Today, the Düsseldorf-based company continues to publish its highly regarded namesake daily paper, and now also includes many other print and digital offerings as well as radio and TV holdings, IT, logistics and more.
Here, Matthias Tietz, CEO of the Rheinisch-Bergische Druckerei GmbH, the printing arm of the company, tells us about their involvement in WAN-IFRA’s Color Quality Club and discusses their current projects.
WAN-IFRA: You’ve been a regular participant as well as member of the International Color Quality Club, what do you find to be most valuable for your company about this competition?
Matthias Tietz: The International Color Quality Club clearly shows our customers that the printing company produces high quality. Our operation is ISO 126447 certified also in the area of the Standard Offset Process, and this certificate, at least for German customers, is mostly of more significance.
A few years ago, in 2009, we published an article about an interesting exchange programme you did with The Hindu. Have you done any similar programmes since then? (Editor’s note: We published a story about this programme in our June 2009 issue, beginning on page 18).
Since then we have welcomed another printing specialist from The Hindu to our company. That was very helpful for the introduction of our Cortina technology. Unfortunately, we have not yet managed to organise a visit by our people to India. It is a highly educational concept for both our companies and one that both sides want to continue.
What current or upcoming projects are you most excited about?
We are working on the further development of our Cortina products as well as questions relating to the future transformation of newspaper printing companies to printing companies operating on the general printing market. This is a wide-ranging area that we are approaching with the objective of securing our future existence.
What do you think is unique about your company that other publishing houses could learn from?
It is my opinion that every newspaper printing company will focus on the future challenges concerning circulation development, page count, printing and mailroom equipment, with a view to determining what dimensions such a concept requires, etc., and will develop their own solutions. We do not want to make any recommendations, rather we like to take a look at other operations and other approaches in order to learn in a spirit of dialogue. We would be pleased to enter into a dialogue with all interested parties wishing to visit us.
In print and epaper, you’ll find our story about Rheinische Post Mediengruppe on page 34 of our September/October 2013 issue.