James Dunn Q&A -- Leading Into the Future

When Niels Winther stepped down as head of North American business operations for Heidelberg in July, a well-seasoned replacement was named in James Dunn. In his more than three decades with the German-based press manufacturing giant, Dunn has held numerous management positions, including president of the Heidelberg Americas shared services division and CFO of Heidelberg Web Systems.

As the company strives to get back to its core competencies after divesting its Web Offset and Digital Printing operations, Dunn talks to Printing Impressions about his new role within Heidelberg, the current state of the U.S. printing market and the future of the printing industry.

PI: Can you provide a little background about your past positions within the Heidelberg organization and how they have prepared you for your newest role as president of Heidelberg USA?

Dunn: I started in 1977 in the sales and service organization of Heidelberg West, where I also had responsibility for the graphic supplies business, which is known today as consumables. From the very beginning I understood the success issue: That you only succeed by helping your customers and that you earn the right to earn money by helping your customers earn money. In the end that helps us succeed.

This has always been my view throughout my 13 years at Heidelberg West, when I was CFO of Heidelberg Web and when I was president of Heidelberg Canada, and it will continue to be a guiding principle as president of Heidelberg USA. If you do all you can to help your customers, market share and profit will come.

PI: Since your latest appointment, you have been traveling around to visit customers and Heidelberg's regional locations. What has been the response?

Dunn: Since my appointment in July, I have traveled to all of Heidelberg's 11 regions in the United States to discuss my transition into president of Heidelberg USA. While I have met with a few of our customers, my main focus was to visit with our own people.

We have an incredibly committed and capable team of people, and I understand what they have gone through. They have had tough, tough challenges put on them—a corporate reorganization, smaller revenue opportunities, more work—but I have great confidence in their ability to lead this company to great success. The same can be said by our customers. They are encouraged about their business growth and they remain optimistic and have confidence in Heidelberg's abilities.

PI: Now that your company has divested its Web Offset and Digital Printing operations, where do you see the biggest growth opportunities within Heidelberg USA's remaining core prepress, sheetfed and postpress competencies?

Dunn: This will become more evident to those who visit the Heidelberg booth during Graph Expo as we expect great interest in three core areas: workflow management, one-pass productivity and postpress equipment in general. The common theme among these areas is efficiency. The industry is still operating in a time when printers can't raise prices just yet, so they have to look for ways to increase productivity.

One way to do that is by driving efficiencies into their business in order to yield cost savings that will boost profit margins.

Take postpress, for example. The bindery is the last bastion of equipment efficiency gains. Printers have focused in recent years on building their prepress and press competencies. Now you'll start to see greater interest in upgrading the postpress department with cutters and folders that are more automated and more efficient.

In the pressroom, printers are always striving for ways to run jobs more effectively. Heidelberg's one-pass productivity solution can do that.

And, finally, we see growing demand for Heidelberg's computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) solution, Prinect, which helps printers better manage their workflow. At Graph Expo we have the Prinect Experience, a series of eight integrated workstations that demonstrate to printers how they can employ CIM for highly efficient print production and how they can leverage the equipment that is already in their shops.

PI: Bernhard Schreier, Heidelberg CEO, announced at Drupa that he expects the print media industry to continue to rebound noticeably on a worldwide basis. What are your predictions for the overall state-of-the-industry of the U.S. graphic arts market for the next 12 months?

Dunn: Heidelberg supports the research of the NAPL, which indicates that the U.S. market has stopped declining and that it expects print growth of roughly 4 percent for 2004. Our hope, of course, is that we can help printers continue to find new revenue streams and reap greater profits from those small jobs they once turned down in the 1990s.

PI: Many press manufacturers have been chastised for installing new machines at printing companies with overly generous financing arrangements and, in some cases, helping to put new competitors in business against their existing customers. Do you think this hurts the industry overall by contributing to overcapacity and by helping to drive down pricing levels among printers?

Dunn: The answer is absolutely. It is irresponsible for manufacturers to misrepresent themselves to their customers and not consider the effect their actions may have on the broader industry. That's why Heidelberg, as the leader in the industry, leads by example and always puts its customers first.

PI: Since your background is mostly in finance, will you be making any further cost-saving initiatives within the Heidelberg USA organization in the near future?

Dunn: Like our customers, we always have to become more efficient. Whether that means being smarter about how we make the best equipment in the industry or rooting out waste within our supply chain, Heidelberg will always make business decisions that are right for our company and our customers.