Dispak expands activities into new areas

The largest selection of paper bags in Estonia, with 3,000 customers in the Nordic countries, and over 20 years of experience in printing logos on bags – Dispak OÜ expands its activities in new areas such as environmentally friendly packaging solutions and printing of textile materials.

Partners since the first grade in school

The founders and owners of Dispak, Andres Männisalu and Anti Sarap, have been working together since the first grade, so they have a 43-year history together. Their joint venture started with the production of paper bags in the year 1997.

“For the first ten years, we produced the bags ourselves, it was an exclusive craft and we had customers from 11 countries,” recalls Männisalu.

Then it was decided to start expanding the portfolio by choosing cooperation partners offering the best quality. For example, the manufacturer of paper bags was found in Italy, and the printing is done in Estonia, but the textile bags added to the selection five years ago also come from elsewhere.

“Most of the customers are businesses, but we have not focused on a specific segment,” says Männisalu. “Both small companies and even the Estonian Parliament or large listed companies and international groups order.”

The first crisis taught to focus on export

During the financial crisis ten years ago, when analysing its numbers and finding that only 2% of orders were exported, Dispak undertook drastic changes. Today, the share of exports is 55%, and the main export countries are Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.

Dispak has created corresponding websites for all export markets, and in order to capture the market, a strong investment has also been made in marketing in the target country. Today, there are 24 different active websites in four foreign countries.

The most important export market for Dispak is Finland. “They are used to ordering from Estonia, it also helps that we can offer service in Finnish.”

When buying printed textile bags, the customer receives a gift of planting a tree

In recent years, Dispak has emphasised the environmentally friendly aspect – for example, textile bags that can be used for a long time, as well as the use of environmentally friendly materials for both paper and textile bags. For example, bags made from organic cotton, recycled cotton, eco-paper bags, etc.

You can find information on the various eco-bags of Dispak here: https://okokotid.ee/Okokotid_700

Dispak recently signed an agreement with the Koosloodus Foundation to acquire the service of planting 500 trees. Namely, Dispak gives the gift of planting 1 tree to every buyer of 50 printed textile bags. The bigger the order, the more trees will be planted in Estonian forests thanks to you, and in addition, you will be able to track the GPS coordinates of all the trees and, later, with the help of Koosloodus, their growing progress.

Koosloodus Foundation, in cooperation with scientists, has found out that there is a lack of broad-leaved tree species in Estonian forests, and there should be more of them to ensure species richness. They are not planted in our economic forests. On top of this, the client receives the GPS coordinates of all the planted trees and with the help of the Koosloodus Foundation the growth can later be tracked.

More info about the service: https://www.riidestkotid.ee/Plant_a_tree_924

Flexible payment schedule, free design placement – plenty of reasons to order

Dispak offers all corporate customers a payment schedule of at least 7 days – even in an emergency situation, the customer can be sure that they have enough time to receive and check their goods before paying the invoice.

Dispak is accommodating the customer in many other ways: if the client accepts the offer, prepress design is free of charge, as well as delivery (for orders starting from €100). Dispak’s transportation partner is the international courier company DPD, and the movement of all deliveries can be tracked using a code.

More info about the order process: https://www.dispak.ee/Miks_tellida_702

Despite the crisis, planning for the future

Since consumption has fallen drastically in all countries due to the emergency situation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Dispak has also been affected. However, the company has not made any changes to the terms offered to the customer.

Some of Dispak’s export countries are opening their economies cautiously in the second half of April, and some orders are also related to businesses’ attempts to maintain turnover during the crisis. For example, Männisalu cites orders for takeaway bags or a campaign in Finland, which called for the preference of local Finnish producers, and the packaging of which was made by Dispak.

Despite the difficult situation, Dispak, in cooperation with a printing company, is preparing a new field of activity, which is the printing of t-shirts and other textiles. Dispak will start with the Estonian market, but the Finnish direction is also being prepared. “I predict a great future for this and we expect significant additional turnover from this activity,” says Männisalu.

Cybersecurity: C-YBER detects vulnerabilities in a website or online store and helps to fix them

A completely new field added in 2019 is internet security and computer system testing. The company C-YBER deals with this, and the team also includes top specialists in their field from Sri Lanka.

Männisalu considers cyber security to be a very promising area, which still needs to be developed. “I would compare internet security to the first security guards who appeared in stores in the 1990s – at that time it seemed an unfamiliar and to some even expensive and unnecessary service,” Männisalu explains. “But now we are used to the security service and would not imagine a different life.”

It is estimated that 90% of Estonian websites are unsafe, ie contain outdated software or other vulnerabilities that can be maliciously exploited. Businesses could anticipate the problem all the more so as a large part of commerce has now moved from physical offices and stores to the Internet.

Simply put, C-YBER identifies vulnerabilities in a company’s computer systems, web applications, and network infrastructure. A report is presented to the customer, which ranks the errors according to their importance and also offers ways to solve the problems.

For security testing, C-YBER uses the recognized Internet vulnerability scanning tool Acunetix, used by the US military, among others.

“The more important electronic channels become for a business, the more one can be sure that the malicious attackers will not sleep either,” Männisalu encourages companies to take preventive action.

Read more about cyber security and systems testing on the C-YBER website: https://www.c-yber.ee/