Andreas Fruehwirth, sales manager for Canon and Oce devices in Serbia and the region - Printing industry at a turning point

Andreas Fruehwirth

An annual sales training organized by the Canon company for its partners from across the EMEA region has recently been held in Belgrade for the first time. Belgrade-based OSA Racunarski inzenjering was entrusted with the organization of the first such training outside Germany.

With Andreas Fruehwirth, regional sales manager for Canon and Oce devices, eKapija talked about plans for 2014, last year`s results and cooperation with the OSA company. Also, Fruehwirth spoke to our web portal about new trends in the printing industry.

eKapija: How did you decide upon giving the organisation of this year´s Sales Training to OSA Računarski inženjering? What are your impressions from the training? Can you point out some specifics about this event?

- Our market approach is to be very close to the customers and our responsible distributors. It is this sales strategy which allows us to understand very well the individual requirements and demands in the different markets. On this basis, we can offer the best fit solutions, for example, the Océ ColorStream 3500 twin to Telekom Serbia, the best selling inkjet production system worldwide for the last 3 years.

As OSA is a highly professional company for the whole document production workflow and proved their ability once again in winning the inkjet deal with Serbian Telekom. For this, they were one of the most successful distributors in the Emerging Markets region in 2013 and were therefore chosen to host our first off-site sales training. OSA organised the training perfectly in every detail regarding event location, logistics and auxillary programme. As we had a special focus on the Graphic Arts for this training, they also showed their capabilities in organising a visit to one of the most interesting traditional printers in Serbia, which again shows the capabilities of OSA in connecting to their present and future market.

eKapija: In what extent are you satisfied with the sales results of Canon and Oce devices in Serbia for the previous year (2013)?

- Canon are very satisfied with the sales results for Commercial Printing in Serbia. Winning the project at Telekom Serbia with our Océ ColorStream 3500 inkjet systems, we introduce this new inkjet print technology to Serbia in 2013. The knowledge and experience OSA will gain through this, will enable them also to conquer the Graphic Arts market with new fantastic possibilities.

eKapija: What can we expect from Canon and Oce in 2014? Please describe the most important ones.

- After a fantastic year in 2013, reaching almost 70% market share in the EMEA region in inkjet continuous feed color, we see the biggest challenge being to repeat this success in 2014. However, we will do everything in our power to protect that market share and we will further concentrate on maintaining and building on our continuous feed monochrome leadership. To ensure all of this, we want to keep developing our skills in solution business.

- With our dedicated sales approach, we want to continue our sales success in Serbia in the production printing environment incl. continuous feed, cut-sheet and wide format systems. Canon/Océ offers together with OSA the broadest portfolio and highest professional sales and service organisation. This will ensure the necessary growth in Transaction & Direct Mail and also in the Graphic Arts market in 2014.

PRINTING INDUSTRY AT A TURNING POINT

Our interlocutor points out that this is a very important moment for the printing industry.

- The printing industry is presently in a state of flux. Many mega trends are highly impacting the traditional business models of printing. Some of those trends include the fragmentation of information through various medias. End-user behaviour is highly influenced by various media options, where information can be obtained at the pressing of a button. New business models are emerging like Amazon, where books are first ordered and then printed. Many corporations are grasping the opportunities to save costs by eliminating traditional invoice printing and substituting those prints for electronic one. There are indeed many more, but it gives an idea of what is happening in the printing industry today.

While these changes seem quite threatening, they offer many opportunties to the printing industry today. For the very long production runs, the traditional technologies will still be those of choice. To meet market demands and the changes we mentioned above the high production inkjet devices will come much more into play. They are already offering an enormous productivity leap with all the advantages of just-in-time production. This technology will allow traditional printers to grasp much volume, which might otherwise be lost to alternative technologies, as they can react efficiently when time to market is a requirement.

Flexibility is the name of the game in this quick changing world and Canon as a supplier of high volume digital technology will continue the innovation to allow our customers to make investments in technologies which will safeguard them for years to come, against requirements which may not even be known to them today.

M.S.