An assessment by Kay Strucks, Senior Manager Marketing Central Region OKI Europe
What do you see as the most important trends in the printing industry for 2020?
A development that was already apparent in 2019 will certainly intensify in 2020: specialization and differentiation. ICT trade partners in a saturated or even shrinking market are desperately looking for opportunities for specialization and differentiation to stand out from the crowd and offer their customers added value. Price wars and price transparency will continue unabated. Genuine innovation thrusts in the area of product development for office products are becoming increasingly rare and therefore do not lead to any further stimulation of the market. Only special products that cover industry-specific requirements open up new business fields. OKI is therefore focusing on this segment, for example with the new retail package solution comprising hardware, software and print media called "OKI Profi", which will be launched at the end of the year.
Where do you see the greatest opportunities and challenges for your company in 2020?
In 2020, we will focus on addressing selected industries. This still requires a lot of education and training for our Shinrai specialist trade partners. It is a completely new marketing approach that requires a different approach and argumentation on the part of the end customer. It will open up new business areas for OKI and our specialist trade partners and bring with it additional potential for turnover and profit for commercial end customers. It will also be our task to develop new ideas for the end customer to support his business. This will involve integrated solutions ranging from unusual print media, print formats, software and creation to the final POS solution. We are looking forward to this challenge and to the first positive reactions from the market to our new solutions.
What do you wish for your company in the new year?
We at OKI will continue to be very broadly positioned in 2020. Whether it is solutions in difficult working environments, which we are able to display outstandingly with our dot matrix printers, office systems, where our LED technology achieves outstanding printing results, or large format printing, where we can score with the blackest black. We want to communicate the user benefits of our products even more clearly than before and will provide commercial end customers with comprehensive solutions that enable them to increase their sales at the POS, generate more profit and act more individually and faster. We are doing this with our new package solutions, the OKI professionals, under the motto "Print for Profit".