Epson Always Keeps the Bar High in Developed Technologies

The Japanese pioneer in digital textile printing technology Epson, together with its For.Tex. and F.lli Robustelli subsidiaries, displayed the latest digital textile printing innovations and trends at the ITMA 2019.

We made an inteview with Epson’s Sales and Marketing Director Paolo Crespi and we talked about company’s expectations regarding the Turkey market, the goals and new projects.

Could you tell us about the products you exhibited at ITMA?

For the first time we show all three companies together under the brand name of Epson. At the beginning when we started more than 70 years ago we were three different companies. For.Tex provides dyes , thickeners and products for pre/posttrearment of fabrics and F.lli Robustelli is a leading company in the engineering and production of textile printers.

Today after that, Epson bought these companies and we can show our project Mona Lisa, the brand name is Mona Lisa. As we Epson, we showed unique Total Solution, a turnkey, integrated system for the textile printing world.

What does Epson do to produce durable and new machines in the digital printing industry?

Our products are really durable. The project we exhibit here includes the most durable machines on the market. The proof is that the machine we sold in 2003, 2004, 2005 and so on, are still in the market, still running. When the customer decides it’s right time to upgrade the technology because in the meantime we release a new had more performance, the customer may ask us to upgrade the machine. So it’s a nice project and in this way we are not obliged to destroy anyone. We renew the latest technology. IT’s an opportunity more and if you also consider the aspect of the sustainability, İt’s a good project because we save a lot of CO2 and iron and technology and so on.

What has been your company’s biggest achievement in the last 6 months starting from 2019 until now?

Last 6 months we moved to Latin America. There we have two new customers, big one, big enough. We develop and produce new items 64 inc that is practivally already sold.

After the ITMA show we will install in the customer’s site. We are showing and collecting the good responses from the market for the project we have pigment ink. We are really involved in this project pigment as the solution for the future. A solution for the branded fabrics, a solution because of a shorter process we can save a lot of water and chemicals.

If you assess in terms of the exports market, what is importance of Turkey for your company?

I am responsible for the sales in the European countries, Turkey and Latin America. So, the west part of the world. And of course my colleague from Japan is responsible for the east part. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Asia, including Japan for sure. Turkey is for me the first market in terms of importers after Italy. I really wish that we can recover the economic situation there, and go back again when we had very good success. It’s really important. The customers we have are installing new units. So they are improving their productivity. We are always searching new customers. There is plenty of opportunity because we only install in Çorlu, Istanbul and Bursa. Denizli and Antalya in the South area also so important. So we expect to expand even in this area of your country.

What is your approach to protecting the Epson brand?

We invited all the Turkish people to have a look on the Quality and the perception of Quality we would like to spread. Because you know the problem is that when you try to achieve a price lowest as possible sooner or later you will have to move down also on the perception of the Quality. This is the opposite of what we would like to do. Because we want to fix the Quality as high as possible, and then improve the productivity with a new model, new machine, new technology that every two or three years a group as Epson is going to produce.

The less the technology gives you the best chance to improve. If we move down the Quality, we have no chance for our company to survive. Because there is no margin, there is no possibility invest again. We wish. It’s not easy.

Do you have a new innovation in the near future?

Sure. Epson invests a lot of money every year, many patents, we have many patents. We will continue development of new items both for the model of printers and the ink. My company as well has big investments in the laboratory to develop new ink. New ink means to a large number of colors, and to improve the fastness, because for textiles, it is important to grant a good level of fastness.

What are your plans for the next couple of years?

I mean, we started more than 15 years ago in Italy textile district, because we were located there. But today with our new company group that is already well-known all over the world. We expected to spread our technology in each country. We already have all the commercial officeses already establish, already fixes since many times. Even textile business wolud be spread in the same way. So Turkey is one of the most important countries for us and we already have several units and store. So Turkey remains to be one of the most important. Unfortunately, from last August we slow down business. We expect and wish to recover as soon as possible. The interest of Turkish customers is really good and high. We are working with Turkish clients, most important one you probably know, So we are really happy. And for the other countries, we are at the beginning. The number of units to be sold is limited. We have plenty of opportunities. So we started in Latin America, two countries, Peru and Equador. In Brazil we were already there with some units. We wish to spread and gain new customers. This is for sure our expectation.

Interview: Dilek Hayırlı