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Global Studies Indicate Total Worldwide Printing-Related Spending Among SMBs Exceeded $42 Billion
NEW YORK, NY — Worldwide spending on printing by Global Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) exceeded $42 billion over the last 12 months, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of roughly 7% over the next five years. The increases are being driven by low-cost color printers and availability of integrated printing solutions that result in significant cost savings to SMBs. The movement from inkjet printers to color laser printers is pronounced, with U.S. SMBs displaying the largest anticipated shift over the next 12 months. Today, only 30% of SMBs in the U.S. have adopted color laser printers, and on average these printers account for just 5.5% of the current installed base, leaving tremendous room for growth.
The above findings were released today by New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc., a leading consulting firm specializing in IT, Internet, telecom and business services market intelligence, trends and strategy with a strong focus on global small and medium business enterprises. AMI conducts the IT industry's most comprehensive annual tracking surveys of small and medium business (SMB) enterprises in several countries, including the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, U.K., Australia, China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Brazil and Mexico.
Small businesses (SBs) empowered via color laser solutions
As color printing usage is gaining in popularity in the SB arena, Hewlett Packard (HP) is setting new standards by investing in R&D with a goal to re-invent the way the SB market views color laser printing solutions. The company recently introduced the industry's low-cost color laser printer — LaserJet 2550 printer, priced at $499 — thus breaking the sub $500 barrier. Worldwide, the installed base of printers in the SB space is over 73 million. With the new benchmark price point on color laser printers, HP wants to accelerate the move towards color laser printing among SBs. "HP is empowering these smaller companies to produce high-quality marketing collateral in-house at lower costs, thus freeing up valuable financial resources for other uses. The availability of low-cost color laser printers marks the beginning of a new growth cycle," says Gregory Greenberg, Senior Analyst, AMI-Partners.
Medium businesses (MBs) are redefining their internal business processes via HP technology-based solutions
By offering customized printing solutions, HP is enabling MBs to bring mission-critical printing tasks in-house, resulting not only in cost savings, but also increased productivity, efficiency and customer satisfaction. Baseball's Toronto Blue Jays are a prime example of how HP has enabled an MB to refine internal business processes to better cater to its customers' needs, while drastically decreasing costs.
For years, the Blue Jays have outsourced the production of their tickets. As experienced by many other professional sports franchises, management of the ticketing process can be a daunting task. Not only do they strive to satisfy their season ticket holders, but must also cater to individual game holders. As a result, this process results in the overproduction of tickets, requiring a tremendous amount of internal coordination to deliver and track the dispersal of all of tickets in a timely, cost-effective manner. Consequently, expenditures tended to be extremely high, while satisfaction was low.
HP recognized the issues, and offered a solution to meet the specific needs and concerns of the franchise. With technology improvements via HP printing solutions, the Blue Jays have completely changed their entire ticket-production process, bringing all operations in-house. By handling ticketing in-house, they are able to produce tickets in a more timely fashion, while efficiently resolving cost issues. Today, the Blue Jays have the flexibility to reprint lost tickets immediately, while also better fulfilling customer needs. This has not only improved operations, but also reduced the chance of fraud. Since bringing the ticketing process in-house, the Blue Jays have realized a cost reduction of 54%, while better serving their ticket purchasers through customized ticketing and quicker turn-around time.
AMI believes there will be a major shift in the SMB space from inkjets to color laser printers
SMBs will continue to move toward the adoption of color-based solutions. In the U.S., the average SMB prints approximately 508 pages daily, excluding all additional pages produced via outsourced printing. With improvements in quality and competitively priced solutions, HP is paving the way for SMBs to make changes immediately in the way they handle printing tasks. "This shift toward color printers will have worldwide implications on the overall composition of printers among SMBs. Technology leaders such as the U.S., Germany and Japan anticipate the largest shifts," says AMI's Greenberg.
Channels will support this shift to color solutions
SMBs utilize multiple channels when it comes to printers. Very small businesses tend to focus heavily on retail channels, with over 60% of SBs buying their printers from such outlets. Office product retailers are the most popular in this space. However, channel usage varies with the size of the organization. Among MBs, retail is also a popular channel, but almost half of MBs made their previous printer purchase through a value-added reseller (VAR). HP's recent announcements create an opportunity among VARs for selling or promoting solutions, as shown in the case of the Blue Jays. As organizations move toward purchasing total printing 'solutions', vendors can expect an increased shift in the need for advice and support from VARs and other channel partners.
* Post was edited: 2004-08-31 10:11:00
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