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so hi everyone my name is phil baldwin i'm one of the european sales managers for mark andy the reason really behind this video call is to chat with some of our co-suppliers and see what they're facing during these times um what kind of market feedback they're getting any challenges they're having so today i have dave with me from cigwork cigworks are co-supplier globally on inks in saint louis demo room they currently use the orbis range and over here in europe it's a bit more market orientated so we use the sakura low migration range so dave if you'd like to introduce yourself uh hi phil uh dave heiser at sig work uh yeah i run the uh bu narrow web inks for usa and canada and then also have global responsibility for our narrow web business um yeah i've been with sick work for for 10 years and thanks for the opportunity for this uh quick interview great well um thank you for taking the time to join us so before we start on the topics a bit light-heartedness um if you could change anything with a bit of hindsight what would you have done differently before lockdown i i think like a a lot of people um i i would have liked to have liquidated my uh my portfolio for sure uh maybe there's one or two lucky people out there i don't know and uh and yeah i miss out on a vacation so it would have been nice if if if the whole the whole coveted thing had moved out a few weeks wasn't as convenient from that perspective well i think similar to you i probably would have sold everything i owned um and just brought tons of shares in zoom now maybe maybe i would have been having this video called from the caribbean yeah so how since this virus has started how from a personal level has your routing changed or how have you had to adapt to business yeah and maybe a little bit like you phil um you know i i live in minneapolis and uh my office is in north carolina and of course there's there's customer things and global things so i i'm gone outside of vacations i'm gone monday through thursday at least every week so um being at home you know i guess now for what maybe eight weeks um is is dramatically different for me from work perspective and certainly for for my for my wife so yeah and then just getting uh just getting used to um dealing with uh you know customers and co-workers in this sort of environment instead of face to face so um getting more used to it but it's it's uh yeah it's challenged um well for me i'm very similar i'm used to being away about 45 weeks of the year um complaining about delayed flights and missed connections and but i at the moment now i'm never going to complain again about delayed flight misconnection anything anything to go on a plane right so um now as businesses we're all facing new challenges i guess being an ink supplier i guess one of the main challenges for you is supply of pigments or chemicals how are you managing to avoid any um hiccups within your supply chain yeah yeah and that's been a a constant discussion uh certainly over the last two months but um you know on on that particular topic for us it started at the end of the year you know when the when the china thing um started in wuhan um you know we we got we got orders in to our chinese suppliers before the end of the year just in case so um yeah at the time there was a question of whether or not we were overreacting and um it turned out to be absolutely the right move and of course now for the last what two months it's been an india thing and and and and for us you know being primarily a uv inc supplier um you know china you know basically owns the market in in photo initiators and and and india is a primary source of certain pigments so um yeah long long story short it's been a daily certainly weekly monitoring of activities we are secure now we're secure through july and and if you could tell me when um when india's you know 100 percent back online i could give i could give assurance to uh all our customers but we're in good shape we're in good shape so far and we we think we're going to be okay okay that's positive feedback there um obviously ourselves we we have a lot of ink demand for our digital machines um we managed we did a similar thing put in large orders at the start of this and then we're also having deliveries via sea freight and air freight due to the limited number of air freight and the cost of sea freight has gone up but so far we've managed to maintain a level pricing and meet up with demand so that's good um obviously speaking of converters you know we get positive market feedback uh good look for the future how are your customers responding to you is it positive still yeah um it's been positive for a while um you know i would have said if if we were having this interview let's say end of february or something like that and you ask the same question the customers i've talked to um were were optimistic uh they had started to see let's call the order books increasing in 2020 better than 2019 which i would have said was an average average market year um so so that was that was optimistic and then of course for the last two months uh everyone's been crazy um and and you know even even if we could go see customers and work on projects i think it would be difficult to get any of their time their order books are completely full everything that we experience with no product on on the grocery store shelves as an example is because you know it affects you know us downstream our customers and then ourselves we've seen um we we've seen our sales in both march and april uh 20 up now this isn't going to last um it's very nice but it's not going to last um and but but i have heard a couple customers talk in terms of they think it's liable to be maybe plus 10 for the next six months or so and and i think one of the you know uh bets people might be laying is you know what what what is retained what behaviors what consumer behaviors retain post covid you know in other words you know does the restaurant business die off and more people staying at home and therefore consuming more grocery items so you know it's that sort of thinking but you know to basically to your question people are optimistic so so far in in our you know we're in the right business i must say yeah i fully agree i think print whenever there's a recession people stay at home so there's more demand for packaging so it's you know recession is never good but for the print market it's always quite buoyant we're seeing continued sales um so yeah it's it's looking the same thing in europe quite a positive outlook for the future um so last question really for you is moving forward when life returns to normal i i think it'll be a new normal there will be changes but what do you think you would take from this um different ways of working how would you see more video conference calling or yeah i'll touch on a couple different topics you know the the employee safety thing has been um you know really at the forefront of some of the changes that we've made internally and and you guys and everybody else obviously um you know since we've been staying open the entire time you know you know we've made shift arrangements and and people aren't working in the office and and i i guess one of the things that you know we are we are learning i'm learning is that um uh certain certain functions in the company where i might have said to you a few months ago absolutely positively needed to occur in the office we're we're learning no they don't you know um are some things more effective in a face-to-face environment of course they are but not all the time so one of the things that i believe will get retained is will increase flexible work environments as we transition and we're starting we're starting to plan for that transition back you know as states start to reopen as they say we're starting the planning process we don't have a date yet and but we know it's going to be transition and therefore i think we'll retain some of the employer flex employee flexibility you know you know work at home work in the office type thing i think it's good for the employee and it'll be good for for for us going forward certain safety and hygiene topics will become part of our routine i think for sure um there there will be more of what we're doing right now um but i on that topic i really do believe that um you know hopefully you know when the virus is 100 behind us and people are very comfortable i think that i think people will rebound to their normal ways i think that the airlines will be full again the hotels will be full again um and and and people that had a bias towards working face to face we'll go back to that fully yeah i i agree i think the office as we know it is is going to change moving forward there will be a lot more home office but from the sales cycle i say when things everything gets back to a safe level possibly end of the year maybe even into 2021 but i i think the sales side will return to face to face because it's great having them face to face over the internet but you can't share a beer over the internet so right i think that's one of the things that will change back um from our side something we've learned and will probably stay in place or it will be useful to have in place is remote training remote installations so we found the ability to be able to help and support the customers via um things like zoom or facetime or or similar apps so i think there'll be a growth in that in remote support but for the sales side it's uh it's going to go back to how it was i believe so yeah and i agree with you on that remote remote support you know um you know there's always more demand for for on-site support than we generally have the the people and the capability and things probably the same as you you know they come up at last minute and if you can leverage technology like this to to provide some of that support yeah i think that's a win-win for for everyone great fantastic well dave i won't take up any more of your time so thank you for uh sharing your time to speak with us and well for us in the uk it's a long weekend so i'll say good weekend to you now all right thanks for the opportunity phil appreciate it thank you very much