Putting the “Custom” in Customer

In the early- to mid-1980s, SGS recognized that a majority of the gravure cylinders it manufactured for printers were intended for relatively few consumer product companies (CPCs). Consequently, the company determined that there was a need to migrate upstream to where the value proposition for CPCs lay in brand management across various substrates and print disciplines. Previously, it had participated very little in the flexo market (the fastest-growing packaging segment at the time). With the acquisition of Wilson Engraving in the 1990s, however, the company launched itself into flexo. As a result, a majority of the acquisitions made by the Southern Graphics (neé Gravure) Systems since the mid-1990s have been trade shops with a mostly flexo, instead of gravure base.