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PRINT 2016
Carlos Osuna,
Panasonic
Mark Ash,
Samsung
Tony Burnett,
Altodigital
CONSOLIDATION ON THE CARDS
Do you think the printer industry
is ready for a new wave of
consolidation?
10
Yes
2
3
No
No
comment
Our experts agree overwhelmingly
that a new era of consolidation is
on the cards, as printer vendors
adapt to a changing market.
“For smaller printer manufacturers,
the printer business is no longer
a profitable one, as the price of
the main unit is decreasing, yet
development costs are not. Print
volumes for the lower speed
models are too small to bring
enough profit through consumable
sales to compensate for this.”
Carlos Osuna,
Panasonic
“Today, more and more businesses
are looking towards the Connected
Workplace to enable efficiency and
mobility within the office. The print
industry needs to adapt its offering
accordingly, and this carries a
Research & Development cost that
will cause consolidation within the
industry. Samsung is well placed to
ride this wave; we are a leader in
mobility and, by using open source
technology, we enable any device
to be connected to our printers,
thus helping to bring the Connected
Workplace to life.”
Mark Ash,
Samsung
“Anyone in the print industry who is
not willing to adapt or embrace new
technologies runs the risk of quickly
falling behind the times and not being
able to fulfil client needs.”
Tony Burnett,
Altodigital
“Yes – there are a few consolidations
happening at the moment,
with a shift to contractual print
management, which is preventing
some of the market competition
from staying competitive, as well as
new technology introductions that
are making some vendors obsolete.
There is a huge amount of innovation
in the market from HP, and this puts
pressure on our competition to keep
up. The challenge is really just how
quick any consolidation will be.”
Gary Tierney,
HP
“Several of the large enterprise-
focused printer manufacturers
will most likely continue to
lose influence in the office
printing market in 2016, as they
increasingly become orientated
towards workflow and business
process services. This will
eventually give way to some degree
of consolidation in the market,
contributing to a reshaping of the
landscape for the office printing
industry in particular. So, in short,
yes; it is time for a new wave
of consolidation, for a focus on
cloud adoption and for a more
streamlined offering in the printer
market.”
Jason Cort,
Sharp
“I suspect that we are going to see
much more M&A activity over the
coming year, driven by the market’s
shift to cloud and end users’
preference for providers that can
offer multiple services.
A lot of print resellers that haven’t
developed a cloud proposition yet
will find it difficult to maintain their
margins and may put themselves
up for sale. Similarly, resellers that
can only really offer one service
are going to start to lose business
to multi-faceted suppliers, so
there’ll be some big changes in the
market.”
Joe Doyle,
Annodata
“Without a doubt, there are
significant forces that are driving
change and evolving customer
requirements. The resulting
pressure on hardware and traditional
service revenue and margins means
consolidation is round the corner.
Yet, for those that are willing to
innovate, there are significant
revenue and margin opportunities
from new services, as well as
document and business process
optimisation.”
Francis Thornhill,
Canon
“2016 will see several Managed
Print Service specialists adding
IT services organisations and
capabilities to their armoury, through
acquisitions. Meanwhile, resellers
covering the market will continue to
consolidate to realise the benefits
of economies of scale. This will
enable them to deliver services
for a wider market and meet ever
more sophisticated customer
requirements. Therefore, coverage
of the market will largely fall to
independent resellers, with print and
multifunction device manufacturers
focusing on the largest accounts
and developing associated products,
services and solutions to meet
customer expectations.”
Steve Hawkins,
Xeretec
“Current business trends, such
as globalisation, cloud computing
and mobile, create an environment
of increased innovation and
competition. As established and
up-and-coming companies prove
the value of their solutions and add
more customers, the market will
gravitate to those who can provide
the best solutions, customer
support and innovation. It is only
natural that as new technologies
and services progress from being
disruptors to incumbents, the
market shifts and consolidates
around them.”
Simon Hill,
Nuance Communications
The future of office
printing: Part II
PrintIT recently asked leading printer vendors for their thoughts on office
printing in 2016. In the last issue we printed their answers to the questions
‘What printer features/qualities do you think will be most important to
printer buyers in 2016?’ and ‘What factors do you think will have the
biggest impact on printer and consumables sales in 2016?’. Now, we give
their thoughts on the likelihood of further consolidation in the industry.
Gary Tierney, HP
