Jacques-Edouard Gueden is unrepentant about the termination of the iGen and Nuvera products lines even though they have the bedrock of Xerox’s offer in production printing for some years.
“The commercial model behind those machines was very dated and we had to move to the next play so took the decision to go back to the drawing board. We have built from scratch but did ask ourselves whether we should be in production printing. The answer was Yes.”
The results of that decision filled the showroom at Uxbridge with people from across Europe and beyond, if not machines for the simple reason that key products are not ready yet, but are on a carefully planned roadmap.
Gueden heads up the newly formed and highly focused division that will grow what is already an important market for Xerox. Time has been spent he says in analysing the market and building the offer to make sure Xerox does not repeat mistakes it has made with inkjet in the past, the CiPress and investment in Impika included. “We never stopped inkjet developments,” says director of global portfolio marketing Matthew Raab. “It has become part of our DNA in production print. The question has been where does it fit.”
The answer appears to be that it fits some of the growth segments that Xerox has identified. This includes labels and specifically the transition from offset to digital printing at the production end of the market. Gueden adds: “Many of our clients would be nicely surprised by what we can do in the segment in terms of quality and versatility. The feedback we have been getting is super promising. Customers are willing us to be successful. Even when we had to pass on the message about the iGen, we never lost the support of those clients.”
However, with a portfolio comprising iGen, Iridesse and Versant in colour printing and Nuvera for mono work, “the breadth of our offer was a bit narrow” says Gueden. Printers today need to offer a broader range of services if not solutions.
Xerox does not want to fall back into that trap, but also recognises that it cannot do everything at once. Hence the introduction now of the Proficio machines which will be the workhorse machines for commercial printing. The offer of a fifth colour, whether a gamut enhancing pink or spot varnish will enable printers to offer something more. “They are cost effective and capable of producing something new for customers,” he says.
The Proficios and some of the other machines that will fill out the portfolio have been sourced through partners and are available under other names. A case in point is the cut sheet inkjet press provided by Kyocera. Xerox sells this as the IJP900 as well as Kyocera and now Ricoh, which is selling the press under the Kyocera name rather than its own.
The difference will be that the machines that Xerox distributes become part of the Xerox eco system, harnessing a depth of experience in workflows, colour management and Rips. The Xerox logo on a printer still means something, and something beyond the press says Raab, “a smarter more connected eco system with global support”.
This extends upward into the studio inhabited by designers. This cohort needs to be aware of what is possible with the fifth colour on the press or through variable data and enhancements to raise the impact of what is printed. This involves free to use training packages under what Xerox calls its Genesis Initiative.
There has been work with Adobe to be able to show the impact of the print embellishment through 3D visualisation of the product and through implementation of AI. This is being embraced by designers Gueden says. “We are not facing resistance from designers, quite the opposite in fact. They are getting a platform to present ideas and to discuss in detail work with a client in a very effective way, sitting side by side to show what is possible and what is wanted. The AI is creating a connection between printers and clients which is essential today.”
