Michael Nadeau
State of the Industry News Briefing
Production Print Growth Drivers: Why Some Dealers Are Cashing In
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rowth is hard to come by in today’s document imaging market. Sales of many A3 and MFP models are flat, and clicks are declining. Dealers are looking for new, complementary product lines to boost growth and margins, and some are finding success with production print systems. Production print has several points in its favor. Most dealers already have relationships with production print OEMs such as Konica Minolta, Canon, Xerox, or Ricoh. Hardware prices are high, which means a good profit is possible on the initial sale. Best of all, production printers consume supplies at a prodigious rate, ensuring high-margin recurring revenue. So why aren’t all dealers selling production print? Like any worthwhile venture, it requires significant thought, commitment, and investment. Dealers who understand the production print market treat it like a new business, not just a new product. It’s significantly different from the copier business, and dealers need to ask key questions before leaping in: Who is buying and what’s their buying process? What are the expectations for support? What market trends are shaping the production print opportunity? To help answer those questions and to explain what’s driving demand for production print, ENX has spoken with leading dealers, OEMs, and analysts in the market. What follows is an overview of what’s driving the production print market and advice on how best to leverage the opportunity.
What Is Digital Production Print?
Production printers are designed for high speed (60 ppm at the low end to 300 ppm or more at the high end), longer duty cycles, and large production runs. It’s not unusual for a single production printer to generate a million or more clicks a month. Prices range from about $20,000 to perhaps $1 million. They can be monochrome or color, with color rising in popularity at the expense of monochrome. The light to mid-range production cycle models— those most likely to be sold through the dealer channel—are mostly toner-based. High-volume cut-sheet and continuous-feed systems are inkjet-based. They are typically sold through the OEMs’ direct sales organizations due to their complexity and support requirements. “Production inkjet is still a new, emerging technology that is currently having a big impact on trans-
actional, direct mail and book publishing,” said Bob Barbera, senior manager, production solutions division, at Canon’s Business Imaging Solutions Group (BISG). “[It requires] a lot of unique experience and knowledge with paper, media, inks, and workflows, and Bob Barbera, Canon BISG the Canon Solutions America organization has this experience from selling and supporting Océ-branded production inkjet printing solutions.” Canon markets a full range of production print systems from light volume production cutsheet systems to Océ-branded continuous feed inkjet systems. “Companies are creating devices that can do a lot in a smaller investment space,” said Amy Machado, research manager for imaging, printing, and document solutions at IDC. “You don’t have to buy a Xerox iGen. You can buy the next step down Xerox and get really good finishing, good image quality, and color management. They are moving features you saw in high-end devices downstream.” Komax has been selling Konica Minolta production printers since 1999, most successfully in the last five years. Bob Maxwell, owner of Komax, attributes that in part to improvements in Becky and Bob Maxwell, the capability and quality Komax of digital production systems. Years ago, some of the manufacturers weren’t serious about production and didn’t do as good a job with it,” he said. “Now several manufacturers produce good production equipment.” “Xerox had a stronghold [in production print], but now we have alternatives,” said Barry Simon, president at Datamax. Datamax sells Canon and Konica Minolta brands, and Simon says their products compete well and are very reliable. “[Ricoh’s] Production Print Business Group started with literally zero customers and not a lot of products, and in 10 years we’ve built it to a very, very large business,” said John Fulena, vice president of Ricoh’s Production Print Business Group. continued on page 18
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www.enxmag.com | February 2017
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