From Printing to Digitalization Expert

Wirtschaftsforum: Mr. Bäbler, in recent years Faigle AG has consistently evolved from a provider of Managed Print Solutions to an expert in the digitalization of business processes – how did this change come about?

Armin Bäbler: We continue to distribute devices that can print or scan documents on site at the customer's location, and we also offer the option to outsource these tasks to us: we then print and package the documents in our own center and subsequently hand them over to the postal service. This allows us to always adjust the equipment park and the costs optimally to the requirements of our customers from a business management perspective.

Wirtschaftsforum: Where does Faigle's digitalization expertise come into play in this context?

Armin Bäbler: When a document is scanned, this step often represents the entry point of a digitalization process. With our AI-based solutions, we are now able to read out the relevant data of the physical document with very high accuracy and then transfer it into the respective business processes – the classic example is the incoming mail, which we are happy to capture for our customers, or for which we distribute the corresponding devices. The major change in companies now lies in the fact that individual processes are often no longer triggered by a document as before, but ideally start on their own. For instance, when a new employee joins the company, this process is now often fully digital and not primarily based on documents. Our team has comprehensive know-how to provide targeted support to our customers with such questions.

Wirtschaftsforum: Many companies want to become paperless as quickly as possible – does this ultimately pose a threat to your business model?

Armin Bäbler: Indeed, the volume of paper is decreasing – but most companies will not become completely paperless in the foreseeable future. We rather find that only what actually needs to be physically on paper is still being printed. As an experienced provider with excellent service quality, we will continue to provide devices that reliably meet these requirements. At the same time, we are very consciously shaping the shift towards becoming experts in the digitalization of business processes, and we see this segment as a particularly interesting future for our company.

Wirtschaftsforum: Did Faigle's expertise also have to change in this regard?

Armin Bäbler: Certainly, against this backdrop, our employees have evolved from equipment sales to technically skilled support in digitalization processes. By now, we rely on a strong team that recognizes corresponding optimization potential among our clients based on its grown expertise and provides sustainable concepts for it. Simultaneously, Faigle relies on its own research and development team, which devises entirely new solutions for existing challenges: for example, we had been dissatisfied with the available scanning engines for a long time – but now we can achieve excellent results in reading document data based on our own development. The same applies to cross-channel printing processes: when a document is handed over to us, we can now automatically decide in what form it should ideally be output – whether as an E-invoice, through secure PDF dispatch, or as a physical paper printout.

Wirtschaftsforum: How do you view the industry-wide changes in your segment in the meantime?

Armin Bäbler: The classic printer business is no longer characterized by general growth but has increasingly become a displacement market in which only competitors who can offer meaningful additional services will survive. In the course of this market consolidation, we will also acquire further competitors in perspective and expand our portfolio to support our customers even more comprehensively in digitalization.

Wirtschaftsforum: What market position is Faigle aiming for in the long term?

Armin Bäbler: As a classic Swiss mid-sized company, it is clear to us that we will never win a price war but can only convince with reliably high quality. In the classic printer business, we were lucky never to have been exposed to international competition, since the relevant machines are located here in Switzerland and therefore need to be serviced locally. The digitalization business is different now – which is why we are scoring points here with an even more comprehensive quality promise. Our clear goal is to establish ourselves as a provider that can map the entire document management for the client in an overarching process. This is the future!