manroland Unveils Initiative for Supporting the Newspaper Industry

CHICAGO—Sept. 27, 2011—manroland Inc. North America is launching a new pressupdate initiative to help newspapers use their existing resources to become more relevant, competitive and profitable in today’s marketplace. This initiative will provide newspapers with highly specialized expertise, engineering services and modular technology for upgrading of existing facilities to reduce costs and improve productivity. manroland will also offer customer-specific assistance packages for newspapers looking to change formats or add additional color capabilities in support of consolidation efforts.

Vince Lapinski, CEO of manroland, said, “manroland is known as the company you could rely on for advanced newspaper printing technology and meticulous project management for large installations of new equipment. Because of sweeping structural changes in the industry over the past five years, newspaper printers currently need a different kind of support. That is why manroland has formed a global pressupdate task force to focus its newspaper division on helping customers take the best advantage of facilities they already have while they are revamping their own business models.”

Lapinski added, “manroland’s pressupdate initiative will support newspapers by supplying packages of services, technology and printing equipment that are more granular than they have been to date. This will allow us to target very specific upgrades that will often be unique to a specific newspaper’s market and business strengths. Newspapers will be able to buy exactly what they need to capitalize on existing opportunities to expand their revenue stream and operate more profitably. To safeguard the newspaper’s investment manroland will rely on its considerable global newspaper experience to provide assurances of upgrade performance.”

The newspaper printed product continues to provide the best value proposition for readers and advertisers of any news and information medium. Today the printed newspaper still delivers on average 90 percent of their revenues! Newspaper publishers see consolidation of their printing and production into regional print centers as a means to reduce their operating expenses and maintain their position as the source for local news and information.

manroland believes repurposing of existing facilities and existing infrastructure is not only logical, it is environmentally sound. As consolidation options are being considered by potential partners, the best value proposition will win the day. manroland has the engineering resources and know-how to lead the way in this important and dynamic time for newspaper publishers. Lapinski concluded that manroland has a solution that can fit the budget for any consolidation model or lifecycle milestone.

While manroland previewed the newspaper pressupdate initiative at GRAPH EXPO in September, the global task force will be revealing more details at a formal announcement of the program at the IFRA Expo 2011 in Vienna (Oct. 10-12).

about manroland
manroland Inc is a division of manroland AG the world’s second largest printing systems manufacturer and the world’s market leader in web offset. Webfed and sheetfed presses provide solutions for publishing, commercial and packaging printing.

Source: manroland.