Xerox digitalizing the un-digitalized!

Pankaj Kalra
Executive Director
Graphics Communication Group
Xerox India

Though printing has been there for the last 500-odd years, when Gutenburg invented the first printing press somewhere in the late 15th century, digital printing as a phenomenon is very new to this printing industry. It was first conceptualized when the first laser printers were invented in 1969 by Xerox.  In spite of being there for all these years, digital printing has been successful in grabbing only 10% of the total printing market, with 90% of it being enjoyed by conventional (offset) printing alone. But as Pankaj points it out, there is an opportunity as also the forecast that says that this 10% is to become 20% by 2014. So, the number is going to double as the printing market matures. 

Digital Printing has happened much later in India. But given the fact that the Indian economy is growing manifold, the digital market growth is going to be much faster in India when seen against the global market. Currently, digital printing accounts for 6%-7% of the total printing market in India. India's digital printing industry has seen a 25.8% growth in the last three years and this number is expected to grow from US$504 million in 2006 to as much as US$2.5 billion by 2012. “This is a good news to both Xerox and the Indian printing industry. Xerox has been a pioneer in important innovations taking place in the printing space and digital printing is another area where we are going to show our prowess,” says Kalra.

In India, Digital printing offers a plethora of opportunities for various applications including Book Publishing, Packaging, Photo printing, etc. It has also found great acceptance from various verticals and the awareness is still on the rise. Xerox is aggressively focussing on an application called Book on Demand, which is a very economical means of publishing digitally and there is never this apprehension of a book going out of print as it may be ordered or re-printed anytime. Similarly, the photo industry and packaging are other two big industries where Xerox is equally focussed on. 

Xerox has been taking up many initiatives for spurring up a digital revolution. “We sponsor events to reach out to the people and educating them about it. And Xerox does it very often. We also do events with print trade associations and undertake a lot of retail activities for the same. We have these various printing schools- also inviting us as a sponsor for their different events,” recalls Kalra.

The role of the partners cannot be overlooked here as they have been instrumental in helping Xerox to grow. “Xerox cannot reach everywhere, so we need help from partners to reach out to our customers. So, it is a win-win situation for both of us since they have a good product and a good principle to support them and we have a good profitable business flowing in from them. This is backed by a robust service support model which also forms an important part of Xerox's strategy,” says Kalra. It also organizes joint events with its partners to further consolidate its business.

Finally...

The global digital printing market is growing for sure and the same success story can be replicated in India too. But despite digital printing picking up fast, it can never supplement conventional printing as a whole or take away its share of market. This is because, as Kalra sums up, both the presses have a very important place in today's printing industry. Depending on the need, the customer can decide as to which printing technology he would opt for. The industry will remain as a mix of both these technologies for sometime now. 

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Factors driving growth in digital printing space:

• Cost-effective and economical: The cost is generally determined by the run length. While the unit cost of each piece may be higher than that of offset printing, when set-up costs are included digital printing provides lower per unit costs for very small print runs.
• Less turnaround time and speed: The turnaround time is relatively lesser in digital printing, which adds to its advantage. There are no press set-up requirements and production is also much faster, which is not the case with the conventional one.
• Enhanced quality: The demand today in printing is for enhanced print quality and reliability which enables high-quality imaging on a wide spectrum of media at maximum speed. Digital printing scores over conventional printing in this regard as the former commands a better printing and image quality than the latter.

For more contact:
samrita@varindia.com