Inkjet & Digital Printing
Canon Europe sets out to Boost CRD Business Performance with Expanding Solutions Offering
Friday 29. May 2009 - Canon Europe, world leader in digital imaging solutions, is setting out to help CRDs (central or corporate reprographic departments) boost their business performance with an expanding portfolio of high performance digital production printing presses, dedicated workflow solutions and a business development service offering tailored to the unique needs of CRD operations.
Although Canon already has a substantial presence in the CRD market through its installed base of black and white and colour presses and light production devices, Canon is now committing itself to further deepen its understanding of the business and process issues affecting CRDs in order to optimise its service to these and future customers.
Building on a series of focus groups and in-depth interviews with CRD customers, Canon commissioned Professor Frank Romano of the Rochester Institute of Technology to independently scrutinise the global CRD market. The results of his study are unveiled today in an Insight Report entitled Corporate Reprographics – Trends and Opportunities (see separate press release, dated 28/05/09). This complements the first Insight Report, published by Canon in June 2008, which explored the changing commercial print landscape. Canon has capitalised on this substantial market research investment, using the intelligence from that first Insight Report to engage more effectively with professional print customers, attaining 30% of the digital colour production market with the imagePRESS range of presses within 18 months of the products roll-out.
David Preskett, European Professional Print Director, Canon Europe explains: “The new Insight Report gives us an invaluable view of the challenges and opportunities facing CRD operations. We see that, while 90% of organisations view print as critical to their operations, businesses are simply not using the full potential of their CRDs. We know there is substantial scope for CRDs to harness digital print technology to use their production capacity more effectively, increase the volume and scope of work handled internally, and improve output quality and response times. Whats more, CRDs have an opportunity to enhance their value to their organisations by broadening their service offering, and anticipating and responding to their organisations evolving needs for increasingly sophisticated business, sales and marketing documentation and collateral.”
Since the start of 2009, Canon has made significant strides to reinforce its commitment to CRD customers, expanding the imagePRESS range with three new monochrome engines, the imagePRESS 1110, 1125 and 1135. These complement the established imagePRESS 7000 VP, 6000VP and 6000, answering CRDs need for high productivity and quality across a mix of colour and black-and-white output.
The recently launched Helix Production Workflow, the product of Canons strategic investment in specialist software development house NTWare, has been developed from the ground up to meet the specific workflow automation, web-to-print, and VDP needs of corporate reprographic departments. This product complements Canons established and expanding Workflow Program, which includes industry-leading software tools and applications.
Canon continues to evolve its Essential Business Builder Program with the release of version 2. The Essential Business Builder Program is a modular consultancy programme designed to support professional print customers with the transition to digital. In the coming months, CRD customers will be given access to tailored business development support modules that take into account their specific needs, helping them to capitalise fully on their digital investments and develop new business services which will cement their value within their organisations.
In addition, Canon can offer CRD customers a portfolio of large format printing devices delivering professional quality at low cost, enabling them to expand their internal service offering into graphics and POS/POP applications. Corporate marketing departments can also benefit from solutions such as the imagePRESS C1+, which provides an affordable way of producing high quality marketing collateral with excellent colour reproduction and the scope to use clear toner to achieve visually arresting printed effects.
David Preskett adds: “The Insight Reports findings – combined with dialogue and feedback from our existing CRD customers – highlight the potential for Canon to support our customers in improving their business performance. We have a first-class solutions portfolio for CRDs comprising hardware, software, consultancy and service, backed by robust research into the needs of CRDs, and a customer-oriented approach. With this offering, and with a committed and knowledgeable team, were confident of replicating the significant benefits we have brought to commercial print businesses, and helping CRDs become pivotal to the commercial success of their organisations.”