FuturePrint Podcast
FuturePrint is dedicated to and passionate about the power of print technology to enable new opportunities and create new value. This pod features deep-dive discussions with the people behind the tech as well as market analysis, trends, marketing and storytelling!
FuturePrint Podcast
#226 Nazdar: A Century of Printing Excellence, Innovating into the Future, and the Importance of a North Star
How does a small Chicago-based ink manufacturer transform into a global leader in printing technology? Join us for an engaging conversation with Richard Bowles, President and CEO, and Josh Lutz, Market Segment Leader for UV and LED Inkjet Technologies at NAZDAR, as we uncover the secrets behind this remarkable journey. Richard shares his intriguing journey from electrical engineering to leading NAZDAR, drawing on his 22-year tenure and various leadership roles. Meanwhile, Josh reflects on his path from a humble internship to a pivotal leadership position, emphasizing his rich technical and marketing background. Together, they illuminate NAZDAR's past, present, and future, offering a captivating glimpse into their innovative spirit and strategic vision for the printing industry.
In our discussion, we tackle the dynamic shift from analogue to digital printing, focusing on the intricate challenges and breakthroughs in ink technology. Richard and Josh delve into the art of developing versatile digital inks and the critical partnerships with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) that drive this innovation. We also explore the complex web of international regulations that must be navigated, particularly in the textile industry, and highlight NAZDAR's advancements in high viscosity inks.
With global uncertainties from pandemics to supply chain disruptions, they reveal the strategic planning and cultural dynamics essential for staying agile and consistent in a rapidly changing world. Tune in to discover how NAZDAR continues to lead the charge in printing technology, blending creativity with meticulous planning.
More information:
website: https://www.nazdar.com/en-us/Contact-Us
Email: NITpromo@nazdar.com
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FuturePrint TECH: Industrial Print: 21-22 January '26, Munich, Germany
Welcome to the FuturePrint podcast celebrating print technology and the people behind it.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the latest episode of the FuturePrint podcast. Today's episode I'm going to be talking with industry leaders Richard Bowles, who is president and CEO, and Josh Lutz, who is market segment leader for UV and LED inkjet technologies at NASDAQ, a fairly recent future print partner. We in this podcast will be discussing the evolution of NASDAQ as a company and its vision for the future of printing. With over a century of experience, which I think is significant for any business. Over a century, nasdaq has grown from a Chicago-based manufacturer of screen printing inks into a significant global leader in printing ink manufacturing, really leading the way in both analog and digital printing ink manufacturing. Welcome to the Future Print Podcast, gentlemen.
Speaker 3:Glad to be here.
Speaker 4:Thank you Glad to be here. Thank you Glad to be here.
Speaker 2:From a very sort of snowy part of the world that you are in America. We'll find out a little more about all of that as we go through the conversation. What would be really useful actually is for us to understand a bit more about yourselves and your roles and so on. So what would be good, richard, if you could sort of yeah, give us a little bit of an introduction to yourself, because you're obviously the CEO of NASDAQ and an important role. So, yeah, over to you, richard, give a little bit of an introduction, if that's OK.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks, marcus. I'm Richard Goals. I'm president and CEO of NASDAR. I've been with NASDAR for oh my gosh, it's 22 years now, just had my 22nd anniversary. So you know sitting here in snowy Kansas City today and enjoying it. But you know, getting into the print business is kind of a long story. I'm actually an electrical engineer by education, and so now I ended up in what is really a chemical-type company. So that's kind of a long story, but I'll try to keep it short. Whenever I first got out of school, I was designing hardware systems and my first job was designing grips for laser printers. So my entire career has been about putting dots on substrates, and after a few years of doing that, I moved into the sales marketing side of the business and moved over to NASDAQ, like I said, in 2002. We split into two divisions in 2005, and I headed up our ink technologies division and then became president and CEO of NASDAQ in 2018 yeah, yeah, and that's obviously as a, as a business is.
Speaker 2:It's a significant one, isn't it? It's um, you know, you've got that kind of nice mix of kind of an entrepreneurial background, but actually you've got scale and size and so on, so I'm not surprised it's kept you um there as a, as a business, and continually sort of given you that opportunity to grow, josh, thanks for that, richard. A little bit about you, josh, and what is your background and what it is you do for NASDAQ.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thank you. My story starts kind of back to my university days. So in 2007, I joined NASDAQ with an internship to finish up my bachelor's degree. At that time it led me into a full-time technical role focused on our early days of the development side of the UV solvent water-based digital products, and that role was very hands-on. I was doing a lot of the internal testing, external testing of our new products, evaluating the applications and reporting on that, training our distribution partners on how to use our products and dial it in for various types of machinery. Back at that time, one of the other things I had a lot of focus on was the color management side of things. So at that time, our consultant group was large and we were going around with ID Alliance certifying customer bases with the G7 methodologies in our analog and digital, and then for about a decade after or for a decade, that was that role, and then I'd moved into the marketing side in 2018 to lead up the market segments for our UV and LED inkjet technologies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so you've got quite a rich experience. You're not necessarily senior in age, but obviously you moved on. Quite a rich experience will be, you're not or not. You're not necessarily senior in age, but obviously you're. You moved on quite a bit within the business there, given, uh, the amount of time you've been there. So, um, rewinding a bit maybe a little bit before your time, richard and Josh's beginnings of NASDAQ and um, I noticed on the on the website um, fantastic city, chicago, and Chicago really sprung up in the 20s, didn't it? And I know that from. I actually went on that architecture tour and I got the whole story about chicago, so that's when nazdar really started. Could you give us a little bit, perhaps, about the background of how nazdar started and has grown, richard, it'd be interesting to hear that, that backstory, that history, if you like sure you know.
Speaker 3:I mean I'll try to be brief here. It is 104 year old history now, so I'll I'll try to cover that that quickly. But, as you mentioned, it was founded over 100 years ago, in 1922 in chicago. Uh, the legends are was at a bar in chicago, so, but you know I wasn't there. So not sure how much of that is urban legend versus the reality. But you know, over those years, you know we really started as it had one purpose it manufactured screen printing inks. That's what NASDAR did and it was trying to sell those nationally throughout the US. You know, and so you go from there to today nationally, throughout the US. You know, and so you go from there to today. Now we're a global business and you know we're one of the world's leading manufacturers of screen printing, flexo and digital inks.
Speaker 3:But I would say, for you know, from the time it was founded, for about the first 80 years, that's what NASDAQ did was focused on manufacturing screen printing inks. And in the 1980s, you know, one of the things that happened was a lot of NASDAQ's distributors were family-owned businesses, didn't really have a succession plan. Nasdaq was their largest provider. So they came to the NASDAQ ownership at that time and said would you be interested in acquiring my distribution business? And so that really got us then into not only selling the inks that we made but selling complementary products to go along with them, along with equipment, screen printing equipment. So it was still all about screen at that time. But beginning in the late 90s, we began to expand our portfolio to include digital and flexo inks, because that was something that we felt that we could leverage our R&D capability. We could leverage our manufacturing capability, similar markets, adjacent markets you know definitely to what we were doing. So that's kind of where we are today.
Speaker 3:You know, among all of those technologies, both a manufacturer and a distributor, and we've grown both organically and through acquisitions a lot of acquisitions, but you know some of the key ones. In 1981, nasdar acquired KC Coatings, which was a screening manufacturer that really specialized in UV. As a matter of fact, they did the first commercially viable UV screening and so you know the ownership at that time thought okay, uv is the future of screening. Acquired KC Coatings, and that is now how NAS UV is the future of screening. Acquired KC coatings and that is now how NASDAQ is headquartered in Kansas City.
Speaker 3:That became the central hub and we also bought in the 1980s those distributors that I talked about and expanded. And then, as we got into the 2000s, really looking at expanding digitally, we acquired Lyson in the UK in 2006. And that expanded our digital portfolio. And then in 2012, we bought Easterday Fluid Technologies, which really got us into the OEM business, really focused on the food and beverage industry, and so you know that's got us to where we are today now as a worldwide supplier of inks, along with being a distributor in the US and Central America of supplies and equipment also.
Speaker 2:And you mentioned the UK. I was just curious myself in terms of that. So obviously, as you've said, headquartered in the US, but you're global. Why the UK as a center for manufacturing? Was it something to do with the acquisition or is it more to it than that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I'll get you. So the UK is a very important part and it is a center for both digital ink manufacturing and digital ink R&D. But we also have manufacturing here in Kansas and also R&D here in Kansas, and then we also manufacture in Taiwan and then we have multiple locations distribution locations throughout the US, mexico, central America and Singapore. But the story of acquiring Lyson and why we did that and why we did a UK business was really an offshoot of our strategy. We did a UK business was really an offshoot of our strategy when we were doing strategic planning in the early 2000s. Like I said, at that time, as we were getting into this, the first 80 years of our business, we were still primarily screen printing, we were primarily focused in North America and as we were doing that strategy strategically, honestly, we saw digital as an existential threat to our business and so, to respond to that, it wasn't something we felt we could just do organic growth. We had been doing some digital links, but it was all an organic approach that we felt we really needed to do an acquisition and so we went out and did a search for potential companies to acquire and we had a couple of major initiatives, and that was one was to expand our digital portfolio and the other one was we wanted to expand internationally much more so than we were, be much more or less US focused and licensed.
Speaker 3:As we went through and evaluated, companies put that bill on both sides. So the license acquisition, you know, gave us, you know, a position in Europe to service Europe and to be able to expand internationally. But, even more importantly, it expanded our digital portfolio immediately and also gave us a lot of digital R&D talent. And the UK was very attractive to us because, as you know, in the history of inkjet, the UK has been a hotbed of talent, a hotbed of innovation, and so to be able to tap into that talent market for us was very important. And so today, you know, what was licensed is now NASDAQ Limited and it remains a super important R&D facility for us in the digital world, the remains of manufacturing and a distribution center. So that's kind of how we got into the you know choosing license, and it has been a great partnership since we were able to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so, with your rich history and experience in perhaps what we use the term analog to perhaps explain Flexo and maybe Scream or so is that are the challenges, in your view, to developing digital markets that different than those of traditional print markets? What kind of learnings or observations have you made over the years in terms of that?
Speaker 3:yeah, you know, we definitely feel you know there there are differences. We can definitely leverage r&d talent. You know, as long as we supplement them with with digital people, that people that do screen, do flexo, can adapt. That r&d people cross over pretty well. Our manufacturing, quality control, all of those things cross over pretty well.
Speaker 3:But in the design you know some of those challenges there's a big difference in the way these inks are applied or inks are used, and traditionally in the analog world, screen and flexo, and traditionally in the analog world, screen and flexo, whatever the job was, you might have a different ink for every job, ok, depending upon the substrate, depending upon the durability requirements and so on. So you would really specialize inks for the application. Because inks were very easy to change in analog presses from job to job. It's not a problem at all. In the digital world that is pretty hard to do. So you had to go to a general purpose ink. So one of the things that we had to learn how to do was how do you make this general purpose ink whenever we came from a very special ink for that application? So that's one of the differences and challenges that we have to deal with. The other thing is the's one of the differences and challenges that we have to deal with. The other thing is the physical properties of the inks are quite different. Much, much lower viscosities in digital inks, so you know they're much thinner, almost like water in some cases, whereas sometimes screen and flexo inks are more like paste. So your raw material portfolio that you can use is much broader in analoging so we had a much more narrow raw material portfolio to choose from, and so that creates some design challenges that bringing on R&D expertise has helped us get through. However, I think the opposite of that is from a manufacturing standpoint, we can be much more efficient manufacturing digital links because I'm manufacturing fewer products, so I've got higher volume of a fewer number of products as opposed to a lot of small batches of a lot of products. So the number of unique items is significantly different.
Speaker 3:But you know, one of the things I would say is coming from the analog world, that that rich and long history we have in the analog world we develop a deep understanding of the applications. By doing all of those specific inks, we understood all of those things. So the ability to be able to apply that knowledge we think allows us to design better inks that we know if someone is transitioning from analog things. We know exactly what their expectations are. All right, so we're able to even though we have to do this general purpose ink across a broader range of applications. We know what their expectations are and that helps us. And in that analog world we also develop using multiple technologies, all of which apply to digital UV, solvent water. We have great experience developing all of those technologies and so we just think that experience makes us a leading expert in analog. We've been able to transition that to digital, and whenever you have hybrid applications that mix analog and digital, we think we have a super advantage because we are on both sides of that equation. Raoul.
Speaker 2:PAL. Yeah, that's a really good point. Actually, the hybrid I hadn't really even thought of that, but you're doing extremely well, I believe, in the label sector, aren't you? And that is a hybrid market, isn't it? It's really quite an exciting market. Yeah, excellent, david BASTIAN.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and a lot of hybrid applications in the textile market. Also are the imprinted sportswear market right, a lot of hybrid applications there, and so you know those are two areas especially that we've done very well in is that that imprinted sportswear market and the label market, because a lot of those hybrid requirements yeah, and it must test you.
Speaker 2:I mean mean very different markets, aren't they?
Speaker 2:I mean there really isn't a crossover.
Speaker 2:You know that must mean that your flexibility, abilities to adapt and develop under very different manufacturing kind of circumstances and challenges, so it must equip you quite nicely to be able to to kind of move quite quickly into new areas because of that, that grounding that you have, but equally that flexibility that you have as well.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, so, as we took you, digital is obviously moving forward into new areas, into new markets, into perhaps new challenges where they, you know, as, as the core technology improves all of the time, ink is always say always but but it is always the kind of critical factor. Everything's critical, but if the ink doesn't work, then the ink doesn't work. So that's a major, a major component of things. So one of the things that that you've kind of developed, and one of the, I guess, reasons that Futureprint and NASDAQ are working together, is that you've really continued to invest in R&D, which is obviously a critical area for renewing new markets and so on and so forth, and one of your key areas being OEMs. How did this come about? What led to this and why is OEM a focus for NASDAQ?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I think one of the things and you get back to the history and in the analog world the way transactions occurred with the customer in the analog world were you had companies that made equipment and they sold the equipment, or in some cases we might have been a distributor of that equipment, but basically that relationship was between the end-use printer and the equipment manufacturer, was equipment related, and then companies like us came in and sold ink to run on that equipment. And so you know, there were kind of two parties going into every account selling them ink, selling them equipment. The OEM world that's quite different. In the OEM world the ink is typically provided by the equipment manufacturer under their brand, and so that customer relationship changes. So for us to reach that customer we had to change the way we thought about selling our products. It wasn't necessarily to that end user printer, we had to sell to the OEM. We had to work with the OEM and to do that it became now a much more technical sale and it becomes a lab to lab sale.
Speaker 3:Almost One of the things that we like to tell our OEMs is think of us as an extension of your lab. If you had an ink lab, we're that for you, okay? So as you're developing your equipment, we're partnering with them at the same time in parallel to solve problems in chemistry as they're solving problems mechanically. You know to create solutions both ways, and if we can merge those paths, that works well. So we had to invest in R&D, and it's not just people but it's equipment and testing capabilities and all of these kinds of things to do, and so that's why we continue to make that investment in OEM. But it's just a necessity to focus on the OEM, because that is how you reach the customer and at the end of the day, it all matters about the customer and how do you reach them. It gets back to the basics and the OEM is the way we reach the customer in this market.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it must be quite a different way of working. It's much more of a collaborative approach, right? So, josh, you've been patient, thanks for that, richard, I'm bringing you into our conversation now, obviously. So, josh, you've been patient, thanks for that, richard, I'm bringing you into our conversation now, obviously. Talking about collaboration, talking about OEMs, then how does NASDAQ really collaborate with OEMs, then, on that basis, to develop the right inks and other products? What does that kind of process look like? If I'm an OEM listening, or I'm working for an OEM and I'm interested in potentially finding out more about NASDAQ, what does that process look like?
Speaker 4:Sure, yeah, no, for I mean to kind of echo what Richard's saying. You know we're making a product to the needs of that OEM. It's their specification, their applications that we're trying to design for understanding their regulatory needs. You know so where the regions that they're selling into we can help guide that with our regulatory. So at a high level, what that looks like is we generally start with a business development manager reaching out right to the requester, an OEM, and then we just get a good understanding of what is the request right. So we have to be very intent in listening to understand all the aspects of it. Is it something standalone? Is it a process built into something right? So that's going to give a lot of details of what kind of team do we need to build internally to support those project needs. We'd collaborate in a custom roadmap from concept to commercialization, generally targeting milestones with dates right to keep the process moving forward.
Speaker 4:And during all that time it's a face-to-face generally communication. So it's Zoom Teams, something that we can virtually meet on quite often with and in person as needed. Quite often when we get into the testing phases. We like to be on site with that and learn right. At the same time align our R&Ds, as Richard said, with you know you show us the mechanical things, the software things, things. We'll look at the ink things and collaborate together to get to that finish point um, at the speed at the oems need right, and then really by working together closely like that, we will get to a well-defined spec that's commercially viable in the market. And what's important is, you know we're building that relationship with all the face-to-face communications being in person, being intent and hopefully, you know, just having a few laughs along the way, cause it's gotta be fun.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I mean, ultimately it's a creative process, is an innovative one, isn't it? But it's one that's that's technical and challenging, right? So I guess it's, yeah, having one on the way is always a good thing. So could you explain, just following that, really, what makes NASDAQ sort of stand out to OEMs and what kind of key points should they consider, perhaps? And maybe also what do you think are the kind of key advantages they would gain by partnering with NASDAQ, compared perhaps to some of the other, maybe larger or more corporate ink manufacturers?
Speaker 4:Sure, now, something that we've always surprised ourselves on and something that we want to stay true to, is just being a nimble and flexible group. Right, we want to listen, we want to make sure we understand the needs of and just work as close as we can with that group to get there right with the end results. Our R&D labs are fully capable of ground up development. We design and produce our own dispersions, which I think is very key in manufacturing. Our extensive knowledge in the analog technology and applications are leading us to the more innovation side, disrupting the analog space or complementing it with a hybrid touch. And then to kind of echo, the regulatory side. I'll keep saying machine manufacturers don't have the chemical regulatory groups on staff for the most part Some do, but more so don't. So customers ask questions. There's chemical inventory lists per countries, the regulations change. We're trying to keep our eyes several years down the road on those things and be part of those international groups to make sure that we can help guide and be part of the changes to come.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's quite a significant amount of value you're adding over and above the core product. I guess regulations is being one, and I would imagine you're dealing with textiles. There's a lot of anything that comes into contact with humans, really. I guess there's a lot of health and safety and everything else and that's evolving all the time. There's the environmental concerns and, I guess you know, looking at different parts of the world, different laws and so on. So, yes, a significant, a significant thing. It's not trivial, is it? It's something that, um, I I guess, when a lot of machine builders don't this, don't necessarily think of first that maybe they, maybe they should, but the ink is such a critical component. Are there any other products or innovations you'd like to share with us that perhaps you're working on or you've brought to market recently that perhaps you're proud of or you're excited by?
Speaker 4:you're proud of or you're excited by. Well, yeah, currently we're just we're developing an across a range of market segments in the 3d decor, direct to garment, direct to film, packaging and labeling space. On the innovation front, we're focusing our efforts on the high viscosity inks and fluids, kind of exploring the ideas and the benefits of what that could come with if you had more space in chemistry, the ability to kind of load it up or even use components that may not be traditional in current inkjet inks today. Some of the obvious things you look at is you know, can you reduce your dry time or your curing process? You know, to save some of that energy consumption or footprint and space, can you use higher molecular weight or thicker type of components to get that low migration and certain applications needed? So it's kind of just exploring the, the what ifs right, and finding the partners that have those. Inkjet doesn't do it today, but could it do it with this kind of questions, right?
Speaker 2:And then sorry, no, no.
Speaker 4:I'm going to say, and then kind of, lastly, it's, it's. And then oh sorry, no, no, go on Like I say. And then kind of, lastly, even though we're developing new products and innovating, we also do keep an eye on and maintain the products that are currently out there. Today. Change in regulation and needs of change, so it is an ongoing process from concept to commercialization and beyond. Right is kind of what I marketed, as there's always something that's going to change, 're going to need an update.
Speaker 2:We do that as well, right I'd imagine your core business, um, on the analog side, the kind of other cultures, a little bit different in each one, you've got a team that's kind of dealing with sort of different challenges to perhaps the core team. I guess it takes a slightly different kind of look at the team. How you populate that team, uh, what kind of culture that they're working within it must be, must be a little bit different, I would imagine definitely is.
Speaker 4:Um, you just have to adapt to. It.
Speaker 2:All right, and sometimes we mix, mix it up a little bit and lean on each other and in other ways we it is a very focused to the, to the, uh, the need of right yeah, yeah, and you're dealing with, like you mentioned, 3d that sounds really exciting um, and all those different segments, so it's quite diverse. So it it's, um, I'm sure, never a dull moment talking, never a dull moment. The world we live in at the moment, seemingly, is never a dull moment. In you know, the VUCA world, the kind of um navigating the future, it seems to be uh, uh, continually throwing up different challenges and so on. With that in mind, really, given that, um, perhaps just focusing a little more on Europe, it presents a lot of uncertainty.
Speaker 2:How has NASDAQ been affected by these changes? And I'm gonna gonna ask you, richard, um, are certain sectors thriving while others are struggling? And really, I guess you as the CEO, as the leader, how are you approaching this from a strategic kind of perspective? Because ultimately, we're all judged by growth? And it's tough, it's tough out there to. It's not predictable, is it? It's not. The certainty isn't quite there. I guess the only certainty is uncertainty, right, is it?
Speaker 3:It's not. The certainty isn't quite there. I guess the only certainty is uncertainty, right? Yeah, you know, and I think one of the things that we've definitely learned over the last few years is there's always going to be challenges, all right, and quite often you're trying to anticipate challenges like that. Josh mentioned regulatory challenges and the constantly changing environment. Those are relatively easy to look forward and expect those, but expecting the unexpected, as you said, is just something that is central, and we've been through that, you know, over the last few years. I mean pandemic wars, supply chain challenges, trade issues, the general economic conditions, all of those things. And you know what we know is there will be more of those things. And so what we try to do.
Speaker 3:One of the things, that is, we're always developing a strategic plan, all right, so we always have an active strategic plan looking three to five years out. We update it every year and extend it, all right. And as we get into these issues, you know plans absolutely change and they are impacted, but it becomes a North Star for us as we're looking to respond to these issues. What does the strategy say? How does that fit? Does this response fit our strategy? Is it where we're trying to go. And so one of the other things that's very important is, man, you better maintain a strong balance sheet to deal with these uncertainties so that we have the strength to be able to navigate through these things and not just have knee jerk reactions to those. So, you know, having a North Star, having the strength in the organization to be able to weather those storms and make the right decisions and protect our customers, because one of the things we know in this business, whenever you have disruption and you do not lose an order, you can lose a customer, all right. So it's very, very important for us to keep that stability and making decisions for the long term.
Speaker 3:And you know, our strong balance sheet allows us to do that. And having a North Star, we think, allows us to do that. And the other thing and you know our strong balance sheet allows us to do that, and having a North Star, we think, allows us to do that and the other thing is, you know we're trying to anticipate these challenges. We war game these challenges, we do scenarios.
Speaker 3:If this happens, how would we react? So we kind of have a blueprint for some of those. But then you get the unexpected things. But we also know that every time we have these things that happen, these unexpected things, one of the things we also do is we come back and we evaluate ourselves how did we respond to that, how well did we do and what did we learn from it, so that the next unexpected thing we will be better even than we were this time. So it's always getting better, having a North Star where we want to be and being financially strong to be able to weather all of these challenges. I would say that's what we're trying to manage with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that kind of North Star. So you know, you know broadly where you're going, but you've kind of an role play, some of the potential things that could happen, and it's being prepared as far as you can be, but also being prepared to not know the answer, I guess as well, and work it out as you go. And it's that kind of I guess culture and attitude. And also, I guess you're not alone, right, you have a leadership team. It's kind of like not literally all on on you as to know all the answers.
Speaker 3:yeah, absolutely not on me. You got to build a great team, uh, and and that is something you know, uh, that that we take pride in we have a lot of tenure in our organization, but then we also, you know, refresh that with bringing in outside talent yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So. You're kind of, um, using, using the talent that you have on on board and others as well, which is which is right, um, really interesting to talk to you both. I've got a really nice picture of nazdar with the sort of your track record, your kind of credibility, your scale actually and I think that may be something people are not necessarily familiar you actually are quite a significant sized business, but it seems that you've retained this entrepreneurial flexibility and so on and so forth. So you've got a a really nice mix of both, which I think is a hugely valuable for partners and customers. I just sort of thinking about closing. Really. Do you have any final thoughts or comments? Perhaps you might like to leave our audience with, perhaps starting with you, richard sure, well, you know the look.
Speaker 3:The industry is transitioning, you know, from from analog to digital. But analog is still a very important part of our business, is still going to be, you know, a significant part of the industry for quite a while. So we continue to invest in it. But we're also, as we've talked, a lot about investing in digital so that we can make that transition with our customers and be at the forefront of that. And what we talk about a lot here is, hey, we had a very great first century as an organization and we expect to have a second great century as an organization, and that is all the work we're doing strategically and transitioning and all of those things to be able to do that, yeah, excellent Second century.
Speaker 2:So you're kind of early on in the second century there. So you're the first CEO of the second century, richard.
Speaker 3:I am. You know, first decade of the second century is what we're working on right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, that's great, joshosh, any sort of thoughts?
Speaker 4:final thoughts yeah, I know, being the marketing guy, it's a give us a call, write to us you know, we'd love to talk to you. Talk shop right and see what we can do together yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:What's the best way of reaching out? Is it the kind of website linkedin? How do people connect with you?
Speaker 4:yeah, our website's a good place to start. We can provide that contact information and get that out there.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Well, listen, thank you, gentlemen, for joining us. It's been really interesting talking with you both, hearing the NASDAQ story and also how you're developing things and where you see things going in the future, looking forward to enriching that with more content as we go throughout the year. But as it's early in the year, I can still say Happy New Year and have a fantastic 2025. It's going to be another big one, I think.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and thank you, marcus, we've really enjoyed it. Well, I'm speaking for Josh now, but I know I've really enjoyed it and, more importantly, I want to thank the listeners for taking the time and listening and hope you enjoyed it as well cool.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you very much, thanks, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, you can subscribe now for more great audio content. Coming up and visit futureprinttech for the latest news, partner interviews, in-depth industry research and to catch up on content from Futureprint events. We'll see you next time on the Futureprint Podcast.
