Introduction: The difficult 2020 is about to pass, and the hopeful 2021 footsteps are stunned. Some people are eagerly waiting, and some are uneasy. In any case, for China's packaging and printing industry, a nuclear fission that has been brewing for ten years has begun. The reshuffle will be fully staged and detonated, and it will determine the direction, pattern and future of the industry in the next few decades.

The packaging industry is a complex and supporting industry for all walks of life. In addition, due to the dispersion of customer demand and delivery factors, the entire industry is extremely fragmented except for plastic containers and metal container packaging. Nowadays, driven by the end-demand side and the new digital infrastructure, China’s packaging industry has been running for nearly 30 years and has officially switched to a new track. A major renewal and reshuffle of the packaging industry is about to come. It will be spread out in 2021.

In the past, the successive prosperity of export and domestic sales established China's packaging industry's second position in the world. For example, Rizhongtian's e-commerce packaging quickly filled the gap created by the transfer of traditional export processing industries such as clothing, footwear, toys, and electronics to Southeast Asia. Nowadays, the continuous negative growth of domestic demand, the treacherous changes in exports, and the rapid transformation of end customers to C2M, like the blood bowls of the packaging industry, are ruthlessly tearing at this industry that sustains the livelihood of 5 million families.

In the past, through continuous evolution to the integration of the two technologies, automation, and industrial e-commerce, traditional packaging and printing companies have gradually differentiated in industrial development and reforms and market competition upgrades. Companies such as Hong Kong-funded, Taiwan-funded, US-funded, and Japanese-funded companies with weak competitive tactics and weak customer acquisition capabilities have withdrawn, and domestic private companies have won out. However, the core of the new round of industrial reshuffle has been quietly fissioned. It is no longer simply "big fish eat small fish" and "fast fish eat slow fish", but the entire level and elements of competition have undergone an essential fission. . The production factors for enterprises to compete are no longer talents, land, capital, and technology, but scenes, intelligence, data, platforms, and ecology.

In the past, the packaging industry has been calling for a shuffle for many years. Perhaps it was not as fierce and cruel as expected, and there was no gust of wind, rain, and majestic mountains. It would even make many packaging people feel that everything is normal. This is the typical "warm water boiled frog" effect. In fact, after recent years of evolution, adjustment, and optimization, a series of innovations, collisions, and impacts hidden within the industry have become quite fierce. This is a battle of life and death, and the trend and results will basically set the overall situation in 2021.

Under the great changes, where is the packaging industry heading? I think that the following major trends will be fully clarified in 2021.

First of all, as the giant companies are closing their borders and cracking the soil, the intention to seek the division of spheres of influence is becoming stronger and stronger, the Matthew effect of the packaging industry has further appeared, capacity expansion, mergers and acquisitions will reach new peaks. Take paper packaging as an example. At present, Nine Dragons, Shanying, Hexing, and Yuping are leading the first echelon, and other listed companies are quick to catch up. With the blessing of capital, these companies are expected to achieve greater success in the next ten years.

In 2020, with the benefit of the registration system, powerful packaging companies will have the best opportunity to go public. Longlide, Tianyuan Industry, Jinfu Technology, Hanghua Ink, Forest Packaging have been listed. Companies such as Guangzhou Jiuheng Barcode, Guangdong Hongming, Hangzhou Honghua, Shanghai Ailu, and Zhongrong Printing are in sight. In addition, many powerful companies are also intensively preparing for listing. Once listed successfully, these companies will rely on the power of capital to accelerate the pace of transformation and upgrading, and become a strong competitor in the packaging industry 4.0 era.

Secondly, with the opening of the first year of the packaging industry Internet in 2020, industry giants will surely accelerate the pace of digital and intelligent upgrades, in order to effectively solve the contradiction of low efficiency caused by the fragmentation of the packaging industry. At the same time, unmanned factories built by terminal brands such as Gree, Midea, Ali, Fenjiu, Luzhou Laojiao, and Wuliangye are trying to turn packaging into built-in modules. This is both a revolutionary challenge and a historic opportunity for the current packaging industry.

Editor Bao believes that packaging and printing companies can only successfully persuade customers to take care of this built-in packaging module by providing more efficient, higher-quality, and more economical packaging solutions to these terminal brands. To regain this piece of cake, the packaging industry needs to improve in the following three aspects: 1. Intelligent equipment. At present, many leading packaging companies are supplementing the gap in intelligent equipment, and even building technical barriers. 2. Industrial Internet packaging solutions. Through its own platform, it uses informatization, big data, and intelligent production to greatly improve operational efficiency, reduce costs, and provide customers with fast, convenient, inexpensive, and high-quality integrated services. 3. Ability to be creative and innovative. The future packaging industry 4.0 platform must have superior creative design and technological innovation capabilities in the packaging field in which it is located. Companies with this ability can help customers explore new application scenarios, continuously reduce packaging costs, and greatly enhance the competitiveness of their customers' products. Finally, let us regain control of the packaging industry in the future industrial Internet era. Therefore, in the face of the customer's C2M transformation, we don't have to worry about it, but we must make up for our own shortcomings and gain what customers can't, so as to be invincible with customers.

Also, in the new era of Industry 4.0, those who cannot get on the boat will be out, and those who cannot participate in the battle will be out. Those who get on the boat and those who start the battle are not necessarily safe. However, editor Bao believes that no matter how the market changes and how social productivity progresses, there are some basic elements that will not change, such as believing in the power of the market, fearing the rules of the market, and creating value for users.

For all end customers, the truly meaningful and valuable supply side is actually very simple. It is definitely not that many packaging companies currently use a series of fancy technologies and concepts such as personalized customization, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, and big data. Instead, they rely on deep integration into the customer market, close collaboration with customers, and use their own Professionally meet the growing new needs of customers and create real value for customers!

Therefore, continuously optimized industrial Internet platform, intelligent equipment solutions that meet customer needs, and unique creative design capabilities are the standard equipment for packaging industry 4.0 companies.

Finally, due to the extremely scattered production capacity of the packaging and printing industry, the oscillations caused by the new round of industrial reshuffle in this industry will far exceed those of other industries. Enterprises with middle scale, outdated equipment, and lagging transformation will face the cruel reality and withdraw from the market due to their inability to compete with more efficient industrial Internet companies. And hundreds of thousands of small and micro packaging factories are also swaying with the wind and thunderstorms. They will either join the shared factories of leading packaging companies and become unitized packaging service providers, or they will completely withdraw from the arena. Find a way out.

As 2021 is approaching, the new era of packaging is rumbled, packaging giants have already raised their flags, countless declining heroes weeping and setting sun, a major change and a major elimination kicked off. In this new era, the competition between enterprises and enterprises will no longer be the competition of product prices, but the competition between platforms. In the future packaging industry, everything will be based on enhancing customer value and improving user experience...