Chris Lynch, Head of MEA Production at Xerox, explains their innovations at this year’s Gulf Print & Pack 2019, their presence in the MENA region, and what they will be demonstrating at the show (stand 1B8).
Can you just tell us a bit about your company’s presence in the UAE/Middle East?
Xerox has had a presence in the Middle East since 1983 and distributor network across every country in the Middle East, including Pakistan, since the late 1980’s. In the UAE and in Saudi Arabia, the Xerox relationship is as a joint venture (JV). In UAE, the JV is with the Mohamed Hareb Al Otaiba Group, and in Saudi Arabia, it is with The Olayan Group.
We believe the Middle East plays a significant role when it comes to digital transformation and developing innovating technologies. The digital transformation era pushes printers to innovate and offer its customers long term benefits from print materials. The future of the print industry will revolve around helping print providers become more digitally competent, to enable them to offer new value to their customers and make print in whatever form it takes, more relevant to the consumer.
Why did your company decide to participate in the Innovation Trail at Gulf Print & Pack 2019?
Being part of the Innovation Trail will allow us to showcase to our customers the latest digital solutions and services which help add value to print, reduce costs, improve productivity or automate many of the processes involved in their print operations. These exciting new technologies help print providers maximise opportunities in their market and grow their business and profitability. This is a great way to connect further with the market and to have open and honest conversations with customers about how suppliers such as Xerox can help overcome their challenges and provide new and innovative solutions to help grow their businesses.
Can you talk us through the innovations you will be showcasing in your live demonstrations at the show?
Xerox will be showcasing new and unique printing technologies as well as some new workflow and colour management software which helps our customers really add value to print or remove costly, labour intensive or time consuming steps in the process of generating print.
A good example of this is the Xerox Iridesse Production Press which is already transforming the print industry. The Xerox Iridesse Production Press will open new business opportunities for our partners and their customers while offering them an immediate competitive edge. Adoption of specialty enhancements is growing as developments in printing technology, like Iridesse, make embellishments and enhancements possible for more applications. Digital print embellishments provide unique value, higher profits and increased growth. Print embellishments also revive the design possibilities by opening up a whole new palette of metallic, iridescent and specialty enhancements that can be used.
What do you feel are the key trends in the region and how will your innovations help move the industry forward?
InfoTrends projects that digital print enhancement volume will grow at a 27% CAGR from 2015 to 2020, reaching 25 billion pages by 2020. This growth rate is more than twice the rate of the CMYK digital printing market; we expect above overall market growth rates for digital print enhancement to continue well into the 2020’s. Roughly half of PSPs that InfoTrends surveyed indicated that they are considering a digital print enhancement system in the next two years; Of those, 58% are most likely to buy a digital printer with in-line enhancement capability and 42% an off-line system.
Key drivers of this growth include:
Entrance of high speed inkjet systems with multiple enhancement units by 2018
Larger sheet size off-line systems in 2017
New low cost A3 off-line systems in 2017
Digital press vendors expanding their in-line capabilities and toners/inks
Increased sales and marketing efforts by PSPs
Declining cost per page for digital enhancement (higher productivity, new inkjet systems)
What are you hoping visitors to your stand will learn?
Visitors to the Innovation Trail on the Xerox booth at GPP will learn from Industry experts and guest speakers from around the world as to how the new technologies being demonstrated are changing the business of print. They will leave with some new and practical ideas as to how they can grow their business in new ways, which help differentiate them from others and how they can improve productivity and ultimately lower the cost of their operations, by using technology to automate many of the process steps involved in generating print.
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