One might think that as we close in on the final 10 most significant events in the office imaging industry of the past 25 years that the list would start thinning out with events that might not be all that significant. You’re free to think that, however, as someone who has been floating around this industry for more than 25 years I don’t think that I’m anywhere close to scraping the bottom of the barrel. Maybe if I’d extended the list to 40, that would be the case, but with only 25, there’s bound to be a few key events that somehow didn’t make the list either because no one mentioned them when I was soliciting ideas or they might have fallen to #26 or #30 if I went with all the suggestions I received during the past four months.
With that in mind let’s take a look at five more significant events from the past 25 years.
MFP Security Flaws Create an Opportunity for the Office Imaging Industry
Based on the response the OEMs and BTA had to that CBS News story a few years back regarding security breaches on MFP hard drives, the industry has been security conscious ever since. It’s not like this was an issue that had been ignored by the OEMs. Companies like Ricoh and Sharp were raising awareness for security long before the rest of the industry took it seriously and turned what was a perceived liability into an opportunity. One can credit Bob Goldberg and the BTA with being proactive in addressing this issue and bringing the OEMs and the leasing companies together to correct any misconceptions about hard drive security and what the industry and end users can do to protect themselves. While Ricoh and Sharp were ahead of the curve on this issue, the rest of the industry is now squarely on board and you’ll find most OEMs, dealers, solutions providers , and leasing companies have made device security a key component of their hardware and services offerings.
The Mobile Workforce
“The rapid ascent of mobile devices in recent years, coupled with the arrival of millennials into the workforce, may collectively be the start of what we ultimately see as one of the most significant events in the office imaging industry,” predicts BTA’s Brent Hoskins. “We will likely look back on the dawn of these two realities as having the greatest impact on the industry in terms of changing its course.”
That’s an intriguing parallel and no doubt those millennials are one of the factors that’s driving the mobile revolution. Most players in the industry have embraced mobility and are bringing out products, solutions, and services that acknowledge the workforce is no longer tethered to a desk and that access needs to be anywhere, any time. Indeed, it’s a rare OEM, solutions, or services provider that is not thinking about or incorporating mobility into what they do or thinking about how to leverage this opportunity.
The Direct Distribution Dilemma
What independent dealer’s business, particularly in major markets, hasn’t been affected by competition from direct distribution? Direct distribution has had a huge affect on the industry. The most notable impact of direct distribution over the years has been price erosion and the commoditizing of the box. The box may have become commoditized anyway, but direct operations where the goal is to move boxes no matter what the cost, has proved to be more harmful than not to the industry in the long term. Many OEMs have embraced direct distribution, bringing with it an unlevel playing field. To be fair, however, we have seen some efforts in the not too distant past to alleviate that situation and eliminate the bad blood between the dealer community and their OEMs. Although things seem to have improved for the better with some OEM direct operations, there’s no denying that the crazy prices and wacky cost per copy quotes, some of which is routed in direct distribution, have had a dramatic impact on the industry and the reverberations of the direct distribution model continues to echo throughout the industry.
The Rise of Inkjet Technology in the Office
This is one of those events that’s going on as you read this. “It’s always kind of been there, but was never sensible for three reasons—it was slow, the [output] quality was questionable, the [operating] costs were high—other than that it was great,” observes Industry Analysts Lou Slawetsky.
During the past few years the industry has seen inkjet devices coming to market with higher speeds, improved output quality, and lower operating costs. Think the HP Pro series, which is 70-ppm color inkjet at prices in the $700-$800 range. “They claim that the cost per page is half what it is for laser,” says Slawetsky. “It may not be half, but it’s less. The quality is better than it has been, and it’s still good and it’s cheap to the point where you could probably buy 10 or 15 70-ppm color inkjet systems for what you would pay for one 70 ppm laser color system.”
What Slawetsky is seeing is a new generation of inkjets from HP, Memjet and others operating at higher speeds and capable of handling higher volumes while providing more features and lower hardware and page costs. “That perfect storm of events will cause a huge influx of inkjet into the office.”
These devices are slowly changing users’ and the industry’s perception of inkjet in the office. “One of the criticisms of inkjet is that it can’t stand up to the volume of laser,” notes Slawetsky. “But can it stand up to one tenth of the volume? Because that’s the issue and I think it can.”
Monitoring Activity in Fraser-AIS’s Global Support Center.
Service Goes Remote
You can’t underestimate how the emergence of remote diagnostics and the ability to remotely install updates and patches or fixes have changed the nature of copier service. Of course onsite break-fix service is still a necessity, but the ability to offer proactive service through remote diagnostics, and fix issues before a customer calls with a problem, has been a significant development for this industry. This has only accelerated within the connected world thanks again to the transition from analog to digital. With the emergence of mobile applications and the cloud, remote diagnostics continues to evolve in ways that could never have been imagined 25 years ago.
