Inkjet & Digital Printing
Premedia Expands Web-to-Print Capabilities with an HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press
Monday 09. August 2010 - HP today announced that Premedia, of Wels, Austria, has installed an HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press to increase its ability to meet demand for high-quality digital print and web-to-print services.
Established in 1985 as a traditional repro house by Manfred Rumpl, Premedia moved into digital printing with dry toner systems, adding an HP Indigo press 3050 in 2004. For a time, both systems operated in parallel, the dry toner for lower quality work, and the HP Indigo for higher quality. Now employing 50 people, Premedia’s main focus is on intelligent print data solutions and web-to-print opportunities.
In April 2010, the company installed the HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press determining that the technology had developed with improvements in both speed and quality. As it had done before investing in its first HP Indigo press, Premedia tested the digital presses that were on the market and concluded that the HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press would best meet the quality expectations of its customers.
While Premedia carries out in-house digital production, it also manages longer conventional jobs for its customers via selected partners, using the digital-conventional cross-over point(1) to determine which technology is to be used. With its web-to-print facility, the company, it is able to provide a broad range of commercial print services ranging from simple standard products to complex brochures and direct mail.
Digital success
The management of Premedia is shared by its founder, Manfred Rumpl, who looks after the financial side; sales and marketing director, Bernard Hofer; technical and production director, Jürgen Pedrotti. Their vision for digital print has seen the company has double its business volume since 2005, and in 2009/2010, it increased it revenues by 10 percent to 9.9 million Euros, in spite of challenging economic conditions.
“We have developed what we call TOMM – Total Media Management – for our customers,” said Pedrotti. “It took a while, but by 2004, it began to catch on. We operate two solutions: one from HP Partner Pageflex, for customers who want to order business cards, as well as other basic commercial products, and a special solution for larger customers who need to administer one-to-one data, or want to enable more users to access the web-to-print facility at the same time. Our largest customer has 8,000 users of the system.”
Premedia has some 40 larger customers spread across Austria, Germany, the UK, the Czech Republic and Hungary, representing a variety of market sectors ranging from financial institutions to large retailers and travel organisations. The model of devolved print ordering via the web and centralised printing with quality and financial controls provides a fast and effective way of meeting the diversity of print requirements of these customers.
Apart from its more routine commercial jobs, Premedia also notes an expansion of interest in customisation and personalisation.
“It seems that a new generation in company marketing departments has discovered the potential of personalisation,” Pedrotti said. “When we talk to our customers, they are more interested in personalisation, and we see it as a growing share of their work. This is not confined to names and addresses, but to other forms of data suited to the HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press like customised picture data, 1- and 2-D barcodes, QR Codes, and so on. We also look forward to meeting future demands for other digital print applications, for example, using the digital matte and white inks options.”
Pedrotti concluded, “We have a saying at Premedia: ‘We try to solve customers problems before they realise they’ve got one,’ and with digital production this can be done more easily than ever.”
(1) The number of copies below which digital printing is more cost-effective than conventional
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