Holmen Paper

Holmen’s paper 3 – 2008
“It is wonderful when something you really believe in
makes a real breakthrough and gives you energy and
inspiration; the energy to improve your quality, service
and partnerships even more; and the inspiration to face
new challenges in all areas of your work, including the
environment, to ensure that future generations will also
want to say …. …. bravo!”
Juha Paulin
Managing Director
Holmen Paper, Ibérica
2
Recycling is
second nature
Page 4–6
Focussing on the
whole world
Cost increases
dampen profitability
Page 7
El País invests globally
Pages 8–11
Pedro Garcia Guillén, CEO of El País, is convinced that daily
newspapers are better able to convey news and help readers understand what is going on in the world than more refined news media, such as TV, radio and the Internet.
This was one of the main reasons why El País decided
to choose the motto “Querer comprender” – the desire
to understand – when they conducted a major
overhaul and relaunch of the newspaper
around a year ago. Even more readers
throughout the world will be happy with the
new look El País. The newspaper will have a
possible target group of 700 million Spanishspeaking people when it positions itself as
a more global newspaper: “El periódico
global en español”.
Yvonne applauds
the change to Bravo
Pages 12–13
Hallsta turns the page
Pages 14–15
Page 8–11
TEXT: Strateg Marknadföring and Anders Thorén.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Ulla-Carin Ekblom
GRAPHIC DESIGN: Strateg Marknadsföring
PRINTING: Norrköpings tryckeri
PAPER: Holmen Ideal Volym 100 g
Holmen’s paper is issued by Holmen Paper and produced
in collaboration with Strateg Marknadsföring.
EDITOR: Henrik Sjölund
Holmen Paper AB
SE-601 88 Norrköping, Sweden
Tel.: +46 (0)11-23 50 00
Webb: www.holmenpaper.com
3
Holmen Paper Madrid:
100 % recovered paper
100 % recovered water
Holmen Paper Madrid is using unique technology to help it become as resourceefficient as possible. The mill already uses 100% recovered paper and its next step
is to use 100% ‘recovered water’. This will make it the first mill to do so in Europe.
There has been a considerable reduction in
the amount of building work going on
throughout Spain. After a long period of
high and sustained growth, the Spanish economy is suffering from a sharp decline. However, during the good years, industrial areas,
shopping centres and housing areas grew
rapidly, with the population of the Madrid
region growing at record pace. The growth
of the city has placed a drain on resources,
particularly water, which has always been in
short supply in the region.
4
Efficient use of resources
Three years ago Holmen Paper Madrid put
its new printing paper machine, PM 62, into
operation in the suburb of Fuenlabrada. Ever
since, they have focussed on becoming more
efficient with their use of resources. They are
trying to make the most of their base raw
materials, including paper and electricity, but
particularly water.
“The new PM 62 paper machine is one of
the most water-efficient in Europe. Mind
you, the mill does not lie on a body of water,
which means that we have to take all our
process water from Madrid’s water network.
This is not a good solution for us in the long
term, which is why we have been searching
high and low for new technical solutions,”
says Alvaro Sanchez, Technical Director at
Holmen Paper Madrid.
Technical breakthrough
Many people have been involved in this
search, including authorities, researchers and
other experts. And they have now made a
breakthrough. In two years Holmen Paper
Madrid will start to use water that has been
specially purified from a municipal purification plant in the vicinity: i.e. ‘recovered water’. It will be replacing the same amount of
drinking water consumed by 80,000 households with recovered water. There are not
many places in the world that have plants
like this, and the technical solution that is
being adopted in Madrid has been specially
developed to meet the particular needs of
Holmen Paper Madrid.
The plans for using recovered water were
unveiled in June 2008 when a partnership
agreement was signed between Holmen Paper Madrid, the state of Madrid and its water company Canal de Isabel II. This agreement means that Canal Isabel II will invest
around 13 million euros in a new full-scale
purification plant for waste water. The interested parties in the projects are promoting
technical developments that could have a
major impact on other industries as well.
Assured supply
“The partnership agreement lasts for 20
years, which gives Holmen Paper a long-term
solution for its water supply. This is good for
the company financially and for the environment,” says the Mill Manager of Holmen Paper
Madrid, Mikael Wirén. This investment will
save the mill from the inevitable price increases for fresh water in the future.
Holmen Paper is also feeling the pinch
from steep hikes in the prices of its other basic input goods, i.e. recovered paper and energy. It intends to withstand these increases
through offensive investments. It is building
up new electrical generation capacity, and in
recent years, it has invested heavily in expanding its collection systems and increasing
its capacity in its own recovered paper plant,
see page 6–7.
“We need to place special focus on the
price increases for recovered paper and electricity. We will strengthen our recovered paper operations, invest in electricity production and study how we can reduce our
electricity consumption,” says Mikael Wirén.
Unique technology
When the new purification plant is complete,
the water company Canal de Isabel II will
supply purified waste water to Holmen Paper Madrid. There are six stages involved in
this purification process: from conventional
purification, to more advanced purification,
including ultra filtration, membrane filtration using reverse osmosis and finally treatment using UV light. Extremely small particles such as bacteria are eliminated through
this purification process.
“We are now working
on the next stage”
While the pilot tests are in full swing for the
company’s ‘recovered water’, engineers from
Holmen Paper Madrid have already started to
prepare for the next stage. They are working
with a group of researchers from Universidad
Complutense to see whether it is possible to
recirculate a large proportion of the process
water within the mill itself. This would radically reduce the mill’s total water consumption.
New internal purification technology will
be needed to achieve this; technology which
will have to be as advanced as the technology
being used for recovered water.
No decisions have so far been made on this
investment, but the tests seem to have been
promising so far. Alvaro Sanchez and his colleagues have a very clear vision for the future.
“We hope and believe that we can reduce
the mill’s water consumption by 40–50 percent for each tonne of paper. If we can achieve
this aim, it will be a significant technological
advance, which would have a major impact
on industry as a whole,” says Alvaro Sanchez.
5
Ruth studying for a doctorate in
water technology
Ruth Ordoñez is one of the young researchers
involved in the water purification project at
Holmen Paper Madrid. She graduated as a
chemical engineer at Universidad Complutense and then decided to study for a doctorate in environmental technology. She has
been working full time as an industrial doctoral student at the pilot tests for Holmen Paper Madrid for some time now.
“In the future, I’d like to work with water
purification, so this job is perfect – it allows
me to learn so much in such a short period of
time. It has also given me the opportunity to
solve the kinds of problems that always ap-
pear in this kind of pilot project,” says Ruth
Ordoñez.
As an industrial doctoral student at a fully
operational paper mill, she has to be prepared
to face extremely varied and unexpected technical challenges. At the moment, she is looking more closely at how ‘good’ bacteria in the
purification plant can contribute to a good
purification result, and how ph, temperature,
etc. can affect them.
“This might sound a little strange, but I
find it extremely fascinating,” she says with a
big smile.
Self-sufficient for
electrical energy
Holmen Paper Madrid currently generates 42
GW of electrical energy in a cogen plant, which
runs on natural gas. In the plant, electricity and
steam are produced to dry the paper in the drying sections of the paper machines. Although
electricity prices have risen considerably in recent
years, Holmen Paper Madrid has been able to
offset some of this cost by producing electricity
themselves. A decision was recently made to
build a second cogen plant. This investment is
worth 30 million euros and will increase the electricity capacity by 30 GW, making the mill essentially self-sufficient. Both the new and existing
cogen plant will be owned and run by a special
company, which will be jointly owned by Holmen Paper Madrid and the Spanish energy
company.
Holmen Paper Madrid
Holmen Paper Madrid is located 20 km south of Madrid. The plant started operating back in 1998 and
was acquired by Holmen in July 2000.
With two paper machines, PM 61 and PM 62, the mill now has the capacity to produce 470,000
tonnes of newsprint, and MF special and lightly coated magazine paper. Its production is based completely on recovered paper. The paper is mainly produced for customers on the Iberian peninsula,
where Holmen Paper Madrid is the market leader. The factory employs 600 people, including those
working at the Carpa paper collection company.
6
Recovered paper
costs impact the
whole industry
The high price of recovered paper has been
the main challenge facing the newspaper industry on the European continent. Over the
past 18 months, the price has risen by around
50 percent, which has obviously had a significant impact on the profitability of mills.
Over the past three years Holmen Paper
Madrid has invested heavily in its own collection companies to secure supplies and to keep
its costs down. It now has its own collection
company, Carpa, which works in the Madrid
region and has part ownership in collection
companies in Portugal and France. The company has also built up a system for recovered
paper deliveries from Britain.
“This network has enabled us to have a
relatively strong position on the recovered paper market. We also put a new sorting plant
into production at the mill in the spring of
2008, which increased our capacity from
90,000 tonnes to 120,000 tonnes per year,”
says Mill Manager Mikael Wirén.
There has been a significant increase in the
collection of recovered paper in Spain. It
stood at around 50 percent only a short while
ago, but in 2007 this figure reached 64 percent, and there are clear indications that it
will rise to 73 percent. This positive trend is
mainly due to the investments that Holmen
and other paper producers have made in collection systems and new recovered paper
plants. The Spanish paper industry’s trade association is also carrying out a successful campaign to encourage paper collection.
“The trend is very positive, but the problem for the paper industry in this country lies
in the fact that some of the collected paper is
exported. For example, Asian companies are
buying up large volumes of recovered paper at
prices that the European industry is not prepared to match,” says Mikael Wirén.
7
New El País
– more youthful, more global
‘Understand’, ‘explain’ and ‘change’: these are key words at El País and can be seen
not only in its journalism, but also in the management of the company itself.
“Understanding the market and changing our activities accordingly are the key to our
success,” according to Pedro García Guillén, Director General of El País.
There is something special about visiting El País for the first time. It is
of course the newspaper that became the symbol of the Spanish democratic process after its launch in 1976, and its integrity and committed
journalism have earned it tremendous respect throughout the world.
El País is now the flagship for the Grupo Prisa media group and
reaches more than 50 million Spanish-speaking media consumers in
Spain, Portugal and on the American continents through newspapers,
TV, radio, the Internet and its training department.
Pedro García Guillén has worked for Grupo Prisa for 18
years, and has been the Director General of El País for
the past eight years. He believes that the past still influences the newspapers’ activities.
“El País stands out from the crowd because of its
independence, the quality of its content and its staff’s
devotion, professionalism and commitment to their
work. Many colleagues have been there from the start
and the newspaper has become like a second home to
them. And even the younger employees cannot help but
be influenced by the reputation of the editorial team,” he says.
8
Rise in circulation
El País has built up a strong position throughout the years, not only
in the quality of its journalism, but also as a commercial enterprise. El
País has long been the most successful paid newspaper written in
Spanish, even though the country’s free newspapers are now attracting an increasing number of readers.
It is interesting to note that the circulation and readership figures
of El País have increased in recent years, despite competition from
free newspapers and the Internet. In 2007 El País achieved a circulation of 435,000, while the number of El País readers stood at more
than 2.2 million. These are statistics compiled by EGM (Estudio
General de Medios).
Major change
Pedro García Guillén believes that the ability to change is one of the
main reasons for El País’ success. On 21 October 2007 the newspaper saw the most radical change in its history. The appearance of El País changed completely, including shorter
articles, larger pictures, more news graphics and colour
on all pages. It has also become easier to navigate,
with news-hungry readers able to find what they are
looking for more quickly. However, it is not only the
appearance that has changed; the order of the newspaper is now different, it has new content, has developed
a new style and includes more of its own reports and
analyses.
“Querer comprender” – the desire to understand – became the motto for the launch of this more youthful and global El País.
There has been better communication with new reader groups
through the web edition at www.elpais.com, which has attracted high
readership figures.
“The El País of today should not only provide news, it should also
help the reader to really understand what is happening in an increasingly more complex society. Daily newspapers actually have better
conditions to do this than more refined news media, such as TV, radio,
the Internet and mobile phones,” says Pedro García Guillén.
Global investment
Another driving force behind this change was
the strategic decision to make El País into “El
periódico global en español” (the global daily
newspaper written in Spanish). The Chief Editor, Javier Moreno, has strengthened its international reporting. And in addition to its
own foreign material, El País publishes a
Spanish-speaking supplement every week
with articles from The New York Times. It
also has a daily English issue for the International Herald Tribune in Spain and the web
version at www.elpais.com has a global version as well.
El País already sells more than 20,000 copies outside Spain and is printed in London,
Charleroi, Frankfurt, Milan, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. The aim is to expand much
further into Latin America, and also among
the increasing number of Spanish speakers in
the USA. There is a global market of 700 million people, who not only share a language,
but also share many cultural values.
The strategy adopted by the management
team of El País is to globalise on a step by
step basis, while making use of all the synergies of Grupo Prisa, which operates in 22
countries.
“El País will expand into new markets. If
we don’t, who will? No other newspaper has
such good conditions to do this,” says Pedro
García Guillén.
Facts about Grupo Prisa
Grupo Prisa is the largest media group
in Spain, and runs activities in the
press, radio, TV, training/books and
digital media. It operates in 22 countries, in addition to its main market,
Spain/Portugal. The press division includes well-known daily newspapers
such as El País, the sports newspaper
AS and the finance newspaper Cinco
Días, along with a large number of
magazines. In 2007 Grupo Prisa reported a turnover of around 3.7 billion
euros and employs around 13,000
employees.
Cinco Días
Evolution of circulation
– number of copies
Källa: OJD
El País
– number of readers
Source: EGM
As
Evolution of circulation
– number of copies
Källa: OJD
2 500 000
50 000
250 000
2 000 000
40 000
200 000
1 500 000
30 000
150 000
1 000 000
20 000
100 000
500 000
10 000
50 000
0
2005
2006
2007
0
2005
2006
2007
0
2005
2006
2007
9
Three questions
to the Director
General
What do you think about the competition
from free newspapers?
“El País has not really been affected that
much by free newspapers, as they attract a
readership that did not read newspapers at
all before. There is oversaturation on the
market for free newspapers in Spain, and
this will most probably lead to closures and
mergers. This in turn will reduce competition in the future. The major challenge for
El País actually comes from digital media.”
Will daily newspapers become thinner
in the future?
“Yes, when the amount of advertising falls,
it is natural for the publisher to think about
costs and reduce the number of pages. As
people get less time on their hands, we have
to compete on quality, not on the actual
size of the newspaper.”
People in Spain are reading more newspapers. Can this trend continue?
“I wouldn’t like to count on this. The
country is the middle of a general economic
crisis and there is an increase in the range
of other media. This means that we cannot
count on getting higher readership figures.
We still have a little way to go to reach the
average in Europe, but I think that we have
now reached the top of the curve, after
many years of increases,” says Pedro García
Guillén, Director General of El País.
10
Opera and computers
attract new readers
As far as circulation figures are concerned,
newspapers in Spain have gone against the
general trend. While circulation has remained relatively constant here, the European market in general has seen a downward trend.
One of the many reasons for this is the
fact that Spanish newspaper publishers work
in an extremely targeted way, offering promotions linked to the newspaper. Customers
are given the opportunity to buy everything
from opera on DVD to computer training
programs from Microsoft all at a low price.
You do have to buy a newspaper though...
“Promotions appear in many countries
and have become an important source of
revenue for many publishers. However, in
Spain, we primarily use promotions to increase circulation, not to improve our profits,” says Pedro García Guillén, the Director
General of El País.
The number of promotions is also particularly high in Spain and El País is one of
its greatest advocates. Virtually every week,
readers are given the opportunity to buy, for
example, a collection of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, a complete series on
Spain’s history or a quick course in how to
look after your dog. As sales of single copies
are so important, El País has a lot to gain if
they can attract new customers to the newspaper kiosks.
Advertising crisis
forces change
The downturn in the Spanish economy has
had a significant impact on daily newspapers. Signs of a weaker advertising market
had already been detected at the beginning
of the year, but the summer’s collapse came
as a surprise for many people.
The crisis has been most apparent for
the advertising of housing and job vacancies, but the decline has been seen throughout the sector. It is estimated that daily
press advertising will fall by at least 20 percent, but maybe as much as 30 percent.
The problems in the Spanish economy
are structural and have been influenced by
the global financial crisis. This means that
there will be changes to the organisations
of daily press publishers. Management
teams are now desperately on the lookout for opportunities to become more efficient throughout the chain, from editorial teams, administration and sales, to
printing and distribution.
Discussions have been taking place on
centralising printing operations into fewer
daily press centres. At the moment, there are
around 70 daily newspaper printers in
Spain, and their printing presses are not
used 24 hours a day. Outsourcing and coop-
eration have proved to be a good model in
the distribution chain, and they may come
to play a role in the actual printing as well.
As far as editorial operations are concerned, many newspapers are looking at
the possibilities of increasing integration
between the editorial teams of paper newspapers and the online editions. The heads
of the advertising departments are also
paving the way for new alliances to ensure
that they can increase the impact of their
daily press advertising, both in terms of geography and in terms of target groups.
This crisis has thrown many balls up
into the air and we will see how they land
in the years to come. It is possible that the
publishers will place greater focus on core
operations such as the editorial teams and
advertising sales, while they find more flexible ways of working in administration and
technical production.
“Each newspaper publisher will find their
own way forwards, and I am personally optimistic about the future of the daily press.
However, to do this, all of us in the industry
have to be willing and able to make the
changes that are required,” says the Director
General of El País, Pedro García Guillén.
11
Like a fine old wine...
The turmoil on the advertising market and the global financial crisis have impacted hard on many Spanish newspaper and magazine publishers. However,
crisis normally have positive effects as well, as they force companies to put
into place cost-efficiency measures and innovate, according to Yvonne Gillet,
Purchasing and Production Manager.
“We will certainly see mergers and closures in the industry. Only the best
will survive and we hope to be one of them,” she says.
She thinks that traditional paper media will manage relatively well, despite
competition from digital media.
“Paper-based media will probably see a fall in their share of the market
as a whole. However, good newspapers, magazines and books will always be
in demand. They are like wine. There is always a clientele, always a market
for fine vintage wine,” she says.
One of the reasons why the changeover was so
successful was the change management work that
Grupo Zeta and Holmen undertook, says Yvonne Gillet.
Breakthrough for Bravo
adopting a new position on the newspaper and magazine market
Changing from one paper type to another is always a major step for a newspaper and
magazine publisher. The Spanish Grupo Zeta chose to do this at the same time for ten
of its major publications.
Yvonne Gillet came to the company from the
car industry. With 18 years’ experience at
DaimlerChrysler España, she has been able to
provide Grupo Zeta with fresh ideas for purchasing and production. The family-owned
Grupo Zeta is one of Spain’s largest publishing houses, whose activities include newspapers, magazines, books, radio and TV, films
and multimedia.
“Grupo Zeta has lots of competence in the
publishing and media sector. It is very exciting
to search opportunities to complement it with
my own experience from a global industrial
company. Together we have been able to implement a number of improvements over a
short period of time,” says Yvonne Gillet.
Yvonne Gillet was recruited as the Purchasing and Production Manager at Grupo
Zeta two years ago. The company’s profitability was being hit hard and the management was looking for new approaches. Some
of the changes that Yvonne Gillet implemented at the beginning included the move to centralised purchasing and systematic work to
ensure cost improvements throughout the
supply chain.
New partners, new ideas
Paper will obviously be one of the key items
for a new purchasing and production director
who is working for a company that publishes
a high amount of daily newspapers, lots of
magazines and an extensive range of books.
Yvonne Gillet initially looked for new partners
that would be able to contribute with suggestions for cost improvements, new innovations,
flexibility and good service. As she was looking
at Grupo Zeta’s magazine and newspaper
publications, Holmen Paper Madrid took the
initiative to have an exploratory discussion
into whether or not the group could start to
use the recently launched Bravo paper. Bravo
paper is an LWC paper that is based entirely
on recycled fibres.
“On one hand, we were open to new ideas
and Holmen Paper and their Bravo paper stood
out as an exciting alternative worth to try and
on the other hand, Holmen was keen to try out
their new product, with one of the major magazine publishers,” says Yvonne Gillet.
Proximity important
“Having a domestic paper supplier that was
located so close to Grupo Zeta’s own operations was also an advantage when we were
looking at logistics and technical cooperation,” she adds. After the logical quality
tests, pilots and discussions, Grupo Zeta was
ready to make the decision. In December
2007, Bravo paper was introduced for a
short period of time in ten of the group’s
publications, including the well-known
weekly newspapers and magazines Tiempo,
Interviú and Cuore.
“This kind of major change is always risky.
However, we both invested time, illusion,
good ideas and good resources so that the result was really worth it,” says Yvonne Gillet.
One of the reasons why the changeover was
so successful was the “change management”
work that Holmen and Grupo Zeta undertook. They set up a joint project team, which
included open minded people from both companies with a good technical background.
Positive feedback from readers
The introduction of Bravo was followed up by
internal and external evaluations. As always,
there were some problems in the introductory
phase, but the final result was very good in
terms of quality (printability and runnability),
cost optimization and it got a good reception
from the market too. The reactions from editors and readers have been positive throughout. The LWC paper gives magazines and
newspapers a new image and it is made from
100-percent recycled paper which is very
positive as well.
“The cooperation between us and Holmen
Paper Madrid has therefore got off to a good
start,” says Yvonne Gillet.
“I would also like to underline the fact that
this is a process that’s alive, in which both
parties have to look for improvements at all
times, we can’t rest. We are therefore expecting quality and service to continue to improve
and are looking forward to getting more good
ideas on how to improve from Holmen Paper
in the future,” says Yvonne Gillet.
13
Around 8 million euros have been invested
to enable PM 12 in Hallsta to produce
newsprint and book paper.
A new chapter in
the Holmen Book
The third of November is a special day in the
history of the Hallsta Paper Mill. This is the day
when PM 12 will take over the production of
Holmen Book from PM 2, which is being shut
down after 50 years of long and reliable service.
“We are moving our production to a more
modern machine, which will be one of Europe’s
largest book paper machines. The change-over
to the new machine will increase flexibility in our
production and this will benefit our customers,”
says Ulf Öberg.
14
“We’ve had an extremely good dialogue with
our customers during the changeover period,” says Ann Mattsson from the development department and Ulf Öberg from the
technical customer service department.
Ulf is linked to the technical customer service
department in Norrköping but works in Hallstavik. He is one of the people who have been
involved in the project that has led to the
change in production at the Hallsta Mill.
The end of this project, which has been
managed by Emil Palmqvist, will represent
the end of nine months of intensive preparations. Ulf is confident about its success.
This is because of two main factors: the
dialogue that they have had with Holmen
Book customers throughout this journey,
and the investments that have been made in
the mill itself.
Great interest
Customers have been very interested to follow the developments in this changeover.
“We have had an incredible response from
customers when we have been at their
premises, testing the new rolls. There has
been constructive dialogue between us, and
we have collected many valuable opinions
from them, for example, on shades, printability and binding,” says Ulf Öberg.
The information that this dialogue has
produced has been able to benefit not only
the technical customer service department
but also the development department at
Hallsta.
“Our customers’ opinions have been extremely valuable in our work to optimise different processes in our production,” says Ann
Mattsson from the development department.
These visits, conversations and tests have
produced clear results; Hallsta has been able
to grant all of the wishes that its customers
have had for important properties such as
bulk and shades.
New disc filter
The investment the company has made to allow PM 12 to produce newsprint and book
paper amounts to around 8 million euros.
A new dye metering, dosing and control
system, a new ash content meter and new filler tanks are some of the results of the money
that has been invested. The reeling machine
has also been rebuilt to meet the need for
thinner rolls among book printers.
“The machine now has seventeen knives,”
says Ulf Öberg.
The largest single investment has been the
new disc filter, which provides a cleaner and
more stable process, helping the company to
increase the brightness of its paper.
“This is extremely important for our customers. We also needed to invest in a new
disc filter to produce cream-coloured book
paper at PM 12,” says Ulf Öberg.
Jens moving out to be with the customers
The production of newsprint and book paper
at PM 12 will be divided into three-week cycles, because Hallsta needs to produce paper
at different levels of grammage and brightness.
“This production cycle allows us to use
the paper machine as rationally as possible
and also gives us the flexibility we need to
serve our customers in an optimum way,”
says Ulf Öberg.
Holmen Paper has also made another important decision that will improve its customer service: Jens Erkas will now be linked to
the technical customer service department.
Jens is leaving his job as foreman at PM 12
so he can spend some time visiting and helping newsprint and book printing firms. This
will ensure that they can get the very best
printing results from Hallsta’s products.
“Of course, the closer we can get to our customers, the better. Proximity will allow us to
strengthen our contacts and gather and feedback our customers’ experiences to the mill,”
says Ulf Öberg.
Everything that is linked to the changeover
will be introduced and completed by January
2009. Jens can then look forward to visiting
customers around Europe with Holmen Book
in his luggage.
15
Inspiration days
in Frankfurt
How can you act in a media landscape that is changing so rapidly?
How can you make the most of the
power and growth that direct marketing can offer?
These are the questions that Maj
Bonde-Teir and Peter Westerståhl
from Icebreak asked when they introduced the XLNT seminar, which
Holmen Paper recently organised in
Frankfurt.
“The knowledge of how new
media works and the effect it can
have has not increased as much as
the knowledge of, for example, direct marketing,” says Maj BondeTeir, who answered far more than
just her introductory questions.
Both of the speakers from Icebreak highlighted some interesting
trends in direct marketing. Alistair
Tempest, Director General at Fedma, also talked on this subject, explaining how to raise awareness of
the opportunities that DM can offer.
One very popular talk during the
event was given by Tim Ewington
and Mike Soutar. The pair are behind ‘Shortlist, which is a free magazine with a circulation of 500,000
a week. They spoke about their
business concept and their successful way of reaching their target
group, who have “more than one
thing on their minds…”.
The seminar ended with a presentation from Holmen XLNT, in
which Tommy Wiksand highlighted
the opportunities that paper can offer for DM.
One of the most popular parts of
the seminar looked at the environmental aspect of paper and forestry.
In this section, the Head of the Environment, Ola Kårén, reported on how
Holmen Skog produces its raw material and promotes sustainable forestry.
Prices of wood
raw material
remain high
Thanks and
goodbye to
Holmen Ideal
In recent years, the prices of pulpwood have increased by around 20
percent in Sweden.
Industry experts predict that
they will remain high for the foreseeable future.
Tougher competition for raw
materials is behind these increases,
and the main reason for this is the
higher level of interest in biofuels.
One other factor behind the rise
in raw material prices is the fact
that Russia is introducing a charge
for exporting round timber. At the
beginning of 2009, the export
charge that will already have been
introduced will go up by a further
50 euros per cubic metre. This will
basically put a stop to all exports of
round timber from Russia.
Industry analysts believe that
Operations at Holmen Paper
Wargön will shut down in the middle of December. This decision was
taken by the Board of Holmen in
August. The mill closure will end
an industrial era that started back
in 1874.
There were two factors that led
the Board to close Wargön Mill;
firstly, it has had to face extremely
tough competition in the coated
print paper sector and secondly it is
one of the smallest plants in Europe
that produces the same kind of paper qualities.
“We have not been able to turn
the mill around, despite great efforts from our employees, as well as
investments, increases in production and product development,”
says Magnus Hall, Group Head
and CEO at Holmen.
Other factors that were also taken into consideration when deciding to close the mill were the significant cost increases in wood, energy
and other input goods.
The closure will see an end to
the production of coated printed
material and the Holmen Ideal
brands – Gloss, Matt and Volume
– on 1 January 2009.
this action from Russia is part of
the energy strategy that it has
adopted. They are aiming to refine
wood raw material in their own
plants as far as possible. They are
at the planning stage at the moment
and already have a few extremely
large pulp mills and a high number
of ethanol factories and plants to
produce fuel pellets.
www.holmenpaper.com
English