Martyn Train, GM, Graphic Communications, DMO, Xerox Corporation has been associated with Xerox for 21 years, the last five and a half years of which, he is with Xerox Developing Markets. According to him, recently Xerox has collectively delivered some landmark growth performances in difficult and volatile geographies and this as well holds true for Xerox India which achieved great milestones too. “The mid-range colour space has grown significantly over the last 5 years, especially so in India and Xerox plays a leading role in this market,” says Martyn. High end mono volumes have bucked the global trend and grown for Xerox India, fuelled by shorter-run Book Publishing and more recently the demonetisation. “Inkjet is still in its infancy in India relative to the whole market size with some large traditional players in Transactional and Book Publishing having already taken steps to invest. I have absolutely no doubt Inkjet volumes are going to explode in India over the next 5 years as capability, smaller footprint, reduced levels of capital investment and cost down gives greater access to the technology,” believes Martyn.
Xerox Developing Markets Operation – Inkjet, a real growth area
Xerox’s DMO focus in India is a combination of consolidation and capturing growth. Consolidating growth in toner based cut sheet machines with new launches of C70, Versant180, Versant 3100, iGen 5 and converging it with best growing applications like packaging and general commercial printing is the key area, according to Martyn.
Another key focus area, he says, is capturing growth existing in the Inkjet business where Xerox has fantastic offering on both cut-sheet and continuous-feed machines – from Brenva to Rialto to fast speed Trivor machines – which largely cater to the Publishing, Transactional and Direct Mail printing.
Xerox is focused on all segments of Commercial print in DMO, as globally Xerox has a portfolio of solutions to help address the needs of its customers in all segments. Inkjet, is a real growth area. Xerox is developing its iGen technology to help in the Photo, Commercial print and Packaging spaces. Most recently, it announced white dry ink toner for iGen that will be shown at Print 17 in Chicago in September.
“In Xerox Developing Markets, the key characteristics I observe is the sales and partner work ethic and intimacy with their clients – it’s incredibly close, much more so than I’ve observed elsewhere in different geographies,” observes Martyn.
“Our growth is driven by true partnership between ourselves, our partners and our clients, solving problems together, grabbing opportunity together,” he adds.
New growth opportunities and Digital Production of Books and Catalogues
According to Martyn, there is a lot of potential in the Digital printing market led by rise in Photo-printing, Book Publishing, Short-run jobs and much more. For example, the Wedding Photography industry today is about Rs 1,800 crore business with a demand for 7.5 million wedding photo albums every year. Roughly 21 percent of the photo products have moved into Digital printing, which is Rs 700 crore market now.
“We’re one of the few companies that have such a vast breadth of offerings. We’ve developed a variety of products and solutions ranging from the entry-segment to the mid- and high-end segment,” states Martyn.
“We’ve launched a slew of products like Color C60/C70 with energy saving capacities, Versant 80 and Versant 2100 with banner printing capabilities and the ColorPress 1000i with gold and silver ink. All these products are designed to meet specific customer needs like banner printing, book publishing, photo printing etc. and can help accelerate business growth,” he adds.
Further, for Photo printing, the Xerox iGen 5 offers a unique colour palate beyond usual CMYK, which can provide a competitive advantage in the marketplace today. These products demonstrate Xerox’s commitment to the market and in 2017, Xerox plans to further strengthen its product portfolio and bring innovative solutions to help customers focus on what matters most – meeting their customer’s needs.
The Digital printing market in India has evolved over the years and today, applications and solutions are essentials in this segment. The overall Printing market in India is growing and Digital printing is one segment that has shown strong growth numbers. It’s driven by improved levels of service, increased versioning and personalization to make targeted printing for end users – and providing Xerox customers new opportunities for business growth.
“If you see our Digital Presses, they’re segmented in a way that customers can pick and choose based on their business needs so that the devices can add value rather than being a cost churner,” stresses Martyn.
Xerox’s technologies – leading the future digital production in India
“The government’s ‘Digital India’ initiative is transforming the country into a digital-first economy at a rapid rate,” considers Martyn. “Digital is now touching every aspect of our lives across governance, utility services, transportation, education, healthcare and banking. This transformation is shepherded by adoption of technologies like cloud, mobility, analytics and collaboration tools,” he elaborates. This year, Xerox launched 29 ConnectKey-enabled printers and multifunction devices with simple and secure on-the-go capabilities, cloud connectivity, and access to productivity boosting features and apps. The new ConnectKey portfolio transforms traditional printing devices into smart, connected workplace assistants that reflect the evolving needs of today’s businesses. Personalized workflows, one-touch access to the cloud and multi-layered security features are the new print, copy and fax. The family of products include a variety of sizes, speeds and capabilities to match the needs of small- and medium-sized businesses as well as large enterprises, with a consistent user experience across the portfolio. The new products include the VersaLink and AltaLink series.
The VersaLink devices are designed for small workgroups and distributed teams, and include 19 printers and multifunction printers (MFPs). The AltaLink series include 10 MFPs designed for larger workgroups or print volume needs. Both product lines offer streamlined business processes, industry-leading intuitive user experience, mobile & cloud readiness and total security for both documents and devices.
“Xerox is also focused on creating innovative technologies that help organizations achieve their sustainability goals, such as going paperless. Going paperless not only improves efficiencies and brings transparency at workplaces but it also reduces the carbon footprint by nearly eliminating paper, printing, shipping and other document handling costs. We’ve also developed products that consume less power,” describes Martyn.
Xerox at HID – showcases how Inkjet solutions enable customers to move into today’s biggest growth areas
At the recent Hunkeler Innovationdays, customers were excited to get the right technology at a reduced cost compared to traditional Inkjet presses – Xerox’s lower cost systems making Inkjet more accessible and open new business opportunities for customers. Throughout HID, Xerox showcased how its Inkjet solutions enable customers to move into today’s biggest growth areas including catalogues, books, transactional and direct mail.
“We showcased our Inkjet solutions and demonstrated how they enable customers to move into today’s biggest growth areas including Catalogues, Books, Transactional and Direct Mail. The Xerox entry Inkjet portfolio featured at Hunkeler Innovationdays (HID) includes the Xerox Brenva HD Production Inkjet Press, Xerox Trivor 2400 Inkjet Press and Xerox Rialto 900 Inkjet Press. In addition to these, Xerox FreeFlow Core, Xerox FreeFlow Digital Publisher, XMPie PersonalEffect suite, XMPie Circle and XMPie Campaigns-on-Demand were also displayed at the show,” informs Martyn.
Digitally produced book pages in Western Europe and the U.S. will surpass 160 billion pages in 2019 and more than 40 billion colour catalogue pages will be printed annually on digital devices in Western Europe and the U.S. Xerox’s new Inkjet technology demonstrated at Hunkeler is available now for print providers to take advantage of these market opportunities. The Xerox Trivor 2400 Inkjet Press with High Fusion Ink delivers a wider colour gamut that, when combined with less-expensive standard Offset coated stocks, puts more high-quality Book and Catalogue jobs within the reach of Inkjet production.
Niche applications for Inkjet production
Two of Xerox’s most versatile solutions for Digital production that print in both colour and black and white are:
The Xerox Rialto 900 Inkjet Press, which features two in-line finishing options: a dynamic perforator and second dual high-capacity stacker. The dynamic perforator enables the creation of horizontal, vertical or t-section tear offs — such as coupons, reply cards and payment stubs — opening up new opportunities in the transactional and direct mail markets.
The Xerox Brenva HD Production Inkjet Press, which can accommodate up to eight different paper drawers, handle stock weights from 60-220 gsm, and up to a B3 Plus sheet size.
InfoTrends’ 2012–2017 U.S. Digital Production Printing Application Forecast explores 28 specific application segments (promotional, publishing, transactional, packaging, utility, consumer and general office) and measures digitally printed application volume changes in several key market segments.
The Book market shows the largest gains of all segments, with a predicted increase of over 40 billion pages during the five-year span. Applications such as Direct Mail, Magazines, Catalogues and Brochures are also expected to make healthy gains in Digital production.
Xerox Trivor 2400 Inkjet Press – a technology of choice
The Trivor 2400 gives customers the flexibility to move into Catalogues, Magazines and the Book production market, and accelerates growth and drives the production of more high-value applications such as Transactional, Book Publishing and Direct Mail.
It combines a base of proven imaging technologies with new innovations to deliver the next level in 20″ continuous feed performance— all in a highly compact footprint. Coupled with a new digital front end, this system makes the process of meeting demanding SLAs easier than ever before.
The Trivor provides printers with a platform built to grow as business demands increase with the same machine scaling up for more speed, volume and solutions. It combines high performance and increased speed up to 551 feet/168 meters per minute in colour and 656 feet/200 meters per minute in monochrome. It’s equipped with reliable image quality including inline density optimization, clear pixel technology, and missing jet detection and correction. It’s also one of the only single engines capable of printing in duplex.
Personalized Catalogues are interesting
More than 40 billion colour catalogue pages are printed annually on digital devices in Western Europe and the U.S. according to research Xerox conducted in partnership with InfoTrends.
In order to explore this segment further, Digital print vendors need to help the Publishing industry remain efficient and competitive as their business models change. Personalization and relevancy are extremely important in today’s market. Companies have to sell their brand and ethos to consumers before selling them their products. Retailers must have a communications strategy that is relevant to the activity and loyalty of customers.
The personalized catalogues segment is interesting. Not everyone buys online, many millions don’t. Now behavioural purchasing data is now being captured to allow real dynamic, timely, personalized and relevant information to be sent to individuals. Printed catalogues also complement online marketing as they allow a different media with which to be creative – media type, coatings, metallics, format size etc. “It’s definitely a segment to explore now with inkjet and toner based technology, plus workflow solutions that enable the once static catalogue to really come alive,” suggests Martyn.
Plans to take elements of HID forums to publishers
Xerox plans to take elements of both HID forums to global publishers in 2017. “We have seen the benefits of these solutions in Publishing industries globally; India is surely following the trend in volume,” says Martyn. “Our objective is to take this value and message to end customers, especially Publishers and Book Printers, and highlight our global strength. Locally, Xerox has exhibited at Indian Trade fairs during 2017 and we’ll also be taking our Versant solutions on a roadshow around other cites – Kochi and Chennai,” he continues.
“Please come and see us, let’s talk about your business objectives over the coming years. I’m sure we at Xerox, with our partners can develop real value add, compelling solutions for all our clients, much more than just providing an item of hardware, to allow us all to not just grow, but prosper together – for the long term,” he concludes.
Link: http://www.pressideas.com/2017/09/08/india-to-see-inkjet-volumes-explode-in-5-yrs-says-martyn-train/
Publication- Press Ideas
Date – 8th September, 2017
Edition – Online