ME Printer speaks to Pauline Brooks, the Marketing Development Manager for the Marketing Division UAE at Konica Minolta, and Alexey Lukyanchuk, the Business Development Specialist PP&IP CAMEA at Konica Minolta, about the print-on-demand market in the Middle East
Does your company offer Print-on-Demand Solutions?
Konica Minolta World Wide has a wide range of Print on Demand Solutions, that are always available in our portfolio. Here in the Middle East, the demand is not particularly high, varying significantly from region to region and depending on the development of local business and technologies.
What solutions / services come under Print-on-Demand Solutions?
Konica Minolta offers a range of digital printing equipment and solutions, fitting the requirements of small to medium digital printers. In this segment we would propose the Konica Minolta print controller which offers unique colour control and technologies, giving customers modern, cost-effective and high-quality printing solutions. Other services that use POD solutions to their advantage are, Digital marketing, Variable data printing services such as Direct Mail, Print on demand web-based books and reports.
Is the Middle East region big on Print-on-Demand solutions?
The region is not particularly focused on print on demand solutions, however, some of the main markets such as government, Oil and the airline industry, are using digital technology and solutions to remain competitive. On-demand enterprises in the region differ in size and productivity, many of the smaller companies usually propose a relatively narrow range of products and solutions. However, there are large enterprise accounts in Dubai, that offer expertise in digital printing and are able to produce all digital pre-press work from manuscripts or pre-printed samples with very high quality in short turnaround time.
Which markets and industry verticals according to you are the most upcoming in adopting such solutions?
As for digital print in general, the government here in the GCC region is really driving the digital change in all areas of industry, which in turn is adopting the solutions available. Digital book printing is growing, with the development of other technologies like Web-to-Print (W2P), workflow management and Internet in general. Business-oriented application areas such as in-house print or CRD (copying and reproduction departments) are the most quickly growing business-oriented areas. This area is influenced by the trend to decrease human intervention in print production, where Konica Minolta can propose valuable solutions for machine set-up in colour printing enterprises.
What’s in it for companies that offer such solutions on the market?
Companies that offer (POD) are able to offer their customers an easier life by automating their workflow, eliminating lengthy pre-press set up as well as saving on unwanted printing and publications, firms can save on storage space and reduce overheads as well as running costs. Also, it is possible when buying printing engines and other hardware to offer job submission, workflow management and W2P specially adjusted for use with the vendor’s equipment, providing guaranteed seamless operation. Such a complex solution increases customers’ attraction.
What are the advantages of offering such solutions?
Print on demand (POD) is an ideal way to address increasing demand for short runs, web integration plus a host of other challenges. A PoD workflow solution streamlines common workflow tasks, helps medium to high-volume print-on-demand environments increase their job volume, decreases turnaround times and maximize their equipment investment. It allows the user to manage jobs faster and more efficiently whilst maximizing productivity at busy periods. More hardware-oriented topics would be, ease of use of both hardware and software, higher print quality at a more affordable price, more WYSIWIG interfaces, good choice of workflow solutions, including both W2P and internal workflow management.
What are the challenges in offering such solutions?
In many cases, the solution for PoD should be customized for a specific customer (print houses), as the spectrum of demands is quite wide depending very much on the company’s internal structure, experience, existing solutions and product range. However, we also have to pay detailed attention to each customer’s needs as every case is unique with regards to the complexity of initial operational period, the biggest headache been startups when sometimes little or no experience is available and poor developed business plans are submitted. In some such cases, we should take into account that a learning curve is required. One of the most challenging trends is the increasing competition in this area, which demands detailed consideration of pricing policy, regarding both equipment, parts and support costs.
How can these challenges be overcome?
The PoD area is very specific and requires special attention from the local distributor or company selling the solution. This is not a large issue for companies who are professional in the Graphic Arts market. Konica Minolta can propose a wide range of light and mid-level digital print engines and own technologies; however, the biggest issue is the experience of both the sales staff, service and support departments, as this base supports the direction of the customer’s business.
How can companies equip themselves to offer such solutions?
If we talk about the hardware been part of the solution, some of the solutions proposed a few years ago (included everything, starting with the print controller, engine and finishing) this proved to be a very niche product. Now many vendors propose instead essential scalable solutions depending on the print runs, product range and pricing policy, any company can build a system based on very different modules. The heart of the system is the printing engine of the same type used in normal press houses and sometimes in CRDs.
The pre-press part usually should contain W2P solution, integrated with MIS or standalone, a special controller with high productivity that is capable of accepting various file formats, oriented to the high productivity of job processing. A friendly user customer interface is one of the key products from Konica Minolta, finishing equipment can vary, ranging from simple in-line finishers, providing easy production with less human intervention, through to heavier post press equipment typical for finishing houses, to highly automated versatile standalone systems. Konica Minolta offers a wide range of high quality and compact printing presses, with their own unique print controllers and colour control technologies, plus versatile in-line finishing for business-oriented production and affordable solutions for W2P and workflow management.
