Oxbow sells South Africa's first three Xerox 700s
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Oxbow Office Solutions has sold three Xerox 700 digital colour presses (X700 DCP) in the Western Cape, one each to Copy Wizards, Hot Ink and Top Copy, and was also first to sell one of the new presses in South Africa.
Oxbow is a concessionaire of Bytes Document Solutions, authorised Xerox distributor to 24 sub-Saharan countries.
‘All three customers are long-standing Xerox users,’ says Koos Ligtenberg, MD of Oxbow Office Solutions (pictured). ‘Their history with Xerox equipment dates back to the DC 12, which was the benchmark for accurate colour and consistency at the time, before migrating to the DocuColor 252 and now the X700 DCP.’
All three businesses offer design services, digital and litho printing and other printing services including variable data printing and wide-format printing.
Ligtenberg says colour accuracy, consistency and back-to-back registration, along with paper stock flexibility, motivated these customers to choose the X700 DCP from Xerox.
‘It can be time-consuming to calibrate colours for each and every print job,’ says Ligtenberg, ‘and the X700 DCP makes it far quicker and simpler to achieve that. The press uses a spectrophotometer to measure colour accuracy and consistency for better pantone results and it can handle anything up to 300gsm paper stock from the bypass or oversized high cap feeder and 220gsm stock for automatic perfecting, or double-sided printing, from all available bins, which means that jobs print far quicker.’
Oxbow, which has operated since 2003, achieved 96 per cent customer satisfaction in 2005, has doubled turnover and profit year-on-year, and won the Xerox Africa Honours Club Award in 2006 and 2007.
‘Oxbow Xerox is moving strong even in a difficult market because of a solution centric approach where applications such as the ObjectifLune suit are key to our success,’ said Ligtenberg. ‘Key in our market is the customer-centric approach where box-dropping is still happening daily. We meet the needs of customers by providing the best available equipment for the best price, understanding their businesses and business needs, and by providing value-added services not common to the market.
‘Xerox products make a big difference to our customers’ businesses with patented Smart Press features like the intelligent-decurlers that make sure the paper lies flat when it exits the presses. That means you don’t have to allow for post-print conditioning of the output sheets and the job can be finished offline in the bindery without delay and risk of waste that may be caused by curled sheets in the finishing equipment. As a result of that type of technology and the reliability of these machines, Copy Wizards, for example, ran 52,000 A3 prints off their X700DCP in the first week they had the machine.’
Oxbow consults to clients and provides additional services pertinent to their operations to help them grow their businesses and benefit from the new business of printing.
The X700 DCP coupled with the right software have helped Oxbow clients enter the photo printing market, for example, and Oxbow has helped customers with overflow print jobs.
‘We keep demo machines on our premises and we have all the software to go with them. If one of my customers has an urgent job, or a one-off that requires more capacity than they have onsite, then they can send the overrun to my equipment for the same price as they quoted their client. It helps them to balance workloads and grow their businesses through jobs they might not otherwise have been able to accept or successfully complete.’
Ligtenberg says all three customers had access to the full spectrum service around the X700 DCP, which includes the equipment, requisite software and necessary training to ensure revenues right off the bat.
X700 DCP applications range from coated, saddle-stitched booklets to catalogues, manuals, tri-fold brochures, bi-fold mailers, variable print postcards, direct mail, and photo specialty products, including photo books and calendars.
‘Its speed, paper handling and in-line finishing capabilities mean that the X700 DCP has put a wide range of high-value applications within reach of my clients who are using them to full effect,’ says Ligtenberg.
His confidence is supreme and to demonstrate it Oxbow will host a colour application week from 14 to 18 September at the Xerox branch office in Montaque, Cape Town. Attendees can register online at: www.oxbowsa.co.za.
‘We will show the X700 DCP, DC 8000, and the DC 252 photo album application, mail merge with Planet Press, print shop mail, and workflow applications such as FreeFlow, including the required finishing as perfect binding, and case making for photo albums.
The X700 DCP has a wide range of finishing options that expand the applications it can finish inline,’ said Paul Haglich, marketing manager, Production Systems Group at Bytes Document Solutions. ‘The colour images it produces are crisp and clear because it prints at 2400 x 2400 dpi, the highest resolution available, and it gives a smooth, offset-like matte finish with good shadow detail and halftones because it uses Emulsion Aggregation (EA) toner.’
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