Packaging has been going through a digital renaissance of late, as we have seen in the many hardware releases, both recently and over the last few years. This has been largely driven by the changes in consumer behavior which pressure consumer product companies to find new ways to capture and increase their market share. Ultimately, it drives development of new technologies to support those changing requirements. While the printing and converting hardware has been evolving, the workflow software to maximize the utilization of that hardware has been evolving as well.

The two biggest packaging workflow software companies are Esko and Hybrid Software. Recently, Esko announced some new software and their “virtual hub” to give customers and prospects a way to virtually visit them during the pandemic. In the meantime, Hybrid Software has also been updating their packaging workflow offerings to meet the challenge. According the Guido Van der Schueren, Chairman of Hybrid Software, “Our future is reliant upon technology, and we must take care of our customers. This will be particularly important during the post COVID-19 restart.”

We have all seen how this pandemic has reinforced the need and value of interconnectivity of machines, software, processes, and people. The Hybrid Software product line mirrors that drive to interconnectivity. Unlike Esko, Hybrid doesn’t sell hardware, only software solutions, although they have integrations with the most widely used hardware. Their growth over the last five years has been impressive, as seen below.