A Counterpunch to the Culture of Negativity

A Counterpunch to the Culture of Negativity

This guest blog was contributed by Luke Goldberg

I have blogged or written articles about this before, but in times like these, a message of hope warrants repeating …

What I have coined the “culture of negativity” pervades our industry, clinging like an ill-fitted polyester suit. I partially blame the onslaught of media coverage, all portending the death of print due to various factors such as the economic slowdown, migration of print to tablets, the storing of formerly printed media in the cloud, etc.  At the same time, OEM IP casts a black cloud and the overall industry mood borders somewhere between end-of-days apocalyptic and benign resignation. I will not completely blame the industry pundits and media for this. I also blame the presentation of facts that — when twisted a certain way — paint a pretty bleak picture. Don’t accuse me of false optimism; I just choose to look at the opportunities versus the alternative, which would be to either wallow in inaction or to choose another career.

If we look at the negative side of the facts we can see that yes, print volumes are declining slightly — most say by 2 to 3 percent per year. Yes, OEM printer placements and financials have suffered for the last five or six quarters. Yes, print is changing and morphing daily, and pages are migrating to tablets, etc. If this is all we see then we certainly don’t feel too good about our prospects. Ok, try these statistics on for size and ask yourselves: Are things as bad as the experts and the media say?

1. According to IDC, a whopping 2 million pages are printed per minute in the EMEA region. This region is slightly larger than the U.S., so we can estimate that the number in the U.S. is around 1.8 million pages per minute! Doesn’t sound like print is dead quite yet.
2. According to Photizo, the laser supplies market actually GREW in 2012 from 411 to 447 million units, an increase of 9 percent!
3. Color laser represents a $25 billion opportunity, of which the aftermarket only has between a 7 and 10 percent share! And color MFP hardware grew by 8 percent in 2012.
4. In the U.S., 40 million new printers were placed, all shipping with OEM cartridges, representing 40 million opportunities for OEM conversion.

As I have said before, as an aftermarket with somewhere close to only 20 percent of the growing laser pie, don’t we really have massive, inorganic growth opportunities just by fairly competing with and providing an alternative to this still huge OEM pie?

Can we also see that OEM IP action is a good thing for the legitimate aftermarket that abides by OEM IP and fairly competes using spent OEM cores and rightfully repairing them? OEM IP, inadvertently or not, will affect new mold products to a greater extent than legitimate remans, and GEOs will help stem the tide of new mold clones coming into the U.S.

I hope that, in the U.S., this leads to a ceasing of the price wars plaguing the aftermarket and that prices start to more closely resemble an OEM market-down approach versus the cost-up madness that has prevailed for the last 6 or 7 years.

The bottom line is this: There are companies out there truly succeeding, and I feel it’s incumbent on the so-called experts to take a more balanced approach to what ails the industry by pointing out both the bleak and the bright. Many dealers probably read report after report about the sad state of affairs and ask themselves, “Why am I doing this?”

Negativity is contagious and can only be combated with the hope that things can, and will, get better. Hope is empty if not bolstered by something we can tangibly attach it to. Attach it to this: The spend for ink and toner is nearly 80 billion dollars and we only have approximately 20 to 25 percent of it. With a quality product, a high level of service, and respect for OEM IP, is there any reason we cannot have a larger share?

If you aren’t sure anymore, or if you are just looking for a shot in the arm or a kick in the ass, give me a call. 

Contact Luke Goldberg at 800-673-4968 or e-mail lukeg@mse.com.