Graphic Arts Media

A glimpse into 2012

Tony Curcio

Here are insights from some industry leaders looking back at 2011 and ahead to 2012, followed by selected monthly headlines from 2011.

Richard Armstrong, President, Heidelberg Canada Graphic Equipment Limited

I would consider 2011 a turnaround year for equipment sales in Canada. Our level of prospects and equipment sales in Canada increased in 2011. Our customers are seeing the need to improve productivity and this is the primary driver in equipment decisions today. I see this trend continuing into 2012 as a lead up to drupa, so I am quite optimistic about our opportunities.

Regarding areas of challenge, a few points come to mind. Pricing has always been a challenge, but it seems to be acute right now for the industry. The commercial print market has become smaller while companies are trying to maintain previous sales levels. That helps drive this trend.

Another challenge I see is the rate of technological change. This will be positive for some firms and have a negative impact on other companies. All companies in our industry need to be continually self-evaluating and looking for new products/markets and opportunities. Even though the last few years have been difficult, I still believe there are opportunities out there and we will have a strong and vibrant industry in the future.

At Heidelberg Canada, we continue to work with our customers on adding value through our comprehensive portfolio of equipment, consumables and services. We are finding that this package of products and expertise is helping our customers achieve new levels of productivity. When you couple this package with our Productivity Consulting Services, I think we have a unique solution in the market. Over the next year, we will continue to help our customers in this way and expand our business at the same time.

With respect to drupa 2012, I cannot tell you anything specific, but I can assure you that Heidelberg will display our latest technology and services at this important event. I am looking forward to seeing our customers in Düsseldorf.

Tony Karg, Senior Director of Business Development & Marketing, Fujifilm Canada, Graphics System Division

It was a challenging year. Contracting demand for print, substitution of digital technologies for traditional print, and declining profitability were three key blows to our industry. The reality is that print must carve out its distinct niche within the marketing communication space and struggle hard for continued relevancy and mindshare from the print and digital-buying community. Fujifilm Canada’s value proposition of technologies that enable high-quality printing, backed by outstanding technical service, will enable printers to stay relevant and compete in the marketplace of 2012.

Fujifilm invests heavily into R&D for future products. This enables us to offer market-leading quality and environmentally sustainable products and consumables, and support them with a national technical service organization that is an attractive value proposition to printers in an unstable market. We see 2012 as the year of digital inkjet technologies with both commercial and wide-format inkjet markets leading the way at tradeshows such as ISA, FESPA and drupa 2012. These technologies enable printers to deliver high-quality printed material to compete with digital and mobile delivery of information in a profit-enabling way.

Fujifilm Canada continued to enjoy market share growth in 2011 in our wide-format inkjet and offset plate segments. Our wide-format successes included the installation of four Onset-class presses. We have achieved industry recognition of our technologies achieving market penetration with over 100 installations of Onset, Columbia Turbo, Spyder and Acuity presses in Canada.

We also introduced the LH-NN2 newspaper plate with tremendous success – as it offers higher quality and less environmental impact than any of its thermal newspaper plate competitors. Major newspaper chains across the country implemented this technology in 2011, with more expected for 2012. Canada’s top-selling thermal plate, the LH-PJ, continued its market-share growth in Canada.

Offering the highest possible quality result, at an affordable price, is how print will stay relevant in an increasingly digital world. That will continue to be a winning formula for the print industry in 2012.

Kevin McKay, Marketing Manager, Graphics Solution Business, HP Canada

HP graphics emerged strongly in 2011. Our Designjet Latex technology, ideal for the growing soft-signage market, saw exciting new products that demonstrated the continuing popularity of our Latex Ink. Our flagship high-performing Indigo digital presses for high-production added the PageReady finishing system – resulting in an enhanced end-to-end solution. Our Indigo Inkjet Web Press technology was seen as a bold new production solution, especially by book publishers.

Of course, our breakthrough Latex Ink technology, combined with our customer training programs, continued to reflect HP’s commitment to helping clients reduce their environmental footprint – a commitment we take very seriously at HP. Print service providers who previously purchased HP products, particularly Designjet Latex devices, were poised to grow into more revenue streams due to the application versatility, while printers with eco-solvent devices could not expand beyond traditional business.

For 2012, I see more printers transitioning into wide-format, its associated costs declining and an increase in profit opportunities. Digital shops will adapt and grow and workflow software will become more flexible and seamless for all types of print service providers. One example, our SmartStream workflow for digital production that provides end-to-end workflow management from job creation to fulfillment, has already had a big impact.

Another growing area in 2012 will be “cloud” printing solutions where companies (especially in the architecture, engineering and construction industries) will be able to save time, improve collaboration and reduce review cycles. We have already seen this happening with our HP ePrint & Share program that allows design teams to easily access, share and print large-format project files online anytime, anywhere. The bottom line is that most print service providers will have to reinvest in themselves in 2012, and indeed beyond, if they want to prosper.

Tim Wakefield, President, Insource Corporation

Many events and factors shaped 2011 as far as the mailing sector. The Canada Post strike certainly was a negative for value-added mailers involved in the direct-mail (DM) marketplace. On the positive side, new markets were being established with more printers considering mailing – or at least looking to understand the landscape, knowing there is opportunity in the DM market to, at the very least, increase print volumes. Digital print technology was being used more and more for variable print rather than simply short-run litho. Forward-thinking companies were looking for “value added” opportunities, desperate to move away from “commodity priced” competition.

Our business model has always centered around understanding the marketplace, listening to our customers and providing solutions to work smarter, maximize output and drive more results through a creative value chain. I believe we achieved our goals in 2011 utilizing many of our exclusive technologies to help grow our clients’ opportunities and revenues.

Mail is changing – no doubt about it. The high volume “shotgun” marketing approach has been replaced by a more focused personalized offering. Our approach of enhancing DM through multiple personalization technology and read-&-print greatly benefited our customers by providing their clients with tangible, improved results that perpetuate best practices. Combining multiple media, QR codes and website in DM has broadened the creative opportunities for the printer/mailer, not only driving volume, but spawning opportunities in creative fields.

The year 2012 looks to be focusing on “smarter, faster, less costly” with “results, results, results” being the key phrase. We see Insource continuing as an industry leader, helping our customers win the tough battle in finding “a better way.”

Stephen McWilliam, Executive vice-president, Avanti

Last year was our best year ever! We saw a positive mindset change in the market. Many print shops exhausted their cost-cutting opportunities. “Doing more with less” has translated into a very lean, overworked team, with no real room to reduce the number of people any further without negatively impacting customer satisfaction. The new focus was on how to grow business by increasing the effectiveness of the sales team, adding new services and finding ways to differentiate themselves from their competition.

Avanti’s most popular product in 2011 was our CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Module. Unlike standalone CRM systems, having a CRM system that is incorporated into the Print MIS is key. In addition, being able to have a system that integrates with other software applications in the print shop, such as a company’s website (for capturing leads) or Microsoft Outlook (for streamlining contact management) is critical.

Many printers have implemented, or are thinking about implementing, a web-to-print solution that offers customers an e-commerce site for submitting jobs or ordering products. That is a great start but a lousy finish! In 2012, we see shops taking that to the next level and leveraging their web-to-print environment to offer their customers “a one-stop shop” – a portal where they can submit jobs, have 24/7 access to the shop to track the status of jobs, look up real-time inventory levels, make billing and invoicing queries, etc.

Secondly, the concept of cloud computing is gaining traction. With cloud computing, IT resources, software and information are provided as a utility (like the electricity grid, paid for on an “as needed/as used” basis) over a network (typically the Internet). This represents a great opportunity for print shops to take advantage of the flexibility this model provides – reduce the IT resources required in-house, deploy and scale quickly and leave the IT issues to “the experts” so printers can focus more on their businesses.

A glimpse of the year that was

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November