Four printers give their view on the Corona situation

The Corona virus is hitting our industry hard. We have asked Scandbook, Ålgård Offset, Livonia Print and Ruter AB about how much they are affected by the situation and what they do to minimize the risks.

NB; The interviews were carried out on March 20, things may have changed since that.

Håvard Grjotheim, CEO of Scandbook

What are the reactions from your clients, i.e. in terms of new orders? Are there any products/services that are more or less affected than others?

– We are only experiencing a minor decrease in orders so far. The book seems to be a strong product even in a situation like this. Our clients are so far coordinating this in a good way.

What have you been doing when it comes to securing the production and to take care of the safety of your employees?

– We have already for several weeks been working with routines in order to minimize the risks and to protect our employees. When possible, the employees work from home. We have also set up new routines for suppliers to prevent personal contact. Furthermore, we have been working to secure deliveries and build up our storage of vital production material.

Have your company carried out or are you planning any lay-offs among the staff?

– No lay-offs so far at Scandbook, but we are having close contact with our employees every day.

Other reflections?

Lars G Andersson, Ruter/Falk Graphic

What are the reactions from your clients, i.e. in terms of new orders? Are there any products/services that are more or less affected than others?

– Uncertainty is the word that comes to my mind when trying to describe the situation. Some clients want to change their scheduled printing time on some products, but the majority of orders are produced according to plan.

What have you been doing when it comes to securing the production and to take care of the safety of your employees?

– The security of our employees is first priority. We made a risk analysis right away about our personnel and the risk of being infected by the virus. We have our production at three different sites, something that reduces the risk of a wide-spread virus situation.

Have your company carried out or are you planning any lay-offs among the staff?

– We have not carried out any lay-offs yet. If we are to do so, that is a decision that will be made at a later stage than this interview

Paul Bjarte Løyning, CEO of Ålgård Offset

What are the reactions from your clients, i.e. in terms of new orders? Are there any products/services that are more or less affected than others?

– We have got some cancellations and postponements of jobs. This is especially the case when it comes to ad-based catalogues and to some extent DM. Regular magazines and catalogues seem to go on as planned, same goes for DM for shops that are not part of big malls.

Have your company carried out or are you planning any lay-offs among the staff?

– Lay-offs have been carried out and some of them are already in effect. So far, this will be in place until the Easter is over. The Government has changed the rules this week so that our employees get close to full payment the first three weeks in Norway.

Other reflections?

– We are uncertain what will happen when the worst is over. How many of our clients will be able to survive, and what will the Government do to help all the businesses to get over this lock-down period.

Trond Erik Isaksen, Owner at Livonia Print

What are the reactions from your clients, i.e. in terms of new orders? Are there any products/services that are more or less affected than others?

– New orders are pretty good, I don’t see any sign of a slowdown yet. But we are of course very uncertain about the future, like everybody else.

What have you been doing when it comes to securing the production and to take care of the safety of your employees?

– People are working from home, separation between different parts of the production etc

Have your company carried out or are you planning any lay-offs among the staff?

– No, not yet.

Other reflections?

– To be able to keep the production running is our top priority.