Laser Printers: King, Again!

There is no prize for guessing this one-HP is #1 in the printer space. It's been a while, HP has seen some serious competition challenging its top spot. While there is cut-throat competition, HP's legendary status on the global printer market with some outstanding products stand in testimony to its high customer satisfaction. While HP and Canon competing head-on creates an impression of bi-polarity in the Laser and MFD space, but looking at the scores, there is serious competition that's fast
catching up.

Take the case of Samsung which witnessed a significant spike on its scores compared to last year. In addition to growing its overall satisfaction it also managed to ascend 2 places and in the bargain upseated Epson, went ahead of Xerox and rooted at #3 position. That's indeed an impressive climb from last year's #5 spot.

"Listening to customers is our top priority"



-Nitin Hiranandani, director, laserjet enterprise solutions, imaging & printing group, HP



IPG has come out as a winner once again this year. What has been the guiding force behind this consistency?

First and foremost is listening to our customers, respecting our channel partners and backed by a rock solid uncompromising quality of the products has resulted in greater customer traction. And secondly we are able to position our products strategically in the marketplace. We connect with our customers in many different ways and have many engagement models. We take customer feedback very seriously and work closely with the channel partners. At the bottom line the reliability of our products and our ability to address the multi-pronged print requirements puts us in a higher pedestal compared to competition.

Any focused initiatives over the last year, specifically on customer satisfaction?

One of the key things we did was the annual audit that enabled us to get the pulse of the market and looked at ways and means to deliver more innovative products and customer satisfaction. We also factored elements like energy efficiency and green aspects and explored ways to become more environmental friendly.

Any innovative products launched last year?

One of the new concepts we took to market was Smart Install. This feature eliminates the need to have a print driver CD. By virtue of smart install the product drivers and other software reside in the printer/MFP. The user can install them directly from the device, and does not have to worry about losing or damaging the software CD.

If we look at HP domination on the printers, it's more due to its expertise it has acquired over the years. HP in a way created a new matrix in print solutions by pioneering what it calls as 'Balanced Deployment Strategy'. According to information available form HP, it says achieving the optimal combination of cost and performance necessitates balancing the enterprises copying and printing fleet according to need and cost. This approach is what HP calls its balanced deployment model.

Balanced deployment ensures that the right functionality is conveniently accessible to users, while providing a manageable number and diversity of devices. An optimum mix of devices with the relevant access to capabilities is designed, so that selective access to capabilities such as color and A3 printing can be monitored and managed. The basis is the careful analysis of user needs, at present and in the future to ensure the ongoing flexibility of the fleet design. Clearly HP pioneered a solution approach to printers and adopted more of a consulting approach.

According to HP sources, by using a well-deployed mix of devices (printers, MFPs), a print server and print server appliances, will help to reduce enterprises network traffic and enable organizations to use their printing and copying resources more effectively, delivering sustainable savings. The required functionality will be closest to the appropriate users, resulting in minimum disruption and maximum productivity. So strategies like balanced deployment and total print management have ensured HP to consistently deliver superior products and achieve higher customer satisfaction.

Looking at other vendors in the CSA Printer charts, Epson's slide to the tail-end is one big upset. And looking at Samsung, it has gone aggressive on the laser and MFD space and it needs to be credited for improving its stature in the market. Clearly Samsung's impressive escalation makes the top 3 vendor landscapes in printers extremely competitively. In the ongoing year, a tough battle is expected to rage between all the 3 top vendors, more so between Canon and Samsung as they fight it for more market share and customer satisfaction. Going by the printer market dynamics, the market is getting increasingly polarized on more simplified and cost effective manageability of the printers over a period of time. It is a well known fact that printer acquisition cost does not matter for enterprises much, as it is the cost of consumables that tops any CIO's agenda. Going by FY11 DQ Top20 on an overall basis, the printer segment saw a decline of 5% but there has been a strong shift towards purchase of multi-function devices, as there was an increased awareness that color printers are affordable. But the sales of printers are dependent on numerous factors. Even the Japan earthquake had a lukewarm impact on the segment as many companies like Canon, Xerox, etc felt the heat. FY11 was also witness to a major trend of reduction in prices of printers by approximately 10% as a competitive measure while there was an increase in volume of units sold.