Newspaper & Mailroom
KBA reorganises sales and service in Central Eastern Europe
Monday 07. March 2011 - New KBA CEE for Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia
Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) has responded to the changed state of the market for sheetfed offset presses, which is also to be witnessed in Central Eastern Europe in the wake of the recent global economic crisis, with the founding of a new sales and service subsidiary KBA CEE sp. z o.o. with effect from 1st March 2011.
The new company has its headquarters in Warsaw, with branch offices in Prague and Bratislava. A team of 20 staff in Warsaw is to be concerned primarily with providing support to the users of KBA sheetfed and web presses in Poland. Sheetfed customers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia will be looked after by the 13 sales and service staff in Prague and Bratislava. The transnational cooperation of the service engineers and print instructors united under the umbrella of KBA CEE is intended to ensure efficient utilisation of the existing capacities and optimum reaction to the needs and wishes of the sheetfed offset users. Sales of web presses in the Czech Republic remain in the hands of the long-standing KBA agency Ing. Petr Kloc a spol., s.r.o.
Oliver Becker (45), for the past five years managing director of KBA-Polska, has been appointed managing director of the new company KBA CEE, and will be mainly responsible for the Polish market, which is in the meantime a very important market for KBA. Jan Korenc (45), to date sales and marketing director of the Czech subsidiary KBA-Grafitec s.r.o. in Dobruka, is to manage the Prague office as co-director of KBA CEE, with a remit covering sales and service in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Later expansion of the sphere of responsibility of KBA CEE to include other countries of Central Eastern Europe is conceivable.
Growth zone Central Eastern Europe
In Poland and the Czech Republic, in particular, KBA has built up a strong market position as a supplier of innovative sheetfed offset technologies for commercial, packaging and newspaper printing, and is the undisputed market leader for small- and large-format sheetfed offset presses. In the medium B1 format class, the management is convinced that there is still scope for improvement on the current second place behind the world market leader, likewise in Slovakia. KBA can also point to numerous web offset installations with commercial and newspaper printers in the region served by KBA CEE. It is true that there have been significantly fewer web press investments in recent years, but the still appreciably lower print output per head of the population compared to Western Europe identifies the Eastern member states as a medium-term growth zone within the European Union. With increasing economic prosperity, this will be especially true in the packaging sector, where KBA is traditionally very well represented. The proximity of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the KBA sheetfed offset headquarters in Radebeul and to the offices of the Czech subsidiary KBA-Grafitec in Dobruka offers further benefits for customers. It is also to be mentioned that KBA is the only press manufacturer operating production facilities for sheetfed offset presses in Central Eastern Europe. The new Rapida 75E which is manufactured in Dobruka is gathering an ever greater following of convinced users in the region and on the world market as a whole.
Doing good business
Throughout last year and over the first weeks of this year, numerous sheetfed offset printers in Poland and the Czech Republic have either installed or placed orders for KBA Rapida presses in all format classes. Outstanding examples from the Polish market are the more than 30-metre-long Rapida 162a double coater press for the large format 120 x 162 cm at TFP in Kórnik near Pozna? and a six-colour Rapida 142 with coater, triple-length extended delivery and pile logistics at Karton Pak in Nowa Sól near Zielona Góra. The large format Rapida at Karton Pak is performing so well that the company ordered recently a B1 Rapida 106. In addition, a fully automated high-tech Rapida 106 with six printing units, twin coaters and direct drive on the plate cylinders will be starting up at Offset Druk in Rzesnow in April, and will then be setting new benchmarks for this format class in terms of makeready times and inline finishing. In the Czech Republic, too, another renowned packaging company – in this case Smurfit Kappa – recently chose a Rapida 162a with 5 printing units and inline coater. Grafobal Artypa, on the other hand, has ordered a six-colour Rapida 106 in a double-coating configuration from KBA. In the next few days, KBA CEE will be starting the installation of a four-colour Rapida 105 with coater at Tiskarna KB in Most.
Press demonstrations at Poligrafia in Pozna?
KBA CEE is fully aware of its responsibility towards Central Eastern Europe and the many customers in the individual countries. Not least for that reason, it will be present with a stand at the Poligrafia fair in Pozna? from 12th to 15th April, as the only major press manufacturerer. With a Genius 52UV from KBA-Metronic and the new Rapida 75E from KBA-Grafitec, it will even be possible to see two presses in production.