Should You Make a Purchase at the Next Print Show?

Are you an executive or decision-maker working for an organization that provides printing services? Do you have a plan in place to stay up to date with the ever-changing hardware and software landscape? Are you taking steps to ensure your continued profitability and revenue growth? Remember, your business plan is an on-going, live document that should be reviewed against these criteria on a regular cadence. Print is arguably a more competitive industry than most, as players aren’t just competing with each other but with online print aggregators and online marketing communication solutions. In response to this added competition, as well as continued consolidation of the market, many PSPs have turned to new products to help drive profits.

However, which new products are worthy of investment? And, what hardware will best enable these products? These are the questions that decision-makers must address as they look to the year ahead, on top of assessing maintenance levels, renewing lease agreements, and other factors that can impact the bottom line. With so many variables, updating the business plan for the coming year is an essential step for those at the executive level. Flying blind with no specific set of objectives removes a company’s ability to proactively control their future, leaving them reacting to events as they occur instead of laying the infrastructure to be prepared for market changes.

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2018 Financial Review: A Look at 16 Industry Players

Each year, Keypoint Intelligence publishes a document looking at the financial health of manufacturers in the global office equipment industry. The 2019 version is now available through our office services; it covers the performance of 16 industry players in the 2018 fiscal year. In most cases, we show the vendors’ imaging and printing revenue over a five-year span and explain the reasons for any changes. We also review operating profits within imaging and printing divisions to provide another measure of financial health. In the cases where OEMs do not report their imaging and printing performance publicly, we substitute revenue and profit information with data from our single-function printer and MFP placement and market share estimates.

Here are a few high-level findings from our latest financial review:

• On the whole, global imaging and print-related revenue increased nearly 2% from 2017-2018 – fueled by vendors like HP that saw growth
• Over a five-year period (2014-2018), overall global imaging/print revenue declined 7% – driven by declining demand and competitive pricing pressures (see chart below)
• Vendors continued to experience a wide range of profit margins in 2018 (i.e., 0.6% to 16%)

Overall industry health as reflected by revenue

Notes: This chart includes the performance of 12 OEMs; fiscal year start and end dates vary somewhat by OEM

For more information on this and other Keypoint Intelligence research and deliverables, please contact Christine Dunne at christine.dunne@keypointintelligence.com.

Western Europe: Applications in Digital On Demand Printing

Extracted from a recent InfoTrends Market Report on Print Applications:

Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends (InfoTrends) recently questioned respondents in the United States and Western Europe about the digital and analog print applications they offered for sale. The responses for both sides of the Atlantic Ocean are outlined in the charts below.

Respondents in the United States as well as Western Europe cited an array of printed marketing applications, including business cards, brochures/flyers, catalogs, and direct mail. Although the top two applications for U.S. and Western European respondents were business cards and brochures, there were some differences as well. For example, whereas respondents in the United States were more focused on direct mail, those in Western Europe were Read more »

Making Printers & MFPs More Accessible to All Users

Document imaging OEMs have taken many steps to make their products more accessible to people with special needs. While this may be the right thing to do, it can also make business sense—particularly when selling into government agencies, other vertical markets (e.g., education, healthcare), and environments that put an emphasis on accessibility. Furthermore, in many instances designing for accessibility provides the added benefit of delivering a better experience for all users—regardless of their physical and mental capabilities.

In a recently published Market & Vendor Insights report, Market & Vendor Insights: Accessibility, Keypoint Intelligence analysts outlined specific efforts OEMs have undertaken to support accessibility, as well as scored these manufacturers on relevant product features, processes, and initiatives. Categories evaluated are shown in the below scoring table, which for the purposes of this blog post omits the names of manufacturers (they are included in the actual report). The darker blue the cell, the better the OEM performed in our assessment.

MFP/printer accessibility scoring by OEM (specific names omitted for blog post)

Office CompleteView subscribers have access to this market insight report, which also includes print accessibility primary research, OEM profiles, and analyses of PaceSetter award winners. Anyone else interested in this document can contact Christine Dunne at christine.dunne@keypointintelligence.com for more information.

New Research Document Scores OEMs on MFP Platforms, Apps, Cloud Readiness

Recently, Keypoint Intelligence analysts published a new Market & Vendor Insight report: MFP Platforms, App Ecosystems, & Cloud Readiness. In this document, we identified the trends surrounding multifunction printer software platforms as well as their associated app ecosystems and cloud readiness features, laid out the competitive landscape in this area, and showed how major OEMs performed in our latest platform and apps ecosystem evaluation (for which cloud readiness is a new scoring rubric).

As a basis for this evaluation, we surveyed the leading document imaging equipment makers in the United States and Europe, and conducted independent research to determine the progress path of MFP software platforms and their associated app ecosystems. Interested in a snippet of this report? Here’s a visual showing that office equipment dealers believe MFP apps that scan directly to cloud locations will be most important to customers over the next year.

In the next 12 months, how important will MFP apps be in your customer’s overall office environment?

Interested in more information about this document, including PaceSetter award winners? If you’re an InfoTrends Office CompleteView subscriber, the report is included as part of your subscription. Otherwise, please contact Christine Dunne at christine.dunne@keypointintelligence.com.

Gen Z: An Important Group of Photography Consumers

This article originally appeared in Digital Imaging Reporter – January 14, 2019

Many pundits assume that gen Z consumers are not that interested in traditional photo activities, such as ordering prints and custom photo merchandise. After all, they were born into a world of digital cameras, social networks and omnipresent screens.

However, a recent Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends study indicates that this group of more than 73 million people, born between 1998 and 2010, is actively engaged in photography. Moreover, the study suggests that gen Z is worthy of imaging vendors’ marketing attention. Read more »

Why Phishing is Still a Dangerous Form of Cyberattack

Stories about data breaches leaking personal data and damaging company profitability continue to make headlines. Much of the focus in these pieces includes the sophisticated forms of cyberattacks that are involved. For example, the WannaCry attack of 2017 was accomplished with a ransomware worm while the infamous Equifax breach reportedly came from software exploitation.

Incidents like these highlight just how threatening sophisticated forms of cyberattacks can be in the professional space. At the same time, however, focusing solely on software updates and worm virus protection is not enough to keep a company safe from a data breach. According to cybersecurity firm Wombat Security, 76% of companies have reportedly been victims of phishing attacks within the past year.

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Which industries Need the Most GDPR education?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is not new. In development for over four years, the laws associated with this act recently went into effect in May 2018. Designed for the EU, the GDPR is focused on the issue of consumer privacy in the digital age. Specifically, it holds organizations that collect consumer data more accountable for said information, and gives the consumer more power in determining exactly which data is collected. Obtaining informed consent is also a priority.

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Moms Provide Insight Into Print’s Advantages

My local online moms group recently got into a discussion about whether paper or digital invitations are preferable for kids’ party invites. While they were discussing consumer printing (and in many instances production printing for consumers), it got me thinking about how many of their comments are also relevant to the world of business printing.

First, let me show you the main points addressed by these moms. In summary, they cited the following advantages of printed versus digital invitations.

Advantages of printed vs. digital invitations cited by local moms

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