Interview “Our Focus is the Added Value for our Customers”

Interview with Per V Frederiksen, DS Smith. The Display and Packaging Strategists of DS Smith have ambitious goals in the German market. Significant growth increases are planned, and their goal is to be in first place among producers of sales displays.

Per V Frederiksen, Managing Director at DS Smith in the Packaging Division of the Germany & Switzerland Region spoke in an interview with neue verpackung about the strategies and investments of his company, current market demands and real value creation for the customer. 

You would like to become the market leader in the displays sector. What does the market offensive of DS Smith look like?

We see ourselves as a strategic partner for our customers. As Display & Packaging strategists, we analyze their entire supply cycle and systematically ask the right questions. In this way we find along the added-value cycle those levers with which we can significantly reduce the complexity of the processes of our customers and thereby generate real added value.

Can you substantiate this benefit? In which sectors do you see the greatest potential?

Using our strategic approach, our customers benefit from reducing costs, increasing sales and minimizing risk. Our particular focus is on companies in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector but of course also on all other sectors that want to increase their sales at the point of sale. With our new top-of-the-line Display & Consumer Packaging plant that we will open in Erlensee in November 2016, we can ideally implement this approach. Here we will have for the first time an Impact Centre and a PackRight Centre in order to scrutinize the entire supply cycle and to develop innovative concepts together with our customers.

How large were the investments in the new plant? How will your customers benefit from the new location?

We view the Erlensee location as an important engine for our further business development. Overall we invested over 50 million euros in order to grow together with our customers throughout Europe. The large brand-name manufacturers in particular are looking for partners who will support them in optimizing the entire product life cycle. We can implement this from Erlensee and also provide support for and supply customers across national borders with their European harmonization projects. When it comes to quality, availability and speed to market, no wish will be left unfulfilled.

The plant is supposed to be the most efficient in Europe. Where will the adjustments be made here – also compared with the old plant in Hanau?

We will be setting new standards in the display and packaging market with our plant in Erlensee. Our old location in Hanau has grown over the years. In the meantime, we have reached our capacity limits there. The new plant was necessary in order to be able to expand further. Our new location will be highly efficient, with optimum production processes, the latest machine technology and an enormously large capacity. What makes the location special is certainly that our machinery is conceived in such a way that we are optimally positioned for both large and small runs. As a full service packaging provider, we can deliver everything from a single source.

An Impact Centre is supposed to come into being in Erlensee. What exactly can your customers envisage with this?

The concept of the DS Smith Impact Centre is unique in our industry. The first Impact Centre for the Germany and Switzerland Region will come into being in Erlensee. Our customers will be able to experience here the impact of their displays and packaging in a realistically simulated supply chain. The emphasis here is on ‘real’. We will therefore be working with real products that you can touch and look at and not with simulations. The logistics and warehousing sectors among others will also be examined in addition to the retail sector. Together with our customers, we will work out what they could achieve with the right packaging and the right display solutions and provide food for thought. Normally an appointment in the PackRight Centre will follow the visit to the Impact Centre.  Here we will work with our customers on the optimization areas that developed during the visit to the Impact Centre. We will validate the solutions reached and implement these. We will achieve real added value with this systematic examination of the supply cycle.

Displays will also play a central role in the future in the sale of products at the POS according to the assessments of trade associations and market research companies. What kind of secondary placement are we going to increasingly encounter in 2016 in the retail trade? From your point of view, where are the trends in the market headed?

We are currently noticing a trend toward modular display concepts. With these clever solutions, a number of different displays can be created with only a few components. The advantages are obvious: greatest process efficiency and lower costs for storage, transport and handling. We see here the next evolutionary stage in the area of automated processes for co-packing. Furthermore, companies are still working in 2016 on realizing the connection of the online and offline worlds at the point of sale via clever display and packaging solutions. In addition to augmented reality, constantly new technologies, such as the beacon technology, are being used. Considerable importance this year is also being given to experience and event placements in order to emotionally charge brands and retail and make shopping into an experience. For this, displays are in demand that offer consumers a corresponding added value while shopping: theme placements, for example, around ‘barbecuing’, where the shopper finds everything in a display world – from the charcoal to the bottle cooler to chips and beverages.

Studies are assuming that 10 per cent of retail trade is going to disappear from the market in the next five years. Is the demand for displays also thereby going to be reduced? How are you going to confront such developments?

In the future, the consumer will be increasingly looking for the experience and the emotional appeal in retail trade. With attractive display solutions, which appeal to several senses and connect the online world with the offline world, branded companies and retail will be able to offer the shopper a real added value. The retail trade is thus also very interested in such secondary placements. We are dealing with innovative solutions and technologies. With our large network throughout all of Europe, we have our eye on current trends. Furthermore, displays are not only in the retail trade but also, for example, in petrol stations and cinemas.

Where are the real problems today for branded companies? And what does this mean for you as a display and packaging producer?

The challenges that our customers have to cope with daily will be increasingly demanding in many areas. Product life cycles are becoming shorter. The number of channels is increasing for communicating and marketing. Shoppers expect customized products. These few examples show that the complexity is increasing significantly. For this reason, our large customers in particular are looking not only for a packaging supplier but also for a strategic partner. And we are starting right here with our positioning as Display & Packaging Strategists. As a full-service provider, we are reducing the complexity and are taking on upstream and downstream process stages so that our customers can concentrate wholeheartedly on their core competencies.

Thank you very much for the interview!