Alon Bar-Shany to leave HP-Indigo

How will Bar-Shany follow up his great run at HP-Indigo?

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Alon Bar-Shany
Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general manager, HP Indigo at LabelExpo in Brussels September 2019 Photo IPP

The news of Alon Bar-Shany’s departure from HP-Indigo, a company that he has run for the past 15 years, was first reported by Israeli technology publication, Ctech. Subsequently, an HP spokesperson confirmed the news and the appointment of HP veteran Haim Levit to take his place. Levit, who currently resides in Boston in the US, will move to Israel during the summer. Bar-Shany has agreed to stay on for a smooth transition.

To us, in India, Bar-Shany’s departure is a bit of a shock since he is young and has led the company from the front, frequently visiting the country and meeting up with customers and taking part in their launches of HP Indigo equipment. When we asked an industry expert in the UK as to what might be the reason, he said that although he too couldn’t be sure, it might be that Bar-Shany wanted to retire and perhaps saw that the future is inkjet and where HP would likely be investing more in the future.

Bar-Shany brought Indigo technology to global markets and expanded its reach into the packaging segment. Although the ‘liquid toner’ or ‘electroink’ technology invented by Benny Landa was first presented at Ipex in Birmingham in 1994, it only took off when HP bought out Landa in 2001, stabilized the technology, and invested heavily in its ink supply chain and marketing.

Indigo gained significant market share with Alon Bar-Shany as its global champion, especially as he became the head of HP Indigo in 2005. CTech reports that the reason for Bar-Shany’s departure was that he did not agree with HP’s plan to dramatically reduce the workforce numbers at HP Indigo’s sprawling research and development site in Rehovot in Israel. 

However, HP’s statement says, “Haim Levit has been appointed as general manager of HP Indigo. He succeeds Alon Bar-Shany, who has successfully led HP Indigo for more than 15 years. We are grateful to Alon for all he has done to make Indigo the market leader in digital printing, and we will benefit from his many contributions to our business for years to come.” 

An HP spokesperson added to Australia’s Sprinter, “After Bar-Shany’s 15 years in the role as head of HP Indigo, it was time to implement succession planning. . . Alon built a deep bench of talented leaders, and Haim is the right leader at the right time to lead Indigo forward.”

In March 2020, Bar-Shany presided over the launch of Indigo’s new range of printing technologies, including the HP Indigo 100K digital ‘born to run’ press meant for the drupa 2020 exhibition, now postponed to 2021. Bar-Shany will stay with HP to ensure a seamless transition during the coming weeks and months.

Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general manager at HP Indigo (third from left) with Ramesh Kejriwal, chairman of Parksons Packaging (second from right) and Siddharth Kejriwal, director of Parksons Packaging (right most corner) at the installation of HP Indigo 30000 digital press at Parksons Packaging plant in Daman.
Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general manager at HP Indigo (third from left) with Ramesh Kejriwal, chairman of Parksons Packaging (second from right) and Chaitanya and Siddharth Kejriwal, directors of Parksons Packaging (at left) at the installation of HP Indigo 30000 digital press at Parksons Packaging plant in Daman.

Our view

I think the loss of Bar-Shany is a massive loss to HP-Indigo. He is known for being close to Indigo customers, and we know he has been helpful to Indian customers as recently as the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown.

Although I was not one of the trade journalists particularly close to him, we saw each other maybe 20 times in the past 20 years – at shows including Ipex, drupa, Labelexpo, interpacks, Igas, and perhaps a few times on press junkets to Singapore, Israel, and Australia.

He is a young and brilliant organizer and communicator. His quick grasp of the intricacies of new things such as digital cartons and flexible packaging have shown a great focus on making the future possible. At each successive event, he would add a piece to the puzzle of label and packaging converting, recognizing that HP Indigo needed to collaborate with companies that had the requisite domain expertise. 

Examples abound, such as the tie-up with a European converting equipment manufacturer for its expertise in film web handling and lamination and with another for adding a coater. I have heard him speak about flat whites and better and cheaper flat whites at LabelExpo and have always admired him for showing shelves of consumer products printed on the Indigo at every show. He has the imagination to see that the most exciting thing about what we do is the packaging itself and its shelf-impact. Like many others, I am keen to know the real reason for his departure, where he is going, and what the actual financial numbers of the HP Indigo are.

2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India

Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.

The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry. While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.

The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.

Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.

Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.

Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.

– Naresh Khanna

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