Strong 2015 Positions Company for Even Stronger 2016
In a recent phone call with industry analysts, Dennis Amorosano, Canon U.S.A.’s vice president and general manager of Marketing and Professional Services, said that 2015 had been an extremely good year for Canon U.S.A. in production print, which he noted is “one of the largest, if not the largest growth areas for the company,” with 30 percent year-over-year growth for the cut-sheet segment in the United States. Notably, Canon saw growth even in the monochrome segment, which was expected to be flat or to decline slightly.
 |
During the call, Amorosano touched on a number of reasons why 2016 is bound to be even better:
Recent History
“Production was a great story for us in 2015,” he said, “making a significant contribution for us in terms of increased revenue and profitability.” The 70-ppm imagePRESS C700 and 80-ppm C800, which were introduced at the end of 2014 and filled a gap at the low end of Canon’s cut-sheet production line, were key drivers of the company’s dramatic growth in 2015 and Canon now has 30 percent market share in that segment.
The Company’s Product Introductions in 2015
In particular, the VarioPrint i300 and the imagePRESS 10000VP and 8000VP. “From end to end, from cut-sheet to continuous feed, you would be hard pressed to find another vendor that provides as wide a variety of offerings,” said Amorosano.
Sales of the VarioPrint i300, 12 of which are to be installed by the end of 2015, are expected to ramp up considerably in 2016 for a significant increase in net new revenue (the average selling price thus far has been between $700,000 and $800,000). Similarly, with the first placements of the imagePRESS 10000 and 8000 slated for the next couple of weeks, the bulk of the revenue from those products is expected to be seen next year.
Strong Performance of Installed Products
He pointed out that the imagePRESS C700 and C800 have exceeded the performance and service benchmarks that were set for it prior to launch—things like average volume between service, average volume between failures, and the costs associated with service, parts and labor. While there aren’t enough VarioPrint i300s installed yet for solid metrics, Amorosano said they are running “extremely well” and proving “highly reliable,” producing an average of between 2 and 4 million impressions a month. He pointed out that this strong performance is important because it gives dealers more flexibility in how they price the products and how competitive they can be, and it also helps them to determine how profitable they could be with them.
“From end to end, from cut sheet to continuous feed, you would be hard pressed to find another vendor that provides as wide a variety of offerings.” –Dennis Amorosano
A “Good Combination of Customer Demand and Channel Push”
Noting that Canon Expo was the first time that many dealers got the chance to see the VarioPrint i300, Amorosano said that whereas previously the possibility of taking on the product was a “nebulous conversation for dealers” their seeing the engine shifted the discussion to a more concrete one about the capabilities required to sell and support it. Thus far, all of the VarioPrint i300s that have been placed have been sold by Canon Solutions America, but Amorosano pointed out that Canon has some of the largest independent dealers, some of which could certainly handle it. “One of the biggest challenges is identifying dealers that have the financial wherewithal to sell and support the product,” he said. “We need to provide them with a better understanding of the requirements and the financial benefits—something Canon is working on now—so they can more efficiently evaluate whether they should go in head first or start by identifying customers and referring them to Canon Solutions America.”
Major Investment in Software
While Canon has traditionally relied on third-party vendors such as Electronics for Imaging (EFI) for software in the production arena, the company has made a major investment to develop its own software, including the recently announced PRISMAsync controller and PRISMAdirect workflow software to help in-plant and commercial printers looking to fully automate their operations. This not only gives Canon offerings that are unique in the industry but also makes it better able to integrate its solutions into customers’ existing environments. Amorosano noted that PRISMAdirect ties tightly into uniFLOW and the improvements in managed end-to-end workflow it provides give Canon a good story for in-plants—that they can be more cost-effective while also delivering more value to the organization.
Planned Enhancements for the VarioPrint i300
While existing placements of the VarioPrint i300 are in large commercial print shops where they are being used primarily for transactional and direct mail applications, the “technology is continuing to evolve,” said Amorosano. A major enhancement planned for 2016 is the addition of inline conditioning technology to essentially coat the page to reduce ink absorption into the media, which will allow for higher quality on a wider range of media. Planned since the inception of the product’s design, this enhancement will “open up a significant market opportunity” by expanding the applications for the VarioPrint i300 to graphic arts. “The samples we’ve seen so far have been tremendous,” he said.
Stay tuned in December for our Strategy Session articles on Canon U.S.A.’s office hardware, software solutions, production print and wide format devices!
