Print.IT Reseller - issue 59

01732 759725 VOX POP 44 centric partners will be challenged by IT centric resellers who are expected to increasingly lead relationships/influence with their customers in the print arena moving forward. “As part of this, we will continue to see a rise in mobile employees, which was circa 38 per cent in 2017. We anticipate it to account for over half the workforce by 2025, with more than half of end-users expecting mobile print volumes to increase. “Along with mobility, security and cloud will continue to be the top priorities for companies in the next six to seven years (source: Quocirca Print2025 ). Print security will be a key consideration and already today 30 per cent of customers rate this as very important. This will rise to over 50 per cent. Security expertise will therefore be a key supplier selection criteria. “MPS demand will stay strong. As the market moves to digital transformation, it will become increasingly software and services led. Many MPS providers have skills and expertise in this area and so will be ideally placed to service future customer requirements, for example, many MPS providers have access to tools and resources to help customers identify security threats and implement solutions to effectively manage these. “We are also expecting the market to continue to consolidate – we have seen a lot of acquisition activity and we don’t see that changing in 2019. This will bring both its own strengths and challenges. Benefits of partner organisations merging include the breadth of capability and the option of having potentially one trusted advisor. On the other hand, challenges could include a loss of choice or erosion of local relationships and flexibility.” www.xerox.com items, rarely more than ten or twenty. That is the nature of personalisation. But such is the interest in it and the rate of growth that it is helping to provide a raft of new opportunities for the printing sector to offset volume declines they may be seeing in traditional printing markets. “That’s where we see a need for high street print houses; large commercial printers and graphic arts, or speciality marketing businesses, to start investing in the technology that drives personalised printing of this kind. Diversifying and offering something new to their customers should allow them to offset that decline. While there will be costs involved, printing businesses will have the opportunity to charge more for the differentiated service offering and drive incremental revenue streams, both from winning new customers but also selling more to existing ones. “Whatever the specific approach, however, the broad market trend, personalised product offerings looks set to gather pace in 2019. Businesses will need to move fast to take advantage of it and build differentiated solutions. In doing that, the printing capability they have at their disposal will be absolutely key.” www.oki.com/uk Carlo Longhi, Director and General Manager, Indirect Channels UK and Ireland, Xerox “Continuing the trend of 2018, we will see the industry steadily increase its transition from physical to digital. This goes beyond the box (hardware) as more and more SMB customers will continue to look for trusted partners who can help and support them on their digital transformation journey. Traditional print Jason Cort, Director of Product Planning and Marketing, Sharp Europe 1 Creating new value through targeted innovation “In 2019, OEMs will build upon and refine the intelligent, connected technologies that have started to permeate the print and IT industries. AI and IoT have become popular buzzwords of late, but as these technologies become more commonplace, organisations need to differentiate themselves by offering products that add real value for customers. “To do this vendors and channel organisations will need to think more about the end-user experience. This is certainly something we are focused on at Sharp, looking beyond the technology to consider how new features and functionality are designed to have the most impact on the overall customer experience. This helps to create more targeted innovation that delivers the experiences customers need, want and value. 2 Further market consolidation “The print industry is getting smaller; while this doesn’t mean that people will stop printing overnight, there is now more urgency for print focused organisations to diversify. Next year we will see an increase in the number of businesses looking to move beyond their traditional target markets. “This could be achieved through partnerships with companies offering complementary software and service solutions. However, it is likely we will see further consolidation of the market as a result – another print OEM may change hands for example. 3 Accelerated diversification “It is becoming more challenging to be truly innovative in print. For some time Next year we will see an increase in the number of businesses looking to move beyond their traditional target markets ...continued Jason Cort Carlo Longhi