President's Column - December 2025
Hello Members and Industry Friends,
It’s time to pull out our crystal balls and see the future and predict results. Yes, it’s budget season!
Every company, every association and every team that’s serious about growth goes through this ritual. We gather around tables, stare at numbers that represent both our past and our future and try our best to see what lies ahead. It’s part science, part art and part educated guesswork.
Although I’ve long been part of budget discussions, this year’s process was a new experience for me since stepping into my new position at the start of the year. Presenting the budgets was a week-long exercise, a marathon of reviews across each region, product line and service area. Each team came prepared with data from multiple years, and the goal was simple: see if the numbers still make sense. Do they still jive with where we thought we’d be and more importantly, where we actually are?
This is the moment where the past and future meet. It’s a review of what’s happened and a reality check on what comes next. It’s where internal effort meets external forces. Markets shift, economies change, customer trends switch gears and unexpected curveballs are part of the SOP.
We ask ourselves tough questions. Did we plan to go to market early in the year, only to find that delays cost us six months of potential revenue? Or maybe we launched on time but didn’t clearly communicate the benefits, leaving results below expectations? On the other hand, perhaps we had a surprise success, like a new trend aligned perfectly with something in our portfolio and sales took off unexpectedly. Sometimes, a product that struggled the year before suddenly gains traction and finally delivers the payoff we’d hoped for.
These are the stories the numbers tell, the lessons learned and the new opportunities revealed. But this is also where the difficult conversations need to happen. Because not everything goes as planned.
What do we do when a highly visible project isn’t on track? Or when a flagship product starts losing ground to the competition? Are we ready to make changes? How big? Can we admit when something needs to be rethought, retooled or even retired? How much are we prepared to invest to fix it? Do we fix it partially, or do we go all in and rebuild completely?
In my case, being “in the room” for the first time this year, I’ll admit, I was doing my best to keep up. There was a lot of information to digest, and plenty of terminology (and acronyms!) to decode. But beyond the spreadsheets and charts, what stood out most was the energy and the collaboration in the room.
Budget season can be tense, especially with the challenge that 2025 has been and what is assumed to continue in 2026, but it can also be inspiring. Yes, there were strong conversations and some hard realities to face, but there was also a healthy amount of laughter. Sometimes, when the numbers don’t cooperate, all you can do is throw your hands up and laugh.
One of my favorite sayings made the rounds a few times during those meetings: “Hope is not a strategy.”
We can hope a new product will take off. We can hope the market shifts in our favor. But hope alone can’t drive results. Wishing and waiting don’t pay the bills. Planning, action, alignment and accountability do.
That’s what makes the budgeting process so valuable. It forces us to look at reality, to question assumptions and to make decisions grounded in facts. It’s not just about controlling expenses or projecting revenue; it’s about making sure every plan has purpose. It’s about ensuring that our teams, our strategies and our resources are all pushing in the same direction.
There’s an old saying that “the devil is in the details,” the same goes for success. Getting the details right, understanding what worked, more importantly, what didn’t and why, is what allows us to move forward confidently.
There were many of us who had to present less than stellar 2025 results, myself squarely on that list and what was important is understanding why, and what’s the plan to fix them.
At the same time, budgeting shouldn’t be just an exercise in numbers. It’s also a chance to align on the vision. To make sure that everyone, from leadership to the front line, understands where we’re going and why.
So yes, budget season can be exhausting. It can be frustrating, confusing and at times overwhelming. But it’s also one of the most important moments of the year. It’s our opportunity to reflect, refocus and recommit to what truly matters.
When the process is done right, it doesn’t just predict the future, it helps create it.
And while none of us can really see into that crystal ball, we can make sure that the picture we’re painting for the year ahead is based on something stronger than hope: on strategy, on collaboration and on the hard-earned lessons of the past year.
Because hope may not be a strategy but planning and teamwork most definitely are.
Thank you and all the best,
Rob has 27 years of experience at Bobst, one of the world’s leading suppliers of substrate processing, printing and converting equipment and services for the label, flexible packaging, folding carton and corrugated board industries. He currently serves as Tooling Director.
Rob is based in Switzerland, with his wife Monica and their children, Leo and Manuela. His older son, Khai is engaged and remains living in New Jersey. Rob enjoys camping and cooking as well as being a full time chauffer to hockey and swimming practices.
He is proof that being one of those “take it apart and see how it works” kind of guys can lead you to a wonderful career, meeting new people and experiencing the world.
The President's Column appears in The Cutting Edge, the IADD's monthly magazine.
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