Page 51 - Print21 magazine Mar-Apr 2023

CONNECT 2023 | CONFERENCES |
portfolio, and the opportunities for collaboration and integration.”
In the opening keynote, Matsliach highlighted the developments, challenges and opportunities for print and packaging businesses, and said that ePS had spent the past year driving innovation, expanding its team, increasing its collaborations, accelerating its technologies, and focusing on both organic and M&A growth. He said the company had
an end market focus, and now had the right solution for every market segment in the print and packaging industries. A new version of the ePS Productivity Suite is being released in the second quarter.
Nick Benkovich, originally from Australia, but now vice-president of product development at ePS, said that the iQuote programme had
seen a 150 per cent growth in sales during 2022, and was one of four components of the enterprise suite that was undergoing significant development, which included connectivity with SAP and with Microsoft’s ERP, and which included ganging and extended mailing. It also prevents unviable options from being quoted on, for instance it will not allow a laminating quote on a job if it is not possible to physically do it. A carousel type visual enables the estimator to click onto the product to be quoted for and then follow the prompts. ePS says the user needs no knowledge of print manufacturing to provide a quote.
All ePS products are now either on the cloud or moving into it, with all its apps set to be browser-based.
The MidMarket Suite has a new function, Pogo, which enables auto invoicing the moment the print is delivered to the customer, with the customer signature on site triggering invoicing from the printer. The latest version of Midmarket Suite, v11, is being launched in Q2.
Nick Benkovich said the new PrintFlow 4D provided “Next generation scheduling”, necessary he said, as print businesses were having to produce 40 per cent more jobs these days to generate the same revenue than just eight years ago, which he said “threw up all sorts
of scheduling issues.” The new PrintFlow is ten times faster, it is being released this quarter.
Other keynote speakers included Ford Bowers, CEO of the big US print association Printing United Alliance, who spoke on the shifting sand of US print. He spoke of the breaking down of print silos thanks to digitisation, and encouraged print businesses to look outside their traditional areas, advising them
to focus on the different types of print that their current customers need for their growth opportunities. Bowers pointed out that as only 1-2
ABOVE
Connect gave a focus to women in print: Sonia Shwabsky (far left), CEO, Kwik Kopy Australia, was on the panel
LEFT
Solutions transformation: Jacob Kandan from Lithocraft in Melbourne at Connect
per cent of corrugated print, and 3-4 per cent of folding carton, is digital, the growth opportunities for digital packaging were huge.
Alison Keane, head of the US flexo association, also gave a keynote, she outlined the current developments regarding recycling of plastic packaging by policymakers and legislators, which she indicated could be summed up as 'it's a big mess', with, she said, legislators rushing through ill-considered bills, with little regard for the necessary recycling infrastructure, or the value of plastic packaging.
Jessica Lobo, global goals and climate programme manager at the United Nations, gave a thoughtful keynote on packaging, particularly around issues of sustainability.
The ePS Packaging Suite
has Radius as its central ERP component. Version 10.1 is about to be launched, and will be transferred to a web based solution over the next two years. Nick Benkovich said, “With iQuote in the Packaging Suite you need to know absolutely zero about manufacturing, the system works it all out for you.” It will
also allocate the work to available machines, and allocate available staff, all automatically.
Among the Australians at Connect were Sonia Shwabsky, CEO,
Kwik Kopy, and Jacob Kandon, ecommerce manager at Lithocraft
in Melbourne. He shared something of the way the company was using the ePS ecommerce platform to help drive its transition from printer to solutions provider.
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