Early this year, Ferag decided to expand its operations in the United States and the Americas.

Ferag created a new entity called WRH Marketing Americas, a parent company that is responsible for promoting Ferag’s newspaper systems, as well as expanding the technology created by Ferag into other non-publishing markets.

Newspapers & Technology recently talked with Joseph Basara, chief executive officer of WRH, to discuss the company’s plans for Ferag in the United States and the Americas.

Why did Ferag choose to spin off a new company — WRH Marketing Americas? What are the goals of the new company, and how will it integrate with the existing operation?

WRH Marketing Americas is actually the parent company of Ferag Americas and neither one is a spin-off. WRH is a premium quality materials handling company, whose Ferag product line is primarily applied in newspaper and commercial printing.

Our organizational activities are focused on an expansion of our presence in the marketplace. With our collective expertise, we bring value to our traditional Ferag product line while adding support for products from other manufacturers that strengthen our ability to assist our customers in addressing all of their needs. Known worldwide, Ferag will maintain its focus and tradition of excellence in its systems solution approach. The expansion is in response to our customers’ request for a more robust offering of high-quality products, services and support they have come to expect from Ferag. WRH is here to support Ferag with new products and services to complement their existing product line, as well as to build business outside the traditional graphic arts industry.

WRH will not only support Ferag in Ferag’s service to the graphic arts industry; it will also be the structure through which we offer new products and solutions to the non-graphic arts industry. These new product releases and representations will be introduced at some future time from product developments currently occurring in Europe. But that’s a topic for a different industry, and we’ll focus the remainder of our discussion to our important and valued customer base in newspapers.

What do you see as the most important items to be accomplished by Ferag this year? What are Ferag’s goals for the next five years?

Our most important goal is to absolutely continue in the same direction as our legacy, which is a customer-driven focus toward developing solutions that anticipate and exceed our customers’ expectations.

The last three years in particular have been tremendously successful for Ferag, not only from a financial standpoint in terms of its sales growth, but from a market presence standpoint as well. Our name is synonymous with quality products and solutions. (We believe) we have the best product in the market. Our gripper chain has been known to last more than 20 years. We know we provide the best total cost of ownership for our customers.

Our goal is to continue and expand upon this. In the coming years, we need to continue to deliver to the market expectations of the premium quality that is Ferag.

But more than this, our job is to expand our efforts in providing customer-oriented solutions. To do this, we need to actively respond to customer requests and demands for an integrated product portfolio. WRH Marketing Americas is providing Ferag with products to complement this portfolio. Further, Ferag has a tremendous amount of industry experience in its sales, engineering, project management and installation groups.

Ferag helps our customers meet and exceed their objectives by sharing this in-depth knowledge with them on a proactive basis very early in the newspaper’s planning process. Our main goals are proactive solution planning, customer focus, world-class products and affordable solutions when measured on a TCO basis.

In the near term, this means we will continue with our strengths in engineering solutions through our own product and product partnerships. In the longer term, we will be introducing new, innovative products that will replace some of today’s technologies and we will expand our representations of other manufacturers’ offerings. These other offerings may be either stand-alone or integrated with our solution sets.

What is the biggest challenge Ferag faces in the United States and the Americas?

To maintain our pace of solution offerings to our customers as their needs and requirements change quickly with the demands of their customers and consumers.

The newspaper and commercial printers in the Americas have led in many aspects of product innovation as a result of this market orientation. To remain as leaders in providing solutions to this market, we also need to be able to deliver innovative and efficient solutions to the mailrooms and the publishers. Fortunately, being a worldwide company we can acknowledge not only the needs of the market such as North America, but also the markets in Latin America.

However, no company, no matter how good, can be so arrogant as to say, “My product is best for you” in every customer application across every market. This is why WRH is important to the Ferag delivery channels. WRH is here to help build our product portfolio so that we can provide the solutions most appropriate to each of our customers from Canada to Chile.

If we may borrow an operating model from the software industry, we think we can improve our solutions while still giving our customers the flexibility they need to respond to their markets. The software folks have developed solutions for their customers in one of three ways — one, the totally custom developed solution; two, the enterprise solution in which all components are developed by one company; and three, the best-of-breed approach, in which high quality individual components are melded together from various innovative developers to provide a solution for the customer.

We believe that the third model allows for the best, most innovative solutions, which give our customers flexibility and the most highly effective solution. By approaching the market as a solutions integrator, rather than a hardware provider, we believe our customers receive the best benefit.

As an example, our gripper conveyor is the backbone of our hardware offering. (We believe) it’s the best in the world in durability, speed and flexibility. We can adapt it to integrate with almost any other piece of equipment on the market. As good as this backbone is, other elements are needed to meet the needs of our customers.

By adapting our conveyor to other manufacturers’ products, we have been able to maintain our solution flexibility for those customers. By applying our engineering talents, we can develop solutions, which help the customer build an efficient mailroom solution, using our conveyor and components of other manufacturers.

To help the customer manage their operations, once this solution set is assembled, our management control software, Integrated Control System, can work with any of those suppliers’ equipment to tie the whole solution together. In this manner, the newspaper receives the benefits of the best of each component while still achieving a coordinated solution. This is the best-of-breed approach.

What mailroom trends should U.S. newspapers be looking at? What works best and why?

As a result of faster presses, shorter work windows and larger packages going out, mailrooms are now a much more important element in meeting the needs of newspapers and their customers. Simply stated, it’s the mailroom’s job to deliver.

The mailroom is now the response mechanism of newspapers and commercial printers to their market requirements. Our job is to assist the mailroom to provide the organization, equipment and support for the distribution mechanism that helps them better respond to needs and demands.

Previously, the mailroom was reactive to whatever publishing, editing, advertising and circulation needs were by adjusting manpower and schedules. Now, the cycle time is reduced and manpower is not so readily available. The efficiency and flexibility of the mailroom — because of the importance of speed, specificity and a compressed work window — is increasing in importance.

Innovation to assist the mailroom, and the whole newspaper, will come from multiple sources. To take advantage of these developments, the mailroom and the newspaper will need to innovate on their floor and in their management disciplines. Many manufacturers will participate in the presentation of point solutions. We expect that the control and management systems will play an increasingly important part in coordinating these solutions so the mailrooms can take advantage of individual innovations.

For these reasons, we will place increased market emphasis on the value added in our solutions engineering approach for planning of the innovation and in our ICS in the coordinating of the innovation, once it is implemented.

How does the way newspapers operate in the United States vs. the way they operate in Europe affect the way Ferag does business?

WRH and Ferag address each of their markets uniquely. Our Americas solution teams have been residing in the Americas for the past 30 years. This helps us focus on responding to the Americas’ needs. We are taking the best products that we have, and building our portfolio around them.

In the Americas market, the number of inserts is considerably higher than elsewhere in the world. Our response to this requirement is to integrate Ferag’s products with those produced by other manufacturers. This has been successfully accomplished for the past 30 years with virtually every mailroom vendor. By integrating with other vendors, our customers are able to benefit from a best-of-breed solution. We are able to help our customers manage this best-of-breed solution with our ICS.

How has newspaper consolidation affected the way you do business?

We recognize the consolidation interest that is out there. But even if you were to take the largest ownership group, they are still trying to build specific market delivery capabilities.

We deal on a very personal level with each one of our customers. In a sense, we are trying to apply lessons learned from many other industries. Yes, there is some consolidation and fewer individual ownership entities that are in the market, but if you look at many other industries that have experienced consolidation, they still must satisfy the local market and customer while they maintain corporate service levels. We recognize this.

What we also need to acknowledge is that while newspaper consolidation has occurred in terms of ownership, this has not necessarily translated to operations. While it has some national components to it, the newspaper is still a local product. Our solutions continue to focus on the market needs of our customers.

In a sense, the newspaper ownership consolidation works well with our market strengths. If operations consolidate, as well as ownership, our products have the performance and reliability to meet the demands of the higher volume throughput required. Our products allow for flexibility of mailroom configuration to changing requirements. We would be able to help our consolidated customers better manage their service and maintenance activities and inventories.

Many newspapers prefer to work with as few vendors as possible. Is Ferag doing anything to offer them a more complete system?

Yes. We have the partnerships that allow us to put together the complete system. Additionally, we provide our customers with flexibility to select the best of breed in every facet of the system. We will then tie it all together with our project management, engineering and ICS software.

While fewer vendors may be desirable, this won’t be achieved at the expense of their performance in the marketplace. We understand the need to perform. Our products do. We’ll be adding to our quality portfolio to coordinate products with the backbone of “the chain that has never broken in production.”