During a World Printers Forum session as part of WAN-IFRA‘s recent Virtual World News Media Congress, Hans Peter Nissen, logistics director of JP/Politiken and Paul Huybrechts CEO Coldset Partners in Belgium discussed how their companies are changing with the times in order to grow their businesses.

JP/Politiken is a large publishing house based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Some years ago they started to explore ways to distribute more than just their newspaper, mostly magazines. Then they added letters to their portfolio and in 2020, packages. In doing this, JP/Politiken helped turn around a former cost centre into a massive profit centre and really a company in its own right within the group.

Coldset Partners is part of Mediahuis, which is mainly active in the Benelux countries as well as Ireland and will be expanding into Germany in Aachen in the new year. Huybrechts made clear in his presentation that newspapers are a sunset market and as such, printers need to think about sustainability as well as 3 p´s of Product, Price and Place.

As for sustainability, it is essential for newspaper companies to be a frontrunner in this crucial environmental area, so all aspects of production are in order, social, and unlocking the talent within your company to help them reach their potential. Huybrechts also discussed the need to train staff with a variety of skills so they can work across different sites within the printing company. More on Paul Hybrechts and the 6 p´s of successful printing plant.