The appointment of Jean-Pascal Bobst as CEO in May 2009 was a milestone in BOBST's history, and since then he has led the Group in the fourth generation of his family. With the Group Transformation Programme, he set the strategic course for further positive development at the height of the global financial and economic crisis.
pj: Mr Bobst, what is the current focus of your company?
Jean-Pascal Bobst: One of our main focuses for the new year is to expand our presence in a number of key markets, especially South East Asia and China. On the other hand, customer satisfaction remains a core issue. We will be strengthening our customer service with additional service technicians and, among other things, will be using the e-platform MyBOBST expand our service portfolio. And last but not least, we are focussing on the development of digital printing machines.
pj: What particular challenges did you face last year?
Jean-Pascal Bobst: 2017 was another year of strong growth for us, a positive expansion of our market share and the successful development of our entire business. On the technology side, we introduced the BOBST THQ FlexoCloud technology with an extended colour gamut and, together with the start-up company „Mouvent“ a digital printing competence centre including a research laboratory.
pj: How do you assess the economic situation?
Jean-Pascal Bobst: The framework conditions in Switzerland are in place, but are hardly or poorly utilised. Our politicians don't really understand how quickly the industry is changing. I would like to say to politicians: „Go to Asia for a few months and see how quickly and purposefully people work there.“ That's our competition. People naturally want to protect their jobs. But that Internet of Things is heading in exactly the opposite direction. We must therefore prepare ourselves for the challenges of the future in order to avoid being squeezed by such technologies or overpowering states.
pj: What effects do you expect for your company?
Jean-Pascal Bobst: We bring out five to six new products every year, and we are constantly developing innovations in customer service, networking, preventive maintenance and online training. We invest 60 to 70 million Swiss francs per year in research and development, which is around four to five per cent of turnover. Our biggest challenge, however, is to prepare Bobst Group for the future. Digitalisation of the packaging world to orientate ourselves. Only with pioneering developments and far-sighted management expertise can we steer our company successfully into the future.
pj: What do you see as the most important tasks and trends in the industry?
Jean-Pascal Bobst: We must learn to work with partners as „open source“ to work together. For example with Siemens, Esko, HP ... Sometimes they are competitors, sometimes partners. We are employing more and more specialists in IT architecture, data management and data analysis and at the same time we are looking for external partners with whom we can work together.
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