The New Industrial Reality: Dario Urbinati, CEO of Gallus, on Print’s Structural Reset

This article is based on a FuturePrint Podcast interview with Dario Urbinati, CEO, Gallus Group. You can listen to the podcast here.

Two years ago, when Dario Urbinati last appeared on the FuturePrint Podcast, he argued that the industry was not simply facing a downturn. It was entering something more profound: a structural reset aligned with the way the global economy now operates. At the time, the claim may have seemed bold. Today, it feels hard to dispute.

The New Industrial Reality

Dario Urbinati, CEO of Gallus Group, returns to the conversation with a clear message. The world that print businesses became accustomed to before 2019 - one of low interest rates, predictable supply chains, cheap energy, globalised stability, is just not coming back in the same form. The challenge (and the opportunity) now is not to wait for normality to return, but to understand that normality itself has changed.

Dario Urbinati, CEO of Gallus Group, returns to the conversation with a clear message. The world that print businesses became accustomed to before 2019 - one of low interest rates, predictable supply chains, cheap energy, globalised stability, is just not coming back in the same form. The challenge (and the opportunity) now is not to wait for normality to return, but to understand that normality itself has changed.

His case rests on two long-term but undeniable forces. The first is demographic. Fertility rates across major economies such as China, Japan, Germany and South Korea are falling. Ageing populations consume differently, invest differently, and place different pressures on labour markets and capital allocation. This is not a cyclical weakness. It is a fundamental change in the operating conditions of modern economies.

The second is geopolitical. The post-war settlement that underpinned global trade - what Urbinati describes as the Bretton Woods order, reinforced by American security guarantees and open markets - is disintegrating. The United States is no longer willing, or perhaps able, to play the same stabilising global role it once did. When this world order was established, the US economy accounted for over 40% of the world economy, and while the US is still a powerful economic driver, that number has fallen to 24%. The result is fragmentation, volatility and a return to a more uncertain world. In short, economic, and therefore geopolitical power, is more widely distributed.

In that sense, Urbinati’s diagnosis is not especially ideological. It is structural. Demographics, geopolitics, supply chains, and labour markets are all reordering. The effects are already visible across industry. Labour shortages persist. Input costs remain under pressure. Supply chains are more fragile. Customers demand faster turnarounds, more SKUs, more flexibility and greater investment security - often all at once.

For converters and label printers, the danger is not simply lower demand. It is in failing to understand, and accept the new world order.

If this is treated as a normal downturn, then the typical instinct is to wait for it to pass. This is understandable, as this is how things always used to work. A converter would preserve capital. Delay investment. Wait for more favourable conditions to return. But Urbinati’s warning is clear: that strategy carries risk. Businesses that assume the old environment will return to ‘normal’ may discover too late that they are optimised for a world that no longer exists.

His chosen metaphor is memorable. The industry, he suggests, risks becoming the boiled frog - sitting in water that slowly heats up without recognising the need to jump. The danger is not sudden collapse, but gradual irrelevance. The old business model, and therefore our thinking and actions, will become obsolete.

What, then, does adaptation look like?

For Urbinati, the answer begins with mindset. And this should be comforting in some way, as we all have intelligence and control over our actions. The strongest businesses are those that acknowledge the structural nature of the change, gather quality information, collaborate widely, and act before pressure becomes acute. We cannot simply rely on our experience to date, because the last five years of disruption are rendering 40+ years of accumulated assumptions far less useful than before.

Technology, in this environment, takes on a broader role. Traditionally it has been sold as a route to productivity and growth. Urbinati believes that is no longer enough. Technology must now also be understood as a resilience tool - something that allows converters to absorb shocks, lower operational friction, and adapt more easily as markets change.

This is where Gallus’s strategy becomes relevant. Rather than focusing narrowly on the old digital-versus-conventional debate, the company has reframed the conversation around modularity, flexibility and total cost of ownership. Its “System to Compose” approach is designed as a modular production environment built from interoperable blocks: flexo, digital, embellishment, unwind-rewind and more. The aim is to allow converters to evolve their production setup over time, rather than locking themselves into rigid, isolated islands of technology.

In practical terms, that matters. Many print businesses still operate with multiple brands of equipment, separate spare parts systems, different operator training requirements and fragmented workflows. Complexity becomes expensive. Standardisation, if intelligently designed, can lower costs without sacrificing the flexibility that packaging increasingly demands.

And flexibility matters. In packaging, differentiation is not optional. It is the basis of value creation. Brand owners demand visual distinction, faster launches, shorter runs and the ability to pivot quickly. A converter that is efficient but inflexible may find the market narrowing around it. One that is flexible but inefficient may struggle to make money. The winning formula, Urbinati argues, requires both.

He is also careful to distinguish realism from pessimism. He does not believe the world is heading into depression. Consumption continues. Packaging remains essential. Paper-based formats, in particular, retain long-term growth potential as the market shifts away from plastics. Nor does he believe all hope is lost to volatility. Quite the opposite. The technologies now exist to improve resilience, sustainability and cost performance simultaneously.

What is needed is a willingness to accept the new reality and design around it.

Beyond equipment, that means closer attention to how factories are organised, how logistics flow through a site, how workflows are automated, and how back-office systems are aligned to reduce waste and human intervention. It means investing in training, not just machinery, as skill shortages continue to intensify. It means choosing partners with geographic proximity and service capability, because in a world of disrupted travel and vulnerable supply chains, local support becomes strategically important.

The broader point is that success is no longer defined simply by owning the latest press. It is about building a smart, connected, modular production environment that can evolve.

If one theme runs through Urbinati’s argument, it is this: the industry must stop waiting for certainty. The future will not become less volatile in order to make decision-making easier. Good decisions now require a combination of data, experience, judgement, and, occasionally, gut feeling.

That may sound uncomfortable to an industry long used to stability. But it is also where opportunity lies.

Converters that embrace modularity, infrastructure thinking, and resilient systems may emerge stronger. Those that continue to hope for a return to the old operating model risk discovering that hope, as Urbinati puts it, may suffer last - but inevitably will become outdated.

In the new industrial reality, adaptation is no longer optional. It is the key to staying relevant.