Despite tightening margins, falling prices
and an incomplete recovery from the 2008
financial crisis, printers are increasingly
optimistic about their prospects, according
to the third drupa Global Trends Report
(2016).
Analysis of the views of 750 printers in the
three years leading up to drupa 2016 shows
that in 2015 there was a 25 percentage points
difference between printers who thought they
were doing well (37%) and printers who thought
they were doing badly (12%).
When asked, how they thought their financial
situation would change in 2016, 50% thought it
would get better compared to 6% who thought
it would deteriorate – a positive balance of 44%.
Optimism is greatest in Africa, Australia/Oceania,
Middle East and Asia and in commercial and
industrial printing.
Digital printing technologies are showing the
fastest growth (28% on average), but sheet-fed
offset lithography is also growing, particularly in
publishing, with a net positive growth of 7%, and
in packaging (+12%). Digital print now makes up
25% or more of turnover in one third (35%) of
commercial printers.
Printers and suppliers both cited strong
competition as the biggest constraint to growth.
Lack of sales was almost as big a factor, caused by
the difficulty in finding new customers (58%) or
good sales staff (35%).
The report is available for download from the
drupa website.
01732 759725
10
BULLETIN
Printers more optimistic despite
pressure on margins
Back in business
The Print Bureau in Hebden Bridge, West
Yorkshire was one of many businesses
affected by flooding at the end of last year.
With all of its print devices damaged beyond
repair, the firm needed to get back into operation
as soon as possible. Apogee identified the exact
configuration for a five-colour Ricoh digital press
and fast tracked its installation.
Mike Dumbreck, Owner of Print Bureau, said:
“The level of service provided by Apogee has been
great from the start. Within a few weeks of being
hit by the floods, we were up and running again
and were able to offer free banners and leaflets for
local businesses that were also affected. Apogee
quickly supplied a state-of-the-art five-colour
device that can print white on coloured paper
stocks. This has great appeal for our customers and
has opened up new avenues for local business.”
Paper waste
CartridgePeople.com claims UK businesses are
‘wasting’ the equivalent of £1.6 billion on printing
every year, with each worker throwing away
an average of 6,500 sheets of paper. It advises
businesses to ‘gamify’ printing by rewarding
teams that reduce the amount of paper they use
and displaying leaderboards to encourage friendly
competition.
Businesses squander promise of digitisation
In the next two years, organisations in
North America and Western Europe plan
to remove paper from all but 9% of key
business processes, even though in more
than half of them (55%) workflows are
still largely or entirely paper-based.
A survey of 600 IT decision-makers by Xerox
highlights deep concern over paper-based
processes, including cost (42%) and security
(42%), and an appetite for greater automation,
with three quarters of respondents having
identified certain functions as candidates for full
robotic automation.
The most popular include accounting (38%),
expenses reporting (37%), accounts payable
(36%) and customer care (35%).
The
Digitisation at Work
report questions the
ability of organisations to achieve these aims,
pointing out that 29% of organisations still
communicate with customers via paper, rather
than email or social channels, and that many have
yet to implement fairly basic changes to processes.
Almost half (47%) have still not introduced
or improved cloud services; 45% have not yet
incorporated predictive analysis as part of a big
data strategy; and 40% have not introduced
solutions for the mobile workforce.
Andy Jones, vice president or Workflow
Automation, Large Enterprise Operations at
Xerox, said: “Organisations foresee a lean
and agile digital future but current business
processes are still weighed down by paper. The
disconnect between an organisation’s vision
and the steps required to achieve successful
digital transformation has stalled the promise of
digitisation.”
Herald Graphics
investment pays off
Investment in a Ricoh Pro C7100X has
opened new markets and opportunities
for Reading-based Herald Graphics.
The new digital press, supplied and
maintained by Reflex Digital Solutions,
has helped the family-owned commercial
print firm to improve turnaround times,
increase capacity and enhance its
customer offer.
After thoroughly researching the market
and looking at the latest digital presses on offer
from a range of OEMs, Herald Graphics selected
Reflex to supply and maintain the new high
speed colour production digital printer.
“Reflex’s approach and recommendation
were spot on. We looked at a number of
alternatives but, as a local business, we wanted
to work with a local provider. The proposal was
on budget and ticked all the boxes,” explained
Herald Graphics Managing Director Peter Rixon.
He added: “Reflex’s service operation is very
slick. If we need an engineer they are on-site
very quickly and they always call us first, so
they are armed with all information to ensure a
first-time fix.”
