To ensure the highest sustainability, remanufactured or remanufacturable cartridges should be used. This is the understanding of legislation in France, Italy and the Balearic Islands in Spain.
Did you know …….?
The shortage of semiconductor chips in the market has created new opportunities for the printing channel.
The global shortage of semiconductor chips will persist until mid-2023. This was driven by the Covid-19 pandemic that has led to increased demand for smartphones, laptops, printers and tablets to support remote work, as well as consumer demand for home technology. This has been joined by massive new demands for chips, most notably the automotive industry. All this has put immense pressure on factories, leading to demand outstripping supply.
According to data from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), global semiconductor sales were $45.4 billion in the month of July 2021, a 29% increase over the July 2020 total.
This upward trend is likely to continue due to ongoing post-pandemic digitization, 5G and WiFi 6 upgrade cycles to the wireless market, and the need for more advanced chips for applications such as AI and machine learning along with cloud computing. The continued rapid growth of Internet of Things (IoT) devices is a heavy burden on the chip market struggling to return to full supply capabilities.
The printing industry has already been hampered by office closures that have seen print volumes decline significantly. Chip shortages are creating more uncertainty in the market, with many OEMs reporting the impact on their financial statements. Like many industries, print manufacturers have been using alternative supply routes and re-engineering devices to meet customer needs. Beyond chip shortages, the industry also faces challenges related to material availability, labor shortages, blockages and logistics.
Limited chip supplies are putting pressure on margins and, predictably, prices are rising; according to The Wall Street Journal , printer prices have increased more than 20% in a year.
In an already challenging business landscape, how can MPS and print material suppliers in general best handle supply chain disruption?
As some workers return to the office, organizations may be looking to change the size and type of their printer fleets to support a more flexible, hybrid workforce (meaning one that works from both the office and home). Hence, extending current MPS contracts can only be a short-term solution.
There is always a risk that, as companies evaluate the office space they need, lower print volumes on fewer devices will become the new reality. To this must also be added the need for printing by home workers, without which the productivity of some jobs is being seriously affected.
However, the industry has long needed to transform into something that goes beyond the change of equipment. The chip shortage should be seen as an excellent opportunity to consider how to build value-added solutions and services around hardware that can pave the way for customer relationships focused on higher-value service over the long term. This is also driven by the growing demand for sustainable solutions, including the use of equipment based on its functional life (and not on contractual criteria or other whims).
In these times of scarcity, we are experiencing a boom of companies offering refurbished equipment. While their opportunity is based on the simple fact of having stock to meet a demand, it should not escape our attention that the incorporation of this equipment in a company favors the fulfillment of its sustainability objectives. Consequently, those MPS companies must learn to manage the growing value of having printing resources in a market where demand far outstrips supply.
Moving print to the cloud is another opportunity for the industry. It allows the company to minimize dependence on new print servers and its benefits go beyond hardware. A cloud print infrastructure minimizes the IT burden, reduces costs (financial and environmental) and can help an organization better manage and monitor print security.
The new organization of work in a hybrid environment brings the opportunity to sell work-from-home specific equipment and in turn the opportunity to manage their needs along with that of office-based equipment. Only by demonstrating to the customer company that telecommuting printers are under the same tight cost control will they agree to provide remote printers to the workstations that need them. Clearly, this is possible with Nubeprint’s distributed monitoring ecosystem that can be activated from the teleworker’s smartphone.
Sustainability in printing is also a factor that creates new opportunities around printers (extending their useful life) and consumables (facilitating their circular economy). Some legislations already recognize this. Italy, France and the Balearic Islands (Spain) have been the pioneers. But many other countries are preparing their legislation. And practically all major companies include it in their Sustainability, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) objectives.
Source:SIA, RTM World, Nubeprint
Did you know …….?
Mineral paper improves the environment.
Paper made from stone instead of trees was developed 20 years ago, mainly for offset printing, but a new improved version makes it suitable for office and home use; this paper uses mainly stone powder, no trees or water are required and only a fraction of the energy invested in other paper manufacturing processes is needed for its production, thus drastically reducing CO2 emissions and eliminating poisonous chemicals.
As a result, the paper is cheaper to produce and is better for the environment than conventional paper products.
Stone paper is 80% calcium carbonate, a substance that is much more abundant than trees and is also a common by-product of carbon-consuming industrial processes. The other 20% is polyethylene.
Stone paper uses HDPE (high density polyethylene) plastic, the extreme efficiency of this minor component reduces the total fossil fuel consumption of paper production and completely eliminates wastewater and trees from paper production. The plastic component is actually the key to its extreme sustainability.
These two ingredients make the paper waterproof, non-toxic, tear-resistant, soft to the touch and bright white without any chemical bleach. The base material is photodegradable, which means it reverts back to calcium carbonate in 6 months under direct sunlight, is highly recyclable and is easier to remove ink than regular paper.
It can be mechanically recycled and incinerated without producing high emissions or ash. Incineration of stone paper leaves only calcium carbonate for later use in other industries.
Source:Pebble Printing Group, Nubeprint
Did you know …….?
Working in a hybrid environment is in full swing.
Covid-19 has forced IT (information technology) teams and
business leaders to rethink where and how their employees will
work. With the new normality already in place, but challenged by
the Delta and Omicron variants, many organizations are still
trying to determine what their future hybrid work model will
look like; recent survey data from the International Data
Corporation (IDC) shows that stability and geography will define
the balance of future work strategies.
Globally, physical offices are still expected to be the dominant
location for work, as organizations are in a more stable
environment, but are not free from contagion. However, the mix
of office, remote, out-of-office and field workers is expected to
vary from region to region. Workers in Asia/Pacific, for example,
are more likely to opt for physical office space as a primary
workplace compared to the United States and Europe, Middle
East and Africa (EMEA). In EMEA, where a much higher
proportion of respondents (27%) prefer to work from home or
remote locations as their primary work location.
Working primarily within office facilities, while a dominant
option, will be part of a hybrid mix that will adapt to new and
unforeseen challenges of organizational, political, social and
health instability.
Another important aspect of these hybrid work strategies is the
effort to achieve “experience parity” i.e., an employee
experience where the hybrid workforce ensures that all workers
interact safely with corporate resources in a consistent context
across all locations; it is popular knowledge that most
organizations have not yet achieved parity of experience; nearly
half of the companies surveyed by IDC indicated that their
hybrid work technologies, policies and processes were “in
progress” with most key resources available to remote
employees. This confirms that providing print resources to those
teleworkers who need them is an unfinished business and a
significant opportunity for the print industry.
Investment in digital and work transformation technologies is in
line with organizational imperatives around enhancing the new
business normal and increasing employee productivity.
Source:IDC, Nubeprint
Did you know …….?
Sustainability drives the shift to a subscription-based consumables supply model?
The prestigious BlueAngel label that certifies most printer manufacturers joins the trend towards extending the actual life of printers. A scenario in which fewer and fewer printers will be sold, because they will be used longer, is getting closer and closer. Hence, subscription-based consumables supply services are all the rage. Any dealer or wholesaler that wants to survive will have to offer this service as it is the only way to ensure the future and recurring sales of their customers.
Sustainability is more than recycling. It implies an attitude of prolonging the use of the goods we buy for the maximum number of years. This condition is now part of the new criteria that the BlueAngel environmental label [https://www.blauer-engel.de/en/] has incorporated for printer manufacturers to earn the right to use it.
Until recently, the approach to tackling the environmental problem caused by an unsustainable consumer economy was to collect and recycle as much as possible. But as this system has become more efficient, collecting an increasing proportion of waste, it has become clear to everyone that the volume of waste is so enormous that the cost of processing may become a new problem per se.
The question then arises: do we really have to waste so much, and does waste not hide a problem of consumer attitude? If not, how is it that our grandparents bought only one washing machine in their lifetime, while we replace this appliance every 5-7 years?
The approach must change, and indeed it is changing. The European Commission itself is pushing for re-use. Governmental organisations are making a communication effort to make us all aware of our responsibility to extend the actual lifetime of goods, bringing them as close as possible to the lifetime for which they were designed.
The well-known and prestigious BlueAngel label has just announced that it is joining the trend. To this end, it will now require printer manufacturers to explicitly communicate the expected lifetime of their products.
The aim is to reduce waste and the method to achieve this is to extend the actual life of the printers. The following immediate consequence can then be expected: revenues from hardware sales will decrease drastically. All players whose business depends heavily on printer sales will see their survival affected. This partly explains why manufacturers are pushing hard for subscription-based services in printing. Services such as HP Instant Ink. The subscription signed by end-customers guarantees the manufacturer a recurring revenue through cartridge sales. By the way, sales that no longer go through the manufacturer’s traditional channel.
Manufacturers know that the transactional sales model is finished (for many reasons) and are making a big effort to gain as much market share in the shortest possible time for their new subscription services. HP recently announced that its HP InstantInk business is already valued at USD 500 million and has signed up 10 million customers!
In this new business model, the OEMs have decided to dispense with their distribution channel. Distribution will be the first victim as their customers will be directly owned and controlled by the manufacturers. Dealers and wholesalers still have time to react or they will have to prepare to abandon printing.
The channel must fight back with its own service offer for its customers. And this means taking a definite step towards monitoring all the cartridges and printers they sell to their customers. Today, monitoring does not require any technical knowledge. Anyone can activate a monitoring service from the Nubeprint app on their own mobile phone as long as they are given the activation code by their supplier. This technology is available to any dealer for as little as €0.03 per printer. Time is running out for dealers and wholesalers. They just need to make the decision before their customers make the decision for them and go directly to the manufacturer.
Source: Nubeprint
Did you know …….?
Industry, working together, can achieve many advances in sustainability.
Most individual printing companies are small, but the industry is large and they can achieve a lot by working collectively. We need to look outward and see what other industries are doing for energy and resource efficiency.
There is no quick route to becoming a sustainable printer, and companies must be involved for the long term; paper is now being produced from sustainable sources that are highly recycled and helps mitigate climate change through responsible forestry. For its part, the printing industry consumes a lot of energy, and switching to renewable energy could reduce a printer’s primary emission by up to 90%.
Because of the tangible nature of printing, it is relatively straightforward to measure, reduce and offset wider impacts, such as distribution and materials use.
But what we face today goes beyond being a simple “environmental problem” – people are already suffering and even dying from the impacts of climate change; industries are losing revenue from storms, heat waves and flash floods. We need to understand our future climate and prepare for it. Much remains to be done to protect property, personnel and business continuity; change must start now.
Organizations must play a key role in highlighting the sustainability footprint of their products, because consumer awareness of the environmental impact of many products is low.
The new consumer profile, after the advent of Covid-19, prioritizes and will in the future prioritize sustainability as a factor that will change their purchasing habits. Demonstrating values focused on a sustainable world will therefore be beneficial in attracting a consumer with greater awareness and greater interest in the way we produce and manage our products.
Let’s work to be more sustainable, and to contribute to the ecological change that our planet and future generations need.
Source:Clare Taylor Consulting, Nubeprint
Did you know …….?
Staff trust: key to business success.
The relationship between the price of a product and the quality perceived by the customer depends predominantly on the person making the sale, since he is the most important link between the two entities.
It is essential that the salesperson is very knowledgeable, but perhaps more importantly, that he or she believes in the product itself. The sales executive must have such preparation, presence and confidence in the way he or she speaks to be able to create a perceived “need” for the customer to be associated with the salesperson and, as such, with the company and its potential products.
This is certainly not easy to achieve, but unless the sales staff can carry themselves with confidence, the customer will never distinguish you as being different from other vendors offering cheaper products, no matter how good your offer is. As such, a focus on quality and confidence in presentation is paramount.
Obviously, the starting point is to have products that, in one way or another, offer an advantage over your competitors by creating added value (including brand image, technology, etc.). This is fundamental to the positioning of your company and your products and cannot be overlooked.
In a market like the printing one, difficult, very competitive and aggravated by the Covid19 virus pandemic, the commitment to keep your customers happy is more important than ever; that is why there is a lot of talk about user experience, as a key factor in the development of companies, providing a fundamental and differentiating value.
Talking to the customer about their particular situation not only instills confidence, but also increases their interest in the offer they are being presented with. In this way, the use of the information that Nubeprint facilitates through advanced monitoring of the customer’s printing fleet increases the chances of success; today more than ever we must strive twice as hard to ensure that customers perceive us as their supplier of reference, taking as a selection criterion, the excellent experiences they have had with our company.
Source:Nubeprint
This is certainly not easy to achieve, but unless the sales staff can carry themselves with confidence, the customer will never distinguish you as being different from other vendors offering cheaper products, no matter how good your offer is. As such, a focus on quality and confidence in presentation is paramount.
Obviously, the starting point is to have products that, in one way or another, offer an advantage over your competitors by creating added value (including brand image, technology, etc.). This is fundamental to the positioning of your company and your products and cannot be overlooked.
In a market like the printing one, difficult, very competitive and aggravated by the Covid19 virus pandemic, the commitment to keep your customers happy is more important than ever; that is why there is a lot of talk about user experience, as a key factor in the development of companies, providing a fundamental and differentiating value.
Talking to the customer about their particular situation not only instills confidence, but also increases their interest in the offer they are being presented with. In this way, the use of the information that Nubeprint facilitates through advanced monitoring of the customer’s printing fleet increases the chances of success; today more than ever we must strive twice as hard to ensure that customers perceive us as their supplier of reference, taking as a selection criterion, the excellent experiences they have had with our company.
Source:Nubeprint
In a market like the printing one, difficult, very competitive and aggravated by the Covid19 virus pandemic, the commitment to keep your customers happy is more important than ever; that is why there is a lot of talk about user experience, as a key factor in the development of companies, providing a fundamental and differentiating value.
Talking to the customer about their particular situation not only instills confidence, but also increases their interest in the offer they are being presented with. In this way, the use of the information that Nubeprint facilitates through advanced monitoring of the customer’s printing fleet increases the chances of success; today more than ever we must strive twice as hard to ensure that customers perceive us as their supplier of reference, taking as a selection criterion, the excellent experiences they have had with our company.
Source:Nubeprint
Did you know …….?
Consumer demand for sustainable products is on the rise.
In a survey conducted by Accenture, more than half of consumers said they would pay more for sustainable products designed to be reused or recycled; the survey was conducted among 6,000 consumers in 11 countries in North America, Europe and Asia.
It is known that, although consumers are still primarily interested in quality and price, 83% today believe it is important or extremely important for companies to design products that can be reused or recycled, nearly three-quarters (72%) of respondents said they currently buy more environmentally friendly products than they did five years ago, and 81% of respondents said they expected to increase their consumption in the next five years.
The change in purchasing habits, with more consumers willing to pay more for green products and environmentally friendly products, reinforces the need for companies to increase their commitments to environmentally responsible business practices.
This is not contradicted by the fact that quality and price lead consumers’ purchasing selection criteria, compared to 49% who cited health and safety and 37% who cited environmental impact. This is because when it comes to talking about more environmentally friendly products, the terms “extend shelf life” and “reuse” have entered the consumer’s vocabulary. Obviously, this leads to a reduction in the final cost of the product, a detail not lost on the consumer. We now know that it is possible to have a more sustainable attitude and at the same time make savings. In this sense,
Nubeprint allows you to monitor printers, labels and other equipment even using remanufactured cartridges without affecting the monitoring data.
The survey results also show that consumers believe that the chemical industry plays a key role in driving recycled materials and technologies but are not concerned about their environmental impact.
Nubeprint allows you to monitor printers, labels and other equipment even using remanufactured cartridges without affecting the monitoring data.
The survey results also show that consumers believe that the chemical industry plays a key role in driving recycled materials and technologies but are not concerned about their environmental impact.
Source:Accenture, Nubeprint
Did you know …….?
How the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) differs from the traditional Internet of Things (IoT).
The term Internet of Things is nowadays very popular thanks to the countless applications that have appeared in recent times with the aim of making people’s daily lives easier, however, new technologies go much further, with a very important economic potential applied to theindustrial sector, giving rise to what is known as the “Industrial Internet of Things”.
While the Internet of Things and the Industrial Internet of Things have many technologies in common, such as cloud platforms, sensors, connectivity, machine-to-machine communications and data analytics, they are used for different purposes. IoT applications connect devices across multiple verticals and focus their technology on the user, who is targeted to facilitate interaction.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is the key element of the fourth industrial revolution (or Industry 4.0), combining machine-to-machine (m2m) processes with human interaction using a network of connected devices, delivering valuable information for smarter business decision-making. In this way, IIoT is capable of driving unprecedented levels of productivity, efficiency and performance that enable industrial companies to improve financial and operational benefits.
Bain & Company (a U.S. process management consulting firm) predicted that industrial IIoT applications will generate more than $300 billion by 2021, twice as much as the consumer IoT segment. In the same vein, IDC Research notes that the top three industries investing in IIoT in 2018 were manufacturing, with a focus on asset management, transportation, with a focus on freight monitoring and fleet management, and utilities, with a focus on smart grids.
For its part, Accenture reported that the IIoT will add $14.2 billion to the economy over the same time period, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 7.3% through 2030.
Source: NTS Sedor, Bain & Company, IDC Research, Accenture, Nubeprint