PrintIT Reseller - issue 49

01732 759725 Q&A 20 who historically we thought would be more difficult to actually take that step into a different technology, but they’ve been really open to the change. PITR : Business inkjet has certain advantages for resellers from an MPS and servicing perspective, could you tell us what they are and why resellers should add your business inkjet products to their portfolios? DW : There are the obvious benefits. I’ve mentioned previously about the lack of intervention, about being able to spend less time with the devices open so less servicing resource and they are more robust, but actually it’s not just about the products themselves. We’ve developed a multitude, a platform of MPS propositions, so we have a solution for a dealer that wants to do their own servicing, a traditional copier dealership type route to market and we have a proposition that fits that. But equally at the other end of the market, from an IT resellers’ perspective, we want a really light touch on the MPS world, but still wants to step into those recurring revenues, the contracted print kind of space. We’ve seen suggestions from the likes of IDC that’s saying by 2021 actually just under a half of all printing devices in a business environment will be as a service, will be contracted so, IT resellers are seeing that as a space that they need to move into. We have a really simple proposition called Print 365 that enables people that aren’t classically steeped in print knowledge to take steps into that space as well. So that product sits upon our range of business inkjet devices, so we’re still able to deliver energy and waste reduction and real sustainability benefits, but on a platform that’s easy for any type of reseller partner to be able to transact. And we do use our partners for everything, we’re not a direct OEM business, everything that we do goes through our channel partners, so we’re absolutely relying on and absolutely keen to listen to partners and further develop our propositions to ensure that we enable them to be able to take those steps forward as we hit 2021 and beyond to make sure they’ve got the right proposition to suit the market. PITR : What do you think will be some of the main priorities for printer buyers in 2018 and how can your WorkForce Pro and Enterprise Products help them achieve their goals? DW : I think there are three S’s in this space – there’s security, sustainability and simplicity. As infrastructures become more complex, moving to the cloud perhaps, moving off-site, the ability to be able to integrate into those more complex environments means that endpoint devices like printers actually need to be simple. They need to be really easy to use, and from our consumer experience, and that side of the business whereby everybody’s houses are bring-your-own-device type of functionality, then we need to be able to be really easy to use by customers. We’ve taken that experience and brought that into the business space. From a security perspective, there are things like GDPR data protection and regulation around data as it moves around businesses, and especially from a printer being an endpoint, there needs to be controls over that so that will continue to be a priority. The ability to have cost accounting or print release solutions and be able to track documents and information through businesses, that will continue to be important, and our extension of dealing with somebody like Nuance in that space with the WorkForce Enterprise device becomes key. And then from a sustainability perspective; I think it’s entering even more into the general public’s thought process. When we see David Attenborough on Blue Planet talking about the damage that we're doing to the environment, I think it enters more into everybody’s mind that we need to take steps, positive steps, and this could be something as small as reductions in energy consumption. And in the office, if we are moving to cloud by servers we’re moving servers off-site, then we’re reducing the amount of energy we consume there. We’re changing our lighting to LED, we’re reducing the amount of energy we’d use there. So the big step with printers is moving to a more highly efficient technology, it’s a really good step and when you wrap in the energy consumption and then the reduction in waste and the reduction in carbon emissions, our inkjet devices because they don’t generate heat we can talk about no ozone being produced, so we’ve got a really compelling message around those products; which fit into those priorities that buyers are thinking about when they change their printing fleet. PITR : What does the future hold for business inkjet and laser technologies and where does Epson fit in? DW: I can see the market changing more in the direction of business inkjet IT, IDC are suggesting that by 2019 even, as early as that, that 20 per cent of the print market will be sat using inkjet technology and that’s a section of the market. A departmental print that hasn’t embraced this kind of technology previously, so, that actually sits outside of where we currently sit and have a very large section of market and the smaller workgroup space in desktop space, which is where inkjet has historically been far stronger. The market is changing; it’s taking into account the sustainability benefits of things like business inkjet and we can see that the market is very much moving away from inefficiencies all over the space. Different types of technology outsourcing where it’s more efficient to bringing things in-house, and actually taking out some of those inefficient technologies. And when you have an oven in your printing device that’s using kilowatts of electricity, it’s a very inefficient device. So, we see that the whole market is beginning to take into account the substantial benefits that inkjet can bring about and there are big changes in the market overall. www.epson.co.uk ...continued When we see David Attenborough on Blue Planet talking about the damage that we’re doing to the environment, I think it enters more into everybody’s mind that we need to take steps, positive steps, and this could be something as small as reductions in energy consumption