Predictions
PRINT.IT
29
Jonathan Whitworth,
Managing
Director,
DSales (UK) Ltd
The future’s so
bright...
2013 was an excellent year
for DSales (UK) with record
sales of £11.7 million and the
opening of our new showroom
at Heathrow serving our
channel partners and their
customers in London and
south-east England.
Manufactured by Konica
Minolta, the Develop ineo range
continues to be at the cutting
edge of technical innovation
and design. Solutions are now
a major factor in any sales
proposal and Develop has
some excellent document
management software apps
that are unique to the brand like
the award-winning ‘store+find’
electronic archiving solution.
Sales of production print
systems remain small. This end
of the market hasn’t lived up
to early predictions, possibly
because the downturn hit the
commercial print sector hard
and also because of the step-
change needed in dealer service
provision to support this high
performance kit. However, with
the economic recovery sales are
picking up.
Prospects for 2014 look
excellent. DSales now has a
record number of dealer channel
partners and has the resources
to support partners in very big
contract sales – not only is the
volume of orders increasing,
order value is growing too.
Support for a more
flexible way of working
Today, living without the
convenience of a smartphone
is inconceivable. The mobile
functionalities that are a way
of life for consumers were
adopted by more and more
enterprises in 2013 as a
means of managing documents
more efficiently. Businesses
across Europe have slowly
been recognising the benefits
of equipping their employees
with mobile devices to support
a more flexible way of working
that enables a workforce to be
productive even when outside
the office.
We have seen increasing
demand for printers and
scanners with mobile, Wi-Fi and
cloud connectivity that address
the needs of employees working
with, or planning to work with,
smartphones, tablets or laptops.
Our
Office Insights
report
confirmed how useful those
capabilities are, with more than
two-thirds of respondents stating
that Wi-Fi-enabled printers or
scanners have a positive impact
on productivity: almost half
considered automatic sending of
scanned documents to the cloud
as valuable.
At the same time, customers
have started to address common
concerns around mobile working,
such as control and security.
There has been a strong need
for a secure environment and
employee education to allow
new working practices to evolve
without compromising security
or control.
Decision-makers across
Europe that we’ve spoken to
seem very optimistic about
2014. Almost half of them
expect business growth over the
next 12 months, but there are
challenges on the way.
Mobile workforces can
be a brake on profitability if
employees don’t have access
to the right technology and
workflows outside the office.
We see this happening when
organisations try to introduce
mobile working without clearly
defining a mobile strategy that
incorporates workers’ needs
and document management
processes. The decision-makers
we spoke to agreed that their
organisations could do more to
enable staff to work off-site as
effectively as in the office.
In 2014 the push into mobile
and remote working practices
will continue, but organisations
need a clearly defined office
technology strategy and more
staff training if employees are to
unlock the true potential of their
mobility.
More organisations will
introduce specialised mobile
apps that allow employees
to tackle traditional office-
based tasks on the go. These
might include printing, feeding
documents into business
workflows or approving contracts.
The increasing number of apps
will force more organisations to
introduce corporate app stores.
These one-stop-shops will give
employees and departments an
overview of available business
apps and help them find the
ones they need to be productive
when outside the office.
Mark Ash,
General Magnager
Print – Uk & Ireland,
Samsung
SMBs the main driver
for economic growth
2013 was the year print
became truly mobile. Although
the ability to print from a
smartphone or tablet isn’t
new, this year we’ve seen the
most demand for it. This has a
lot to do with the technology
that supports its improvement.
From a Samsung point of
view, the launch of our NFC-
enabled printers was a big
tipping point in seamless and
efficient mobile printing for
our customers. Next year, we
will see the versatility of NFC
develop further, particularly in
the business landscape.
Our range of wireless
products are also Google Cloud
Print and Airprint-enabled.
This year, we’ve seen a rise in
demand for cloud print-enabled
devices, reflecting the growing
need for dispersed and mobile
workforces to be able to work
and print on the move. We have
developed our mobile print apps
to meet this requirement, not
just for printing but for scanning
and editing too.
SMBs will continue to be the
main driver of economic growth
and their need for full featured
products at low cost will become
ever more apparent. SMBs
focus on the most essential IT
equipment and print is a vital
part of this.
This year, we have brought
numerous Printing Solutions
Packages to market so that
they can purchase what is
most important to them. One
of the biggest cost elements in
IT infrastructure is the server
and its maintenance. Knowing
the cost-saving imperatives of
SMBs, we introduced serverless
printing solutions so that SMEs
could spend their money on
other areas of their business
and focus on improving the
productivity and efficiency of
document processes.
...continued
Francis Thornhill,
European & UK
Marketing Manager,
Canon Europe
