Interview with Dr. Stephan Lehmke from 4R Innovation GmbH

After studying computer science and earning a doctorate, Dr. Stefan Lemke worked for more than 15 years on challenging development projects for ERCO GmbH and Qui GmbH. Since 2018, he has been self-employed with 4R Innovation. Today, we speak with him about his high-performance publishing software, high-speed digital printing systems, programmatic printing, and the decline of printing houses.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: With your solution, you promise fully automated generation of personalized documents—for example, catalogs and price lists—without requiring diverse specialized knowledge. How do you make previously necessary complex expert knowledge more easily applicable?

Dr. Stephan Lehmke:
Knowledge of typography, layout design, and corporate design is part of a stored rule set and thus integrated into the automatic document generation process. The tasks and requirements of layout design and design on the one hand, and content capture and document creation on the other, are completely separated. The former is incorporated into the creation of the design rule set and therefore only needs to be done once at the start of the project. The latter can be handled by all authorized persons in a media-neutral editorial system and does not require any knowledge or licenses for design software.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: DocScape is open-source software. What advantages do you see in this specifically for the publishing sector?

Dr. Stephan Lehmke:
In many modern application fields, open-source software is gaining ground. Online applications require server applications in which a variety of software components—from databases to web servers to frontend frameworks—work together. Such large systems can only be easily and cost-effectively built using open-source software. DocScape operates in the same context—not as a monolithic desktop application, but as a server process that can be integrated on-premise or in the cloud into larger infrastructures and is part of a higher-level, data-based process concept. In this context, an open-source license—which eliminates concerns about the number of users or the number of processors used by the server—simply makes more sense. The availability of the source code also contributes to operational security for the companies using it: they are not as dependent on the manufacturer for maintenance and further development of the system as they would be with proprietary software.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: Not long ago, experts predicted the imminent demise of mailings as a marketing tool. In the meantime, online and print are seen as the perfect pair in the advertising world, with high-speed digital printing systems enabling cost-effective production. However, preparation can be time-consuming and expensive. How could this be changed?

Dr.Stephan Lehmke:
In the print sector, many still think in terms of orders and campaigns. There’s a lot we can learn from the online sector here. Online operations are process- and service-oriented. Marketing automation processes are set up once and then run automatically, triggered without manual intervention, as a service over an extended period. If print and online are to work hand in hand, the goal shouldn’t be a campaign where thousands of postcards are sent to cart abandoners after extensive preparation. Instead, a continuously running process must be established that generates such print products automatically, CRM-triggered, for example in daily batches. This justifies the preparatory effort, which is also considerable in online systems.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: Programmatic Printing could mean personalized real-time marketing in print with the same performance as online. Could you explain the key points to us?

Dr.Stephan Lehmke:
The benchmark is the cost per order (CpO). In other words, what costs are incurred on average per order? This depends on both the costs and the conversion rate—how many recipients do I need to reach to generate an order?
In the online sector, programmatic advertising incurs significant costs, while in print, the main costs are printing and postage. The cost of a click on a popular Google keyword could cover printing and sending a postcard. With personalized print products, the conversion rates are significantly better than with online advertising. In everyday life, we’re bombarded with online ads and become desensitized (digital fatigue). A directly addressed, personalized printed item, on the other hand, has a tactile impact and is often handled multiple times, whereas online ads are forgotten within seconds. If personalized printed items are linked back to the online world—via QR codes, voucher codes, or AR functionalities, for example, through a personalized landing page (PURL)—then print is perfectly integrated into the online marketing technologies with tracking and KPI monitoring. Another aspect: a directly addressed printed item doesn’t require opt-in!

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: Can digitalization in the print sector with new business models like print-on-demand become a way to counter the decline of printing companies?

Dr.Stephan Lehmke:
Absolutely. However, it’s not just about technology but primarily about business models. Print service providers need to establish service models where the focus isn’t just on making it onto the shortlist for a print order but offering a comprehensive service delivered over an extended period. This shifts the business away from one-off orders toward a world of long-term service contracts and comprehensive projects with a consulting component. The consulting aspect particularly favors local service providers.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: You advocate that your open-source software DocScape ensures flawless layout design at all times. Is this the beginning of the end for graphic designers and media designers?

Dr.Stephan Lehmke:
On the one hand, it is now simply a characteristic of digital transformation that manual activities are disappearing. On the other hand, few people train to become a designer and then enjoy spending all day “scrubbing” catalogue pages. I frequently encounter the situation where the to-do list of an agency or graphics department at a company is so long that designers are actually glad to be rid of the “roughly manual” tasks and can focus more on the creative design of customer communication and tackle new design ideas. In addition, many services in automated design, such as expanding from 6 to 30 languages, client-specific layouts or personalised documents in 1-to-1 marketing, would be impossible to provide cost-effectively with manual design. Agencies should, however, be careful not to base their business model on working with semi-manual database publishing systems and then make their money from reworking or template creation. This puts them at risk of being “replaced” by fully automated systems. After all, the better is the enemy of the good.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: To conclude, one last question for the gift table: content is increasingly perceived visually, and platforms like Instagram are growing in popularity. What might the photo book of the future look like?

Dr.Stephan Lehmke:
I think we will see more and more diverse content. Moving away from the pure photo book and towards personal cookbooks, travel guides, travel journals, art books, histories, DIY instructions, etc. In the online realm, there is a great deal of content available that can easily be accessed for online editorial systems via web services. Combining this with geographical information, open data, etc. also opens up new possibilities. Fully automated design of the actual document allows attractive and informative thematic picture books to be created effortlessly from your own images and texts in combination with suitable content from online sources. If you combine a service, for example, to create a personal cookbook as a gift with product placements and programmatic advertising, you can reduce the costs of the service.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: Thank you for the interesting insights.

Ed. note: The questions were posed by Erika Alkemper-Heinrich.

Contact:

4R Innovation
Inh. Dr. Stephan Lehmke
Straßburger Allee 126
44577 Castrop-Rauxel

Web: https://www.docscape.de/
E-Mail: info@4ri.eu
Telefon: +49 (0) 2305 968279