Samir Gulve, MD, EFI India, recognizes the importance of rapid customization, differentiation and profit from lower volumes for print providers. He speaks about EFI’s latest offerings, market trends and more in an exclusive talk.
Being at the core of technologies for printing and printed products, EFI has been providing solutions in several areas of printing and packaging from textiles, display graphics/signage, home decorations to corrugated. In addition, the company boasts industry’s leading digital front end (Fiery products and applications) for the Indian Print industry. EFI India Managing Director, Mr. Samir Gulve highlights their leadership in the Indian industry: “EFI is synonymous with quality, performance, and ease of use. We continue to lead the markets along these dimensions by focusing maniacally on innovation. We focus on segments of market where these things are critical. Several Indian print providers are looking to expand and compete in the global markets where these aspects would be critically required.”
Speaking about the recent changes in its core segments, he says, “The overall trend across all areas could be summarized in a handful of directions viz; better productivity, availability/uptime and performance, more simplicity and ease of use, less wastage (the industry generally operates with lean margins, so this is huge), more automation, especially over last couple of years due to labour shortages during this ongoing global pandemic and last but not least provide more flexibility in production line to help our customers innovate and customize.”
One of the key developments at EFI has been its recently selling its EPS (eProductivity Software). It would have little effect on the existing EPS customers in India, says Samir. “The change should not affect our customers in any material way. eProductivity Software and EFI would continue to work in close partnership keeping the customer front and centre,” he affirms.
In wake of the Covid pandemic, there have been many changes adopted by technologies providers, more so by the leaders to lead from the front. “We are all learning to get more done remotely by using appropriate technologies to help assuage the gaps. Again, the focus would be more on cutting edge technologies such as automation, remote diagnostics and maintenance, “smarter” systems,” observes Samir.
Envisaging the future course of printing industry, he further adds, “We see transition to digital accelerating – we see more focus on turnkey solutions, move to the 1-X factory (smaller and smaller batch sizes with more and more customization) concept taking further root, innovation not only from providers such as EFI but also from print producers will become a necessity. Also, we expect consolidation in the industry to continue.”
What gets EFI going in the highly competitive markets is their providing value. Samir observes that many segments of Indian market are price sensitive but EFI doesn’t keep price as a competing factor, he says. “Indian market, especially at the mid and low end, continues to be extremely price sensitive (Chinese manufacturers have done well here) – we don’t compete on price (there is a popular saying “you get what you pay for”), we compete on value,” reckons Samir. “As stated earlier when it comes to print quality, performance, usability, integration and customer support and overall experience, we are the best,” he reaffirms.
Digital technologies are obviously providing the solutions for future. The confidence around these technologies and their capabilities is enormous. “Digital technologies are here to stay. The specifics would obviously evolve over time. There are plenty of opportunities to grow but, as I said before, innovation is the key – you can’t keep doing the same with intensifying competition putting significant pressure on pricing. As the world continues to shift from mass production to mass customization, it becomes critical for print providers to be able to figure out how to customize rapidly, how to create differentiation and how to tweak business models through which one can make decent profits at lower volumes. Ironically competition may come from non-traditional players such as Amazon (changed the book publishing model from producing thousands of copies of one title to one copy per title, but many titles in a batch, this is happening with T-shirts, packaging etc.),” perceives Samir.
Then there are unlimited opportunities and applications offered by the beautiful Industrial Inkjet market, which are ‘only limited by one’s imagination’, says Samir.
EFI’s IQ suite of products
Most print providers lack reliable data to help make their operations more efficient and profitable. EFI’s IQ provides comprehensive data on almost everything that can be measured with respect to one’s operation. “Furthermore, IQ will make smart recommendations as to what the data is telling you and what actions you need to take as a result. We expect IQ to become necessity for every customer as the data driven insights represent a significant competitive differentiation and the difference between surviving and thriving in this low margin industry,” explains Samir.
In addition, IQ enables remote servicing and addresses diagnostics, monitoring and management remotely. It provides the data for these capabilities; several applications that sit on top of IQ provide these functionalities. “As this area is rapidly evolving its better to watch this space closely,” advises Samir.
EFI takes on many training and certification programs for industry people. A number of these programs are very popular with their customers. “These help our customers make full use of numerous capabilities we have on offer in their quest to differentiate and innovate,” asserts Samir.
“Invest in technology, look for every opportunity to innovate!” concludes Samir Gulve.
