Inkjet Summit 2013: Sponsor Vision for Success
Canon Solutions America
By Francis McMahon
Vice President, Marketing
Canon Solutions America
Production Printing Solutions
Canon Solutions America was pleased to sponsor the Inkjet Summit. As the identified market share leader* in both placements and images with our Océ branded technology, our customers know they can count on us to partner with them for success.
We know they are looking for guidance to discuss their business situations, help develop strategies and make major investment decisions around this new technology that is projected to account for one-third of all digital print volume by 2016. That’s why we put ourselves in places that enable them to have those conversations with us—whether it is one-on-one at their place of business, at our Customer Experience Center in Boca Raton, FL, or in new forums such as the Inkjet Summit.
The Inkjet Summit gave us the opportunity to discuss and understand specific customer issues and work together to ensure that the right capital investment strategy is in place to enable profitable production of books, magazines, direct mail, transaction, and transpromo.
Our customers want to know how they can turn inkjet technology into their next competitive advantage. We show them how. Together, we can do anything.
Want to Learn More About Inkjet Technology?
Visit www.OceProductionPrinting.com/GA for on-demand webinars, white papers, case studies and more, including
this four-part video series:
- What’s New with Inkjet?
- Overcoming Objections & Costs
- Color Management & Media
- Advantages of Finishing With Inket
Stronger Together.
The Océ brand has always had a reputation for high-speed, reliable production printing solutions that are built to last. From cutsheet to continuous feed, monochrome to full-color, and toner to inkjet, these proven, scalable solutions are customized for your business and backed by award-winning service.
Now, as part of Canon Solutions America, we have some of the brightest R&D minds in the industry working to bring about tomorrow’s innovations. Whether it’s improving productivity or breaking into new markets and applications, together, with our customers, we can do anything. Call (877) 623-4969 or visit www.OceProductionPrinting.com.
*Canon Solutions America is the inkjet market share leader (34 percent) with Océ branded technology, as published by InfoTrends.
Finch Paper
By Joseph Raccuia
President and CEO
Finch Paper
The Inkjet Summit is like no other print show I have ever attended. The Summit, held this year from April 9-11 in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, offered a perfect balance of education and networking with engaged leaders who can deliver growth to our business. Its innovative structure promoted open dialogue where ideas could be exchanged between technology makers and owners, and where the implications of the emerging inkjet technology could be infinitely debated and defined. Whereas a traditional print show could provide a precursory equipment overview, the Inkjet Summit provided a platform for a set of leaders to engage in influential, industry-defining discussion.
We at Finch Paper are transforming from a traditional paper manufacturer, to be a progressive solutions provider in the production inkjet space. Finch Paper’s long-standing relationships with leading print providers in the transactional, book and direct mail segments has led to a number of inkjet development projects in the last few years. Our R&D and manufacturing teams are very adept at tailoring solutions, often collaborating with a cluster of technology suppliers, OEM partners, and university and print asset owners to find effective solutions. We know from experience that optimized—not commoditized—products and workflows for pigment- and dye-based technology will address many of the challenges faced by printers competing in the inkjet color space.
The Finch Performance Inkjet portfolio includes engineered substrates such as Finch Inkjet Pi and Finch DyeJet, as well as an industry-first color management program, F.I.T. by Finch. Understanding that “color is king,” F.I.T. by Finch provides technical expertise and workflow solutions for printing businesses moving from black-and-white to color, and from lithography and electrophotography to inkjet web. For businesses with new installations, Finch provides the best total solution to expedite their rate of return on the investment.
Finch’s vision for the future includes educational leadership and training, product development and supply chain solutions. As an industry, we’ve done a good job selling quality and price. The inkjet adoption rate will push our industry in the right direction; changing the value proposition in the marketplace, creating a better understanding of the total cost of print, and appreciating the profitability dynamics and impact of ink and paper. Finch Paper is “all in” with inkjet technology and inkjet education, and we look forward to sharing our success with our partners.
Ricoh
By George Promis
VP, Continuous Forms Production Solutions
& Technology Alliances
Ricoh
The Inkjet Summit organizers stated that inkjet production print technology and solutions will be one of the most disruptive forces in the graphic arts Industry in the coming years and, at Ricoh, we agree with that assessment.
Our organization knew many years ago that inkjet was going to be an important technology for the printing industry which is why, back in 2007, we launched the InfoPrint 5000 platform, aimed at filling a niche in the market. Our goal was to have a truly game-changing platform that would use less power than other inkjet systems, all while providing transactional and commercial printers with the quality, reliability, productivity features and ease-of-use that would allow them to expand their capabilities and offerings to customers. We knew that customer requirements would expand as their clients’ needs changed. So from the start a flexible architecture that would protect customers’ hardware and software investments was a key design objective when we built the InfoPrint 5000 technology.
Now, six-plus years later as a leader in the industry according to IDC, surpassing the landmark of printing nearly 40 billion production impressions worldwide, and a portfolio filled with many repeat customers, we are enabling commercial and transactional customers across multiple industries to go beyond print and deliver innovative new solutions and services to their customers leveraging inkjet technology.
At the Inkjet Summit, through our own presentations and those of others, as well as one-on-one conversations, we got a feel for the largest challenges and potential for innovation within the industry. The one topic that seemed to prevail amidst the many subtopics discussed was the complete transition to digital. It’s a topic that is top of mind across all areas of the printing industry. Offset printers, among others are seeing that it is time to adopt new technology, but are struggling with the “how” in trying to move forward. It can feel like a struggle to them, which is why Ricoh is always endeavoring to help companies make the move to digital an easy, painless process.
And the importance of conferences like the Inkjet Summit can’t be ignored. With such dedication to the importance, growth and innovation in inkjet, this show proved to be very valuable to our Ricoh team.
Xerox Corp.
By Dustin Graupman
Vice President and General Manager
Inkjet Business
Xerox Corp.
The Inkjet Summit cultivated a valuable dialogue among vendors and print providers around today’s production inkjet opportunity. And, personally, I think the Inkjet Summit represents the future of industry trade shows. Sure, there will always be hardware to see, but more important was the opportunity to share information and build relationships—that’s the power behind bringing together print service providers, vendors and partners. Collective thinking, challenging conversations and a good share of listening made the Summit a win-win for all in attendance.
I did my share of listening and found the conversations that took place confirmed what Xerox has been hearing from customers for some time: they want and need to grow beyond being just successful printers. They want to be successful marketing communications providers. They want to be the one-stop provider, giving their customers what they need, when they need it. They want to be creative, relevant and responsive. To do that, technology—and the partner that provides it—needs to offer new capabilities to enable that transformation.
We’re up to the task. With the recent acquisition of Impika, Xerox expanded its high-performance offerings to include aqueous inkjet technology to complement the waterless ink of the CiPress Production Inkjet Systems. This gives customers more options when choosing the best technology to match a growing and changing list of applications. In fact, InfoTrends CEO Jeff Hayes summed up his view of our acquisition very simply: “Xerox did the right thing in acquiring Impika.” We think so, too.
Certainly, each of the two inkjet technologies has its strengths. Waterless inks provide vivid color and excellent image quality on low-cost, plain papers. And aqueous ink prints well on virtually any surface, delivering high-quality density color on a variety of substrates even beyond paper.
The choice of technology means that customers can select how they want to enter the inkjet market based on what’s right for them. We think that’s important. Choices offer more opportunities, less risks.
Unlike Las Vegas, let’s not keep the Inkjet Summit under wraps—there’s much to learn and take away as we continue to explore inkjet’s potential and rewards. PI
