Printers & MFDs

Laser printers and MFDs working in harmony

While MFDs arguably serve an MB’s business needs better, laser printers continue to be the number one choice for this segment, says Nivedan Prakash

Printing has become a part of the basic computing infrastructure across segments. As far as medium businesses are concerned, almost all companies in this segment have invested in basic printers—be it laser, inkjet, dot matrix printers, or Multi-Function Devices (MFDs).

Printers have become more affordable over time, particularly laser printers, and this has contributed to their widespread adoption.

Today almost all MBs make use of some sort of printing solution. Out of 194 respondents that that were polled for this survey, 99% have already made some kind of investment in printers.

Existing printer infrastructure

The MB segment has a substantial base of printers, with some of these companies even having more than 30 printers installed for their day-to-day operations. The investment involved in printing solutions made by this segment is on the higher side. Pawan Kumar, Manager-IT, Green Park said, “As we are in the hospitality business and our employee base is of around 350, the requirement for printing is large and which is why we have more than 30 printers installed in our offices in Vishakhapatnam and Chennai. We have invested around Rs 1 lakh in printers alone.”

Kishore Kumar, Group Leader, Country Club, opined, “We have altogether 20 printers in our company, which include our 15 pan-Indian branches. The type of business we are in, it requires a lot of printing and that is why we use a fairly good number of printers and the investment involved is of around Rs 5 lakh.”

Across verticals, the IT/ITeS and BFSI verticals lead the way with 100% of MBs in these verticals using printers. The Wholesale/retail vertical comes next with 99% of the companies in this vertical using printers. The third spot is shared by manufacturing, professional/other services, and utilities/transportation/real estate/construction sector, wherein 98% of respondents in each of these verticals have deployed printers.

Nagraj Poojari, Manager-IT, Kotak Wealth Management, said, “Overall we have 15 printers across our branches in India, out of which we make use of 7 printers in our Mumbai office. We have invested heavily in color printers with approximately Rs 1.5 lakh being spent on acquiring one model and Rs 1.1 lakh on another model.”

Also, as per the AMI-Partners survey, 97% of companies with a turnover between Rs 100 to 124 Cr use printers, followed by 98% of companies with a turnover ranging from Rs 125 to 174 Cr, 99% of companies with a turnover between Rs 175 to 225 Cr, and 100% with a turnover beyond Rs 225 Cr use printers. This tallies with the overall trend of higher rates of IT adoption as a company’s turnover grows.

The percentage figures represent planned technology penetration /usage within MBs. These numbers may add up to more than 100% since a particular respondent may plan to invest on multiple technologies. Base = 189

It’s laser all the way

Laser printers top the popularity chart among different printer categories—with 90% of respondents reporting having invested in laser printers.

As compared to the situation in the last few years, there has been a surge in demand for laser printers. The reason being that laser printers are extremely affordable with low equipment cost in the long run, provide good quality printing and the TCO and maintenance is less as compared to inkjet printers.

Poojari commented, “Out of the 15 printers we use, all of them are laser printers from HP, as they are reliable and also give good performance. Our business periodically involves handing out important documents such as presentations and manuals to our clients [as part of the sales pitch to corporate clients and end-customers]. Laser printers have become a crucial part of business today as the print output of these devices is clear and of a high quality. This technology can handle volume printing with ease.”

For printing business documents across verticals, today most MBs prefer to use laser printers. As per the survey reports, it is the utilities/transportation/real estate/construction vertical that shows the highest penetration with 95% of respondents preferring laser printers. That’s followed by BFSI with 94%, IT/ITeS and manufacturing with 92% each, professional/other services sector with 88%, and the wholesale/ retail sector with 81%.

Kumar added, “We use 20 printers and all of them are laser printers from HP. The reason why we opted for laser printers is that the printing quality is excellent; besides, the printing process is also very fast. We do not prefer inkjet printers because laser printers are far ahead in performance.”

The laser printer has emerged as a solution that both vendors and partners can position as a must-have for corporate buyers. It is emerging as the most-sought-after mainstream printing device. The market continues to grow rapidly thanks to the falling prices and superior technology. It seems inevitable that black and white laser and color laser printers will soon become as commonplace and indispensable as the photocopier.

Pawan Kumar further said, “We use laser printers for printing documents that are needed for correspondence. We prefer laser printers because of the quality and speed of the printing is very high when compared to that of inkjet printers.”

Inkjets and DMPs: neck to neck

The penetration of inkjet and dot matrix printers in the MBs is slightly lower than that of laser printers. Says Jayesh Dubey, Networking Head, Velankani Infrastructure, “We use two inkjet printers from HP and Canon for our business operations. We prefer inkjet printers because of the quality of print are as good as laser and does not attract an upfront cost. Inkjet printers are very low on maintenance cost.”

According to the survey, out of 194 respondents, 74% of the MBs use inkjet printers and 70% dot matrix printers. Since billing requirement in the case of wholesales/retails vertical is high, we find 85% of them are using inkjet and dot matrix printers.

Although color inkjets have a stronger presence amongst MBs, this segment is slowly shifting to personal laser printers due to high printing and maintenance cost and lower print quality of inkjet printers and MFDs.

Pawan Kumar pointed out, “We use both inkjet and dot matrix printers for printing our regular correspondence [refer customer letter] as well as bills. We do also use 40 column printers for specialized purposes.”

Meanwhile, dot matrix printers are gaining some demand from the retail segment. With the boom in retail and specialized bill printing used in hotels and banks will drive demand for DMPs.

Vinod, Admin Head, Daikin Air conditioner, added, “Totally we have two printers in our office—one is an inkjet from Samsung and the other one is a DMP from TVS Electronics. We have gone for these two printers because their price is less and they are cost-effective for our business. We have invested just around Rs. 10,000 on these two printers.”

MFDs picking up fast

Today MFDs is seen as one-stop-solution for all the document printing need of the MBs. After all MFDs, both entry-level and high-end, not only serve business communication needs, but also save time, energy and cost. No wonder this product category is receiving a lot of attention from MBs.

Out of 194 respondents, 46% of the mid-sized companies use MFDs. Across all the verticals, MFDs find widespread support in the BFSI vertical with 62% followed by professional/other services vertical with 50%, manufacturing with 48%, wholesale/retail sector with 42%, IT/ITES sector with 41%, and utilities/transportation/real estate/construction segment with 36%.

Mid-sized organizations are going in for MFDs because they have realized the benefits of its usage—lower TCO, easy availability, proper after sales and services support and advanced technology have helped the adoption of high-end MFDs. Said Poojari, “We are currently using two HP 3030 MFDs, as they help us in cutting overall printing costs. Additionally, investments in MFDs give us a lower cost of ownership as these products cost less to maintain than standalone printers.”

Other factors spurring the growth of MFDs are decreasing acquisition and operation costs. With prices falling to affordable levels, MFDs are today seen as the first choice as an input device for many document management solutions.

Pawan Kumar added, “We have MFDs from HP that are mostly used by secretaries of the Vice President levels, and other senior authorities of our organization. MFDs are preferred by them because they are much better than standalone printers simply because they offer superior functionality for a lower price tag and small form factor looking at the device’s capability.”

We are also seeing a trend of laser MFDs gaining momentum and eating into the market share of standalones. The industry players believe that the falling prices of MFDs have influenced this trend. Dubey said, “We are currently using two Canon Laser A4 MFDs because it gives us advantages of compactness, single point solution [that is user-friendly and price competitive].”

Other printing solutions

According to the survey reports, out of 194 respondents, 23% of the companies in this segment use digital copiers and 7% have opted for thermal printers. While the former is preferred by 31% of the respondents in the IT/ITeS sector, 9% of the wholesale/retail use the latter technology.

Another trend witnessed in this segment is the use of network printers, wherein the MBs are giving these preference over standalone products. It is because of lower cost of ownership and almost nil maintenance that these products need when compared to standalone ones.

Commenting on the advantages of network printing solutions, Poojari said, “With this solution many users can use a single shared printer as there are restrictions with it. It is helpful for offices like us, wherein we can control the cost of printing by using this solution.”

Pawan Kumar stated, “By using network printers, we can save space along with increasing the usability of the printers. I believe the efficient management of printing activities can save time and cost and all these features are provided by network printers.”

Improved productivity along with reduced cost of network printers have led to the technology being favored by medium enterprises. The increased IT adoption phenomena along with the use of the Internet have also aided the penetration of network printers.

“We do have network printing solutions in place, as employees can take printouts from any computer at any time. In turn, it makes the whole process of printing very fast along with providing quality printouts,” pointed out Kishore Kumar.

Lastly, there are not many referenceable companies that are outsourcing their printing requirements to third party specialists. It is seen as one of the new trends gripping the printing market. According to the industry players, the companies that have bulk printing needs should look at this solution. It is because outsourcing of printing would be helping them in saving time as well as costs.

Pawan Kumar said, “We do outsource our printing requirements but only occasionally. It is needed when we want to take printouts of general ledgers, which is related to accounts.”

Adding to it, Poojari said, “Yes, we go for outsourcing of printing but only when we require color printouts.”

Laser momentum to continue, MFD sales to grow

According to the survey, basic hardware items, including printers, are the top-ranked IT spend areas within the medium businesses. MBs are keen to strengthen their initial robust IT infrastructure about printers, subsequently, they are continuing with their investments on printers.

For the coming year, out of 189 respondents, 79% are planning to invest in printers. Among all the verticals, it is the BFSI segment will continue to drive the printer market as they expand and open new branches. About 90% of the respondents in this industry vertical are planning to invest in printers, followed by the IT/ITeS sector with 89%, manufacturing sector with 79%, professional/other services sector with 78%, wholesale/retail sector with 75%, and utilities/transportation/real estate/construction sector with 67%.

The survey also highlights that 78% of companies with a turnover between Rs 100 to 124 Cr will invest in printers, followed by 83% of respondents with a turnover ranging from Rs 125 to 174 Cr, 68% of respondents with a turnover falling between Rs 175 to 225 Cr, and 87% of MBs with a turnover beyond 225 Cr will invest in deploying printers.

Of 189 respondents, 60% are planning to invest in laser printers, 43% in MFDs, 38% in inkjet printers, 35% in dot matrix printers, 21% in digital copier, and 16% in thermal printers. So MBs are clearly going the MFD way and that will be a major trend in 2008-09.

Across all the verticals, the BFSI vertical that will invest heavily in MFDs and dot matrix printers, with 71% and 46% respectively. With regard to the laser printers, 78% of IT/ITES are expected to invest in this technology. In the case of inkjet printers, 46% of the manufacturing vertical is expected to invest in it. Within wholesale/retail vertical, 29% are expected to invest in digital copiers and 38% in thermal printers.

The consensus is that companies have to look at cost-effective printing solutions that lower the total cost of ownership. Adoption of network printers and MFDs by medium businesses is a step in this direction.

nivedan.prakash@expressindia.com