As the Versamark technology stirred interest in India and was purchased by Gopsons in Noida for their Muller Martini Concept press As the Versamark technology stirred interest in India and was purchased by Gopsons in Noida for their Muller Martini Concept press, Scitex Digital was acquired by Kodak, a company that is on an acquisition spree. Indian Printer and Publisher put some questions to the new management as this technology is shaking up the rapidly growing transaction printing segment in India. This segment is booming, driven by the exponential growth of cell phones, bank accounts, credit cards, and the privatisation of electricity distribution and other services.

Your company performance in 2003?
2003 was a year of transitions in many ways for Scitex Digital Printing Inc. Although the company met the first and second quarters of 2003 with a net loss of $6.8 million and $3.3 million respectively, these figures were a result of Scitex’s acquisition of Aprion Digital Ltd in the first quarter, which included the combined entity’s restructuring costs and tax expenses as well as the sale of 3.0 million common shares of Creo Inc. and the impairment of certain investments in the second quarter.

Nevertheless, its increasing revenues as the year progressed, from $62.6 million in the first quarter, $68.6 million in the second and $71.5 million in the third quarter, generated positive optimism for its future performance. Throughout 2003, the bulk of revenues came from Europe followed closely by the Americas with the Far East coming in third place.

Former President and CEO of Scitex Corporation, Mr Yeoshua Agassi said in a press release announcing the first quarter results, “The continuing slowdown of the economy worldwide, especially in the United States and Japan, combined with the uncertainty preceding and during the war in Iraq, have contributed, among other things, to a tense market environment and the lengthening of sales cycles of capital equipment, in the primary markets in which Scitex, through its subsidiaries, operates.”

Despite the challenging economic climate, Mr Agassi was confident that Scitex Digital Printing would continue to show improvement in several areas because it managed to not only improve its gross profits after a prolonged process but it was also selected by French social security system to supply high-speed business colour printing systems. He continued to say that Scitex Digital Printing’s main challenges for the upcoming quarters were to expand its customer base and to deepen its penetration into the Transactional Documents market.

The second quarter was characterised by record revenues from inkjet operations as well as a change in leadership as Nachum “Homi” Shamir took over the reins as new President and CEO of Scitex from Agassi. These important developments reiterated the company’s sustained focus and commitment to delivering continued profitability for all its shareholders as well as validated Scitex’s strategic plan of concentrating on core technologies and competencies. This commitment was further reflected in a $5 million investment in its subsidiary, Scitex Vision.

It was, however, Scitex’s strong third quarterly results in 2003 that marked its return to healthy profitability. Revenues increased from $62.6 million reported in the first quarter of 2003 to $71.5 million in the third quarter: an increase of $8.9 million. The operating income was $6.2 million (before amortization of intangibles of $1.5 million) compared to operating income of $2.1 million in the third quarter of 2002.

These figures place Scitex firmly back in the black and is generating much excitement from Mr. Shamir who commented that he was very pleased with the continued revenue growth and improved operating profitability of both Scitex Digital Printing and Scitex Vision.

Internal changes related to management practises, training, and new tie-ups? Scitex Corporation, a world leader in industrial inkjet digital printing solutions has made many changes in its management structure to date. The first was made in the second quarter of 2003 when the leadership baton was passed from then President and CEO, Mr Yeoshua Agassi to Mr Nachum “Homi” Shamir.

Shamir, 49, who was then the head of Scitex Digital Printing before its acquisition by Eastman Kodak, now helms Kodak’s wholly owned new subsidiary, Kodak Versamark Inc. Shamir’s invaluable experience at Scitex is expected to position the newly formed subsidiary as a global leader in high-speed, variable information technology.

Following closely after Shamir’s appointment as President and CEO, Kodak Versamark announced the addition of Shimon Alon to its Board of Directors. The appointment of Mr Alon reflected the company’s need for stronger global strategies in a highly competitive and dynamic economic climate. Mr Alon brings to the table an international perspective, growth strategies, competent leadership skills and first-hand knowledge of all aspects of business operation that will contribute to Kodak Versamark’s success.

With the completion of the acquisition process early 2004, Kodak Versamark Inc announced the appointment of Itzhak Savariego as vice-president and managing director of its Asia-Pacific/Japan regions while continuing his responsibilities as chief operating officer for Europe. Savariego succeeds Kazem Samandari who was named vice-president of Global Marketing and Management in April 2003. Savariego’s accumulated business expertise of 23 years will help to advance Kodak Versamark’s strategic objectives in these very important regions. Reporting to Savariego in the regions will be Konosuke Inose, managing director, Asia-Pacific; Bill Chan, operations director, Japan; and Fumiteru Minami, Japan’s sales and marketing manager.

Management however has not been the only area where re-alignment has been made; with Kodak’s acquisition over Scitex Digital Printing complete, R&D has also seen some changes in appointments. Under the new organization the R&D department will report directly to Mr Shamir. Vice President of the Research and Development team will be Randy Vandagriff, a 22-year veteran of the company and holder of multiple patents in continuous inkjet technology. Assuming other key roles within the group are Mike Piatt, chief scientist, and Ed Brown, director of R&D Project Management.

These realignments in R&D will provide a greater degree of visibility and focus to the Kodak Versamark’s technology. It will also advance research and development into new frontiers of digital printing and explore new synergies and product opportunities of stream technology developed by Eastman Kodak, the new parent of Kodak Versamark.

These exciting changes in the overall company structure will also help to ensure that Kodak Versamark’s training courses remain ever relevant and up-to-date for its clients. All its training programs are designed specifically to enable operators to be ready to “hit the ground running” with their new Kodak Versamark Digital Printing equipment. The company knows that staff expansion and turnover requires its clients to bring new employees up to speed quickly. To achieve this, Kodak Versamark has tailored a variety of courses to meet this need by delivering professional, in-depth training for its client’s service technicians, data prep personnel and operators.

Kodak Versamark offers a variety of formal training classes in its facility in Dayton, Ohio in the US, which can also be delivered at the client’s site (on an as-available basis). And their field engineering staff provides basic operation training at the time of equipment installation, as well as when clients subsequently request it.

Various courses are available to help clients and their employees to master Kodak Versamark printing equipment with everything from the very basic Print Station 90 course to learning how to operate and service, S-series, Dijit and VersaMark printers.

Existing market trends
The current stalemate situation in printing industries worldwide is caught in a scenario where costs of equipment are high and financial margins, low. This coupled with poor performance and productivity has made the challenges even tougher. There is a gap in the industry, especially in the developing world, that needs to be filled by providing digital printing solutions with a clear-cut competitive advantage that will also keep capital preservation in mind.
As it is, the outlook is very promising, indeed. Digital printing market shares had seen rapid growth in the last few years. In fact, impressions produced on digital process-colour production printers are projected to increase to 75 billion in 2007 from just 15 billion in 2002.

Run length times which stood at 78 per cent in the 2001-2002 period have also decreased significantly and is looking to fall further in the next 5 years. Demands on short turnaround times of about 24 hours will have also increased by up to 33 per cent by 2005. Viable content requirement will also become a priority in times to come growing up to 150 per cent by 2004.
New print technologies, have succeeded in proving the critics wrong by offering up flexible and upgradeable printer-friendly solutions that require less scanning, eliminates pagination, introduces computer-to-plate (CtP) technology that’s fast replacing traditional film processing as well as decreased costs with improved efficiency. Digital printing solutions have also allowed for film storage to be replaced by file servers resulting in reduced equipment and running costs while increasing print speeds and quality of printed materials.

Moving into the digital workflow spectrum has thus taken much of the hassle out from rigid conventional printing processes. Customers can now enjoy not only cost-efficient on-demand variable and personalized document printing when they need it but also due to the ease of operations, there will be a lesser need for skilled workers to run the production.

Industry growth
The industry is being fuelled by two significant trends in demand; on-demand printing which a short-run, low volume, high quality print jobs as well as high volume printing which includes statements, telephone bills and short turnaround time jobs. Everyone from transactional printers to end users who have a need for either of these two types of printing jobs are investing and should invest in digital printing products.

Furthermore digital printing’s growth can be attributed to short response times and shorter make-ready times. It has also been boosted by a growing demand for personalization in transactional documents. Personalization, in and of itself, in transactional documents today has had a tremendous impact on the market as these figures prove. Response has increased from 2 to 39 per cent, order values have increased by 24.5 per cent, follow-up orders have also increased by 47.6 per cent, revenue has increased by 31.6 per cent and response time has been reduced by 33.9 per cent.

Overall economic concerns
Kodak Versamark remains confident and optimistic about the future of digital printing despite the disturbing and unstable economic undercurrents of the last few years. When asked to comment on the impact of the world economy, competition, consolidation, and e-initiatives at Scitex Digital Printing, now Kodak Versamark, in an interview with Colin Thompson, a European editor and columnist in 2003, President and CEO of Kodak Versamark, Mr Nachum “Homi” Shamir said that in the domain of commercial printing where competition is intense, Kodak Versamark has still been able to maintain a high market share by making inroads into the transactional document printing market with cost-effective production printing solutions.

With the economic slow down especially in the Americas region, Shamir doesn’t doubt the influence of international events on the global economy. He however, feels that part of operating an international business is striving for a balance among the global regions to lessen the overall impact should one region not meet expectations. In the case of Kodak Versamark, Shamir notes that the company has been fortunate to achieve that balance and to subsequently enjoy positive net growth results.

As far as competition goes, Kodak Versamark welcomes it in so far as it stimulates the market and provides alternatives to the customer. And, generally speaking, consolidation has had a favourable impact on the company.

Shamir went on to say that when businesses merge and larger units are created, they look for more efficient means of production and lower cost per image; two factors that have favoured Kodak Versamark. Finally, as to e-initiatives, he commented that it would certainly create a move from standard black-and-white statements and communications to higher added value printed pieces, which again, he felt, was a positive development for the company.