Quality, sustainability, cost

Something of a quiet revolution has been happening in workplaces across Europe. From schools and hospitals to offices and warehouses, laser printers, the long established favourites, are being replaced by business inkjets.

Phil Sargeant, an expert in print market adoption at IDC, puts this down to a number of factors. These include inkjet’s ability to improve efficiencies and lessen the impact on the environment, thanks to vastly reduced power consumption, far lower CO2 emissions and considerably less waste. 

“When you consider the pressures that public sector, enterprise and SMBs are under from their customers to be more environmentally friendly and aware of their impact on the planet, an inkjet fleet is able to ease these pressures,” says Sargeant.

He also sees a growing awareness among buyers that inkjet output quality is now comparable to, or better than, laser printing.

“Inkjet has made huge strides forward and the concerns previously held by SMBs and major enterprises around inkjet in the office have been addressed.”

Altogether, this leads him to an upbeat prediction:

“We forecast that (this) will continue to drive an increase to 40% market share in the next five years.”

There is no reason to doubt his projection. Over the last four years, Phil Sargeant has been consistently accurate in his forecast of business inkjet’s continuing rise, and laser’s corresponding decline.

In part, Phil Sargeant’s  confidence in inkjet technology stems from his years of  experience as an analyst in the print industry. But it’s also due to a honed ability to spot tech trends emerging almost before they have crossed the chasm into mass-market adoption.

In his view, high quality output and environmentally-friendly credentials are only to be found in one print technology.

The smart money is on business inkjets

Epson’s own research bears out Sargeant’s beliefs. In a recent survey, the company – which has invested over half a billion Euros into the development, manufacture and distribution of business inkjets – dug deep into the catalysts driving this market shift.

The research among IT managers and print users revealed that nearly half (44 per cent) of European businesses see environmentally-friendly initiatives as a priority.

A similar number (38 per cent) stated they were under considerable pressure to improve their Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) performance.

And just over half of those polled (51 per cent) agreed that cost-reduction was a top-of-agenda item. 

Having established its reputation for high quality output, Epson is confident its business inkjets can tick the sustainability and cost boxes too.  Already, Epson’s business inkjets are proven to reduce energy up to 95 per cent. In comparison with laser devices, this means Epson’s business inkjets have lower overall energy consumption, lower CO2 emissions and reduced running costs.

Print adoption market guru Phil Sargeant thinks there are also other reasons to account for the decline in laser popularity:

“Laser hardware…is pretty much commoditised. What you see with business inkjets is a much broader scale and range of products. They’re giving customers much more choice.”

For Epson, this has translated to a 29% market share in Western Europe, according to IDC data.

Find out more about the business benefits of switching to inkjet printing.

Visit https://www.epson.co.uk/advantage-inkjet