The new market organization manroland web printing equipment (Beijing) Co. Ltd. opened its doors on April 1, 2016

The Chinese market for rotary presses is still one of the largest in the world today. China continues to play an important role in manroland web systems' strategy. With a total of more than 60% market share for imported rotary press systems and almost 500 installed printing systems, the company is highly successful in the Chinese market. In order to strengthen the company's presence and further expand its market position, manroland web systems opened its own market organization in China on April 1, 2016.

The sales and service company manroland web printing equipment (Beijing) Co. Ltd. was inaugurated at the new office in the Chinese capital together with journalists and 40 customers from the Beijing area. Among those present at the opening ceremony were manroland web systems Managing Director, Joern Gossé, the new employees at the company, and German specialists from manroland web systems who were in China to carry out installations.

Mr. Gossé praised the establishment of the manroland web printing equipment (Beijing) Co. Ltd in the opening speech of the press conference as an important step for the continued market penetration of the country, with a focus on an improved service offering for the Augsburg company's numerous customers in China.

All participants were clearly pleased with the new development at manroland web systems. After the official program, there were plenty of opportunities to further exchange views in an informal relaxed atmosphere.

More presence equals more trust

"For us it is very important that we now have direct contact to manroland web systems in various areas such as sales, service, and project management immediately on-site. We are maintaining a long-standing partnership based on trust with the company from Augsburg. The new on-site organization will make this collaboration much easier for us in the future and project processing even more reliable," relates the newly appointed director of Renmin Ribao, Hao Zhenju.

Zhang Jianzhong, director at the Economic Daily, expands: "We ordered our first newspaper press from manroland web systems one year ago. Changing to a new supplier was not an easy decision. But we have been very pleased with the current collaboration in our joint project and we hope that, with this direct local presence, we will see an even faster response as well as a other benefits for our business relationship. This step shows that manroland web systems wants to continue to be firmly involved in our country for the long term. That creates trust."

"Considering that there is a very large installed base in the country and that despite the increase in difficulties in making new investments the past few years, Chinese customers will continue to invest in the key technological areas of web offset and digital printing, the logical action to establish an organization in China had been clear for a long time. And of course in the future there will be other changes to the Chinese economy towards a more qualitative growth," explains Dr. Frank Tietsche, Managing Director of the new company and Vice President Sales at manroland web systems. "We want to ensure optimal support to our existing and new customers."

Over the past few years manroland web systems served the Chinese market together with manroland (China) Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of manroland sheetfed GmbH that now belongs to the British company Langley and focuses mainly on sheetfed customers. manroland web systems' cooperation agreement with manroland sheetfed in China was recently dissolved through a mutual agreement and in favor of its own, new market organization. In the future, both now independent companies will concentrate on their own specific core competence.
Guarantee of continuity and quality

The large majority of employees who until now dealt with newspaper and commercial web presses at manroland Greater China has transferred to the new organization. "This will guarantee the continuity and quality of our future dealings. We want to forge new paths so that we can be even better in the future. This applies especially to the area of service," says Wu Xinxin, General Manager of the new market organization. "The transition to the new organization must be done without any loss in efficiency. The employees carry a heavy burden." Five new manroland web systems large newspaper presses are currently going into production in the Chinese capital and are being prepared for handover to customers. A commercial press and other FormerLine digital finishing systems will also make the trip to China this year, and all this along with several new large service contracts in the country.

In addition to the office in Beijing, two more locations will soon be operating in Hong Kong and Taipei. This puts manroland web systems in an excellent position for its existing and future tasks in China.