F10000 but further models and services will be added over the months ahead.
Q. What is your overall vision towards 2021? Would you provide information on the key markets and sales strategies for next year?
A. The digitalization process of the textile printing sector has not stopped during the pandemic. Of course, Covid-19 has certainly slowed down investments and consumption. However, as we have seen last summer, consumption and investments have resumed as soon as the transmission force of the virus has decreased. We are therefore absolutely sure we will continue our innovation projects on the one hand, and we will increase our presence on the market with a more widespread sales and service network on the other hand. Indeed, the temporary slowdown allowed us to complete the projects of the latest Monna Lisa models - 8 and 64 heads - we presented to the market.
Q. What are your plans and strategies in Turkish market for 2021?
A. Turkey remains for us the second market in terms of number of installations and therefore a very important market for Epson - even if it is an extremely challenging one as it is under considerable pressure because of continuous industrial cost reduction. Here, too, the pandemic has made no concessions and our customers were forced to slow down, if not stop, their production for a few periods. However, at the same time as happened in Italy, they have continued their way towards digitalization and some new installations will be carried out as soon as we can. We are already present and committed to this mission in all of the three major Turkish districts of Istanbul - Bursa - Çorlu and we are even considering strengthening our presence with additional staff here.
