Vipin Tuteja, Executive Director, Marketing, Business Support & International Business, Xerox India, talks about how SMBs can create impressive in-house color documents at as low as 50p per print and over 90% reduction of cartridge wastage.
How can small businesses benefit from in-house printing? Is this really viable for small businesses?With prices on color printing devices continuing to come down, now – more than ever before – now is the time for businesses to break with old habits and learn how easy and economical it is to create quality in-house color brochures, presentations and marketing collaterals. Today companies of all sizes can use enterprise-level equipment to tackle creative printing jobs in house – while saving them time and money. Today’s office MFPs and printers give businesses the tools they need to create a wide variety of materials in-house and make a professional “big company” impression on customers and clients. Many technological advances are making in-house printing a viable option for businesses of all sizes, but two in particular are making it a reality: cost and supporting software and drivers.
Today, it’s more affordable than ever to buy a color printer that produces vibrant color documents. Desktop color laser printers are available at affordable prices. Solid ink printers, which produce brilliant color prints, can be used with almost any type of media and are friendly to the environment which are available at affordable price and has lower running costs compared to a standard color printer. And, new high-yield cartridges that provide more toner at a lower cost per page make it more affordable to use color printers.
In addition to the physical advances of the printers themselves, a plethora of software also makes it easier and less expensive than ever to create your own rich marketing materials and other deliverables. Driver features for booklet printing and automatic two-sided (duplex) printing mean long reports and a variety of office applications are done right the first time – saving time and money. The “N-Up” printing feature enables presentation material to be condensed onto fewer pages. When it’s also duplex printed, this can save up to 75 percent on supplies.
For those with an eye for color, Pantone-certified printers allow users to match output to Pantone colors, and an array of color controls – from hands-off to advanced options – mean you can adjust the color of your prints as much as you want. When combining such supporting software with the improved technology in printers and multifunctional devices, it’s easy to produce materials that make a big impression at a low cost.
What are some of Xerox’s offerings for the SMBs?
Xerox solid ink printers or MFPs offer endless in-house printing possibilities – from booklets to posters and beyond. Solid ink has remarkable print quality – bright, consistent color from the first page of a print job to the last – which is available on the broadest range of print media, including cardstock, envelopes, and transparencies, as well as recycled paper and custom page sizes. Solid ink printers also save space. They have a smaller footprint, offering versatility in the office, where they can be situated on desktops, credenzas or small tables.
Solid ink color printing technology offered by Xerox, includes a solid ink printer or multifunction printer that uses solid sticks (or blocks) of no-mess, non-toxic ink instead of toner or inkjet cartridges. Solid ink is easy to use, produces incredible color print quality, is cost-effective, and is very good for the environment. The environmentally friendly attributes of solid ink printing make it even more attractive to today’s businesses. Solid ink printing produces 90 percent less supplies waste than laser printing, giving it a much lower environmental impact. Solid ink printers have only one consumable item, compared to numerous consumables in color laser printers. The result is dramatic: after 100,000 prints, a color laser can produce 157 pounds of waste, while a solid ink printer produces only 5 pounds.
Based on the Xerox patented Solid Ink technology the ColorQube offers flexible print speeds ranging from 30 ppm-85 ppm color. The Intelligent Ready technology minimizes energy use and the Xerox® ColorQube™ disposes less waste than color laser printers. With the first page print out in 7.2 seconds and print resolutions of 2400 finepoint resolutions the ColorQube provides ease of usage through Sample and Secure Print, simultaneous rip/receive, Programme Ahead, Print Around, Queue-process and transmit, Bi-directional print drivers, Page-level programming, embedded Web Server for remote control/monitor/setup, Job monitoring at device and at desktop. The ColorQube provides automatic two-sided copying, auto reduction and enlargement (25%-400%), auto paper select, auto tray switching, auto colour selection, mixed-sized originals, booklet creation, image quality enhancements, Build Job, book copying, transparencies with dividers and sets, multi-up, invert image, covers, annotation and Bates™ stamping, inserts, proof set. With scan speeds upto 51ppm color and 75 ppm black and white, the ColorQube offers Network scanning, Scan to Home, Scan to Mailbox, Scan to email, Scan to searchable PDF etc.
Greenprint’s Enterprise Edition software is another way to help bring costs down even further by letting customers eliminate unwanted pages, such as a URL, banner ad or legal jargon, prior to printing – saving up to 20 percent per year. The software also can create PDFs instead of printing pages and instructs a printer to reuse previously-printed paper for low-quality prints. A license for Greenprint software is offered free with every Xerox solid ink product.
Today’s printers and supporting software applications are more powerful than ever before. You can find print speeds as fast as 30 pages per minute and automatic two-sided printing at affordable prices. And, with the great image quality and color calibration tools mentioned earlier, networked color devices create more vibrant and crisp images.
