Looking back, 2016 was one heck of a year with our industry. Lexmark was purchased by Apex Technology Co., Ltd (People Republic of China). Who would have guessed that?
Sharp Corporation lived to fight another day when Foxconn (Taiwan aka Republic of China) acquired them earlier this year. Then just a few weeks ago Print Audit purchases NeoStream (document management software company). Of course we then have the purchase of Samsung Imaging Division by HP. We can only wonder what's next for our industry and it continues to evolve and condense.
Last years Top Ten MFP Copier Industry Predictions for 2016, had some prognostications come to fruition with Niche Printing Devices, acquisitions of smaller office equipment dealers along with Seat Based Billing for Managed Print Services. However, most of the predictions did not pan out, because many of them are intended to be entertaining or a "what might happen scenario". I enjoy writing these and please keep in mind that these predictions are intended to be more entertaining than factual. But, you never know what tomorrow will bring.
1. With Print Audit leading the charge with the purchase of NeoStream, the market is ripe for the likes of Ricoh, KonicaMinolta, Canon and Kyocera to acquire document management software companies. Own the digital documents.
2. Color Wide Format is here with a vengeance, and I'm not referring to the CAD ink wide format systems. We're talking industrial color ink wide format systems from the likes of EFI, Mimaki, and Roland to name a few. Dealers are still in need of additional revenue streams and Industrial Color Wide Format consumables are huge!
3. 2017 will be a big year from Color Label Presses. Office paper clicks maybe on the decline, however Full Color Labels Presses from the likes of KonicaMinolta and Muratec will be a hot commodity and offer excellent profits for office equipment dealers.
4. Acquisitions of smaller office equipment dealers will continue to expand. Look for some of the larger Mega office equipment dealers to make some strategic purchases.
5. Last year I called for Ricoh, KonicaMinolta or Kyocera to purchase KIP. It didn't happen. But, it's still a good move for any these manufacturers to make the deal happen, since the AEC Market is still paper intensive.
6. Either HP, KIP, Ricoh or OCE will market the first wide format MFP with an automatic document feeder. AEC users still need to scan legacy prints, and the added feature of a document feeder would generate many upgrades of existing devices.
7. MFP manufacturers will continue to add apps to their devices. The apps will be designed to automate scanned paper document workflows. These apps will compete directly with the likes of Nuance, AutoStore and Ecopy.
8. One of the Big Four Copier Manufacturers (Canon, KonicaMinolta, Xerox or Ricoh) will cease to offer black/monochrome MFP's for the office. Color is the name of the game!
9. HP and Samsung Copier Dealers will not be a marriage that was made in heaven. Look for many changes to that channel.
10. Keywords for 2017; Seat Based Billing, Industrial Wide Format, Risk Mitigation, and Automate Processes
There it is, my predictions for 2017! Remember to have fun with this, maybe even think up a few of your own and post them in the reply section.
-=Good Selling=-
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