THE YEAR AHEAD: OCÉ
February 4, 2008 – As part of our continuing
series on the year ahead, BLI talked to Océ's Joe Skrzypczak and Jim
Magrone on what the company's primary goals and challenges are for 2008.
Océ’s goals for 2008 build upon the successes the
company achieved in 2007. In the beginning of 2007, one goal set by Océ was to
boost its placement of Océ-manufactured products by leveraging the expanded and
combined sales force provided by the acquisition of Imagistics. According to
Jim Magrone, VP of corporate communications for Océ North America, Océ was
successful in achieving this goal. “The sales forces from our three divisions
are working together, sharing leads and jointly working on customer proposals.
Today, with the combined power of Océ Production Printing Systems, Wide Format
Printing Systems and Document Printing Systems [the combined former Imagistics
and Océ Digital Printing Centers (DPC)], we have the scale and distribution to
continue to enhance our business, with the agility to respond quickly to
customer requests.”
This collaboration helped with the recent penetration
of Carrier Heating, a division of United Technologies, which was solely a Xerox
account. According to Magrone, on an independent basis, Océ was unsuccessful at
gaining this account, but by working with the newly expanded sales team, it was
able to offer the company a wider range of solutions across the enterprise, and
Carrier is now an Océ customer.
According to Océ North America’s
President and CEO Joe Skrzypczak, Oce’s goals for 2008 include driving
growth in three ways:
1. Strengthening its core
business and advancing technology through innovation. This involves further
expansion of its product line. In 2007, Océ introduced new products across all
the segments it serves, including a range of Konica Minolta- and
Sharp-manufactured models for the general office market, building a product
line that, according to Magrone, “now addresses just about any customer
requirement and is a clear strength in a market where most of our competitors
are strong in one or two areas, rather than across the board.”
Currently Océ is working to
expand its product lines by offering more speed variants and additional
configurations such as the VarioStream 9250, which will add five-color printing
to the VarioStream 9000 series.
2. Continuing to penetrate
markets such as graphic arts, wide-format display graphics and the geographical
information systems market. Initial steps into these markets include the ColorStream
10000 for graphic arts, the Arizona 250 GT wide-format device for
display graphics and the TCS500 copy/print/scan wide-format device for the
geographical information systems market.
3. Expanding the company’s
distribution coverage in all of its divisions, including production, office and
wide format. Océ also plans to expand its reseller arrangements in the Wide Format
Printing Systems division.
Additionally, Océ aims to
expand its environmental efforts through product innovation, such as it did
with the VarioPrint 6000 series. According to the company, the VarioPrint 6000
series (including the 6250,
6200
and 6160)
was designed to use paper, toner and energy more economically. In fact,
according to Océ, it uses only half of the amount of energy as competitive
units and produces only a fraction of the amount of ozone emissions produced by
competitive units. This series also incorporates Océ Gemini Instant Duplex
technology and uses 100 percent of its toner, eliminating the need for a waste
toner container.
Finally, to address one of the biggest challenges the
company faces, another goal for Océ in the upcoming year is to build stronger
brand recognition. One way in which Océ will work toward this goal is its Customer
Experience Center in Océ’s Boca Raton office in Florida. Slated to open in the
spring of 2008, the Customer Experience Center will showcase a range of Océ
technologies, including production and wide-format devices.
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