As Rainer Hundsdörfer prepares to close out his successful tenure as Chairman of Heidelberg, I had an opportunity to interview him before his exit, and there are stories to tell and lessons to learn from his leadership and the corporate turnaround. In Part 1 we detailed some of the metrics that define the turnaround, as well as their continued focus on print. In this article, we will look at some of the other areas that Heidelberg is pursuing by leveraging their inherent technologies and expertise. 

Most equipment manufacturers leverage their skills to update existing and create new products. As an example, Heidelberg has been digitalizing their offset and finishing equipment offerings. They are also expanding their flexo offerings beyond labels to folding carton and surely corrugated and flexible packaging are not far behind. This is to be expected of a company like Heidelberg, who has such a well-known brand and significant market share. 

However, looking closer, most equipment manufacturers don’t have the breadth of internal competencies that exist at Heidelberg. Unlike most other manufacturers, Heidelberg doesn’t just design and build the presses and finishing equipment, they also design and manufacture almost all of technology and parts that go into them. “We develop it and we reproduce it,” according to Hundsdörfer. “Heidelberg is more than just a printing machine builder and an automation company.” Unlike many other machinery companies in this world, “we design and manufacture the power electronics, the controls, HMI, internet connectors, etc.” As a result, “we probably have a significant added value in the hundreds of million-euro range, since where others would buy all of this from the well-known third-party manufacturers of controls, we do it ourselves.” With this knowhow and these internal capabilities, “we can do more than manufacture printing machines.” He goes on to say, “we have a good chance to grow that expertise further in order to be a part of our core business, and the return could be significant as shown by the recent figures showing sales growth of 170% in our segment technology.” Below is a picture of the new Heidelberg Innovation Center which opened in 2018 .