Over the course of nearly 20 years, Guy Gecht has been the face of Silicon Valley technology heavyweight Electronics for Imaging (EFI). He has transformed and transmogrified the company from a single product line and OEM business model to a multifaceted digital provider. Along the way, he ushered in the expansion of productivity software and industrial inkjet technologies to skyrocket EFI’s annual revenues to north of $1 billion.
Bill Muir, CEO of EFI
The annual Connect users’ conference was indeed Gecht’s baby. The man knew (and knows) how to work a room in Las Vegas. He would take center stage for his annual keynote address and delight the crowd with his humorous anecdotes and sometimes self-deprecating humor. All the while, he would outline EFI’s progress while providing perspective of its role alongside the many other game-changing technologies that have dominated the business and consumer landscapes. Gecht’s keynotes had a way of truly setting the tone for the balance of Connect, and the confidence he inspired in EFI’s client base was palpable.
Last summer, Gecht shocked the imaging sector with the announcement that he was stepping down after 19 years at the helm of EFI. Two months later, Bill Muir—a longtime executive with product solutions provider Jabil—was tabbed as his replacement. So new to the world of EFI is Muir that his 99th day on the job was spent on stage at the Wynn Hotel, delivering the Connect 2019 keynote address. While Muir has big shoes to fill, his predecessor was not far away. Gecht, who is still a member of EFI’s board of directors and an advisor to the CEO, was in attendance.
Extensive Background
Muir is hardly a neophyte when it comes to quarterbacking the fortunes of a billion-dollar concern. Jabil is a $22 billion product-solutions company with 100-plus facilities and 170,000 employees globally. Muir served as Jabil’s CFO, and prior to that was CEO of its Global Manufacturing Services, then a $14 billion division. He also tripled the business of Jabil Asia in a stint that lasted less than four years. Muir is also credited with helping launch Jabil’s Blue Sky Innovation Center, and boasts an extensive background in complex engineering and manufacturing.
So while Muir lacked the flair and stage presence of a Guy Gecht, he clearly boasts the credentials and trailing results to bring EFI into its next phase of growth. “The onus for us is making sure we’re doing an exceptionally good job at making sure the folks in this audience and the people who continue to bet on EFI, are the winners in this industry as the industry continues to develop,” he said during the keynote. “My responsibility as CEO is to keep EFI’s innovation machine going, and help enable your business to thrive in this new, digital age.”
It was the company’s managerial courage that attracted Muir to EFI. He admired EFI for its foresight and journey from the Fiery business to productivity software and industrial inkjet equipment. However, he did cite areas in which the business needs to step up its game in order to evolve and prosper.
“I do think we need to do a better job of innovation and execution,” he added. “We need to keep that innovation engine alive and well, while at the same time doing a better job of helping (customers) execute for the needs of your end customers. That’s how we’ll evolve the company.”
Making Adjustments
During the fourth-quarter conference call with investors in January, Muir provided more detailed information on some of the adjustments EFI is undertaking to ratchet up its performance for both customers and investors. He noted EFI’s success with its mid-market software suite, which integrates with its display graphics systems, is a reflection on how its customers value the EFI ecosystem. EFI’s Fiery digital front ends have long been known as the out pitch in the company portfolio. During the four-day user conference, Muir said he spoke with more than 50 customers, and came away with the impression that the strategy EFI is employing aids in the enhanced execution level he is seeking.
Muir also outlined the series of initiatives to help drive value for the company and its client base. Some of the moves are currently in process and will extend through 2019. They include:
- A thorough supply-chain review that helped identify mid-single-digit percentage savings that will yield capital to reinvest in the business and improve EFI’s margin profile. To that end, the company is also concluding its search for a senior operations manager to spearhead the “robustness, speed and cost effectiveness of our supply chain and operations.”
- Product development cadence is another focal point for Muir. EFI has wrapped up a pair of value stream mapping exercises in its research-and-development process, both geared toward display graphics development. The review unearthed the potential for substantial waste elimination, which Muir said would be realized through a combination of standardization and adoption of a more-robust stage gate process. He added that EFI will implement more timely interim stage gates, with a focus on minimally viable products. A new executive, who has been named to head up the Display Graphics business unit, will be charged with prioritizing product initiatives and resource allocations decisions, which Muir believes will help avoid the delayed product cycle cadence that has impacted that business unit.
- Muir is also looking to step up EFI’s go-to-market approach, one that is more in line with the evolving and consolidating customer space. EFI is focused on developing its consultative enterprise sales approach, along with building deeper domain expertise in markets poised for growth. “I view this opportunity as an additive to where EFI is today, and not a radical realignment of our sales process,” Muir maintained.
Muir added that the back-end loaded nature of its sales was a contributing factor to its disappointing fourth-quarter performance. In response, EFI has instituted a more-rigorous financial review process and has modified its incentive plans. While he noted it will take “a few” quarters for the changes to have a quantifiable impact, it is part of the company’s commitment to improving productivity, strengthening margins and bolstering capital generation.
Product Potential
EFI used Connect 2019 to draw attention to some of its newest innovations that touch on the office technology space, both hardware and software, along with others that impact packaging and textiles, among others. Connect marked the global debut of the Fiery FS350 Pro, which drives sheetfed and continuous-feed digital production presses for some of EFI’s partner manufacturers and its own inkjet presses. Canon will be the first OEM to launch a new digital front end (DFE) featuring the FS350 in the near future.
Another technology addition is a new Fiery proServer Premium DFE, which provides significantly faster processing on individual jobs for EFI superwide-format printers. The proServer Premium DFE uses GPU-accelerated FAST DRIVE technology to process individual jobs twice as fast on average, eliminating idle printer time so users can maximize their printer investments.
The new VUTEk h5 hybrid flatbed/roll-to-roll superwide format LED printer also garnered significant attention in Las Vegas. The 126-inch wide printer can run up to 109 boards per hour, and offers eight-color and optional four-color printing modes plus white, as well as an up to nine-layer print capability. The h5 model, which is also available as a field upgrade to the EFI VUTEk h3 printer, features UltraDrop Technology with native 7-picoliter grayscale printhead imaging and true multi-drop addressability, delivering exceptional smoothness in shadows, gradients and transitions.
Other highlights on the exhibit floor included the EFI Pro 24f flatbed and Pro 32r roll-to-roll LED printers, along with the EFI VUTEk 3r+ LED roll-to-roll printer, boasting higher throughput, image quality and efficiency. In the soft-signage space, EFI released the VUTEk FabriVU 340i—an aqueous dispersed dye-sublimation printer offering in-line calendering at fast production speeds.
EFI relied on virtual reality demonstrations and displays to showcase the wide-ranging markets it touches. The company is high on the Nozomi C18000 single-pass LED inkjet and its direct-to-board corrugated production capabilities, as well as the latest line of Cretaprint printers for advanced tile decoration. Textile printing solutions is another sweet spot for EFI, backed by its line of EFI Optitex 2D and 3D CAD solutions and Fiery DesignPro software for textile design.
On the software end, Productivity Suite 7.0, is set for release in the second quarter. It will include an enhanced Productivity Workbench, HTML5 Dot Experience and BPM-eFlow automation, among other elements. EFI also provided an update on the success of the Market Direct Platform, which was released a year ago, to enhance organizations’ multi-channel marketing campaigns. Its latest capabilities include Facebook publishing tools and a streamlined inventory-management system.
Moving Forward
While Muir is still getting up to speed and logging more facetime with clients, it seems clear that EFI’s future is in capable hands. Whether he has the insight to help guide the firms through the major technological shifts that made Gecht a darling with the company remains to be seen. But if his exploits with Jabil are any indication—especially his ability to catapult Jabil Asia in such a tight timeframe—then it bodes well for the future of EFI.
