01732 759725 42 VOX POP The past 12 months has seen a drop in demand for print devices, due to consolidation, with has led to increased stock levels, which, in turn, has driven prices down in the industry in sales of office printers as hybrid working plans are reviewed and revised. The impression I get is that many organisations have still not settled on a policy for hybrid work. While there are certainly more business-owned print devices being used in homes now – and they need to be managed and maintained – if we start to see a more sustained return to the office, that could result in more demand for shared, networkable devices. https://uk.tdsynnex.com Andrew Ellis, Sales and Marketing Director, PCL Direct Group: I feel the exposure and demand for remanufactured products will increase year on year, as the current system is not sustainable. The focus in the media is climate change, which is happening all around us and affecting all our lives. This is all interlinked and I can see how this will help create more demand for sustainable products in all business sectors. Sadly, I don’t feel all dealers have fully embraced the environmental values and, more importantly, the marketing power of remanufactured products. Instead, they are looking more at the cost saving, which means they are comparing our fully remanufactured products to cheap compatible products coming from companies that portray to be green and environmental but are purely ‘green washing’. We have increased our marketing activity and business profile, so companies in our industry know exactly ‘what we do and how we do it’, highlighting the true benefits of purchasing remanufactured products from PCL Direct. This has led to more new customer enquiries and requests to produce products in new business areas, which we have embraced and have plans to expand on in 2024. I feel our industry is slowly contracting and this has been accelerated by COVID 19. Our focus, in 2024, is to continue delivering high quality remanufactured products to our customers and diversify into other remanufactured product areas; concentrating on Canon and Ricoh, which have been requested by new and existing customers. We are also looking to grow our manufacturing by exporting to more countries around Europe, by forming new partnership alliances. The past 12 months has been a difficult year in all business sectors, especially, the print industry. It’s been a ‘perfect storm’ created from COVID 19, where people and businesses have learned to work without a printing device, which has reduced print volumes by 20-30 per cent. Globally, there have been major supply chain issues with microchips. That has had a major impact on hardware and consumable production with manufacturers in our industry. The past 12 months has seen a drop in demand for print devices, due to consolidation, with has led to increased stock levels, which, in turn, has driven prices down in the industry. On top of this, the war in Ukraine has created further uncertainty. Based on this, I don’t see business levels going back to those pre-COVID, which will create a bigger demand for dealers to sell more cost-effective and profitable solutions to their customers. www.pcl-direct.com Mick Bailey, Chairman, EBM Managed Services: In 2022, in issue 99 of PrintIT Reseller, we responded to a Chris Bates Markus Rex
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