Lexmark with Indy, expects huge spin off

GOLD COAST: By associating with the hugely popular Indy car racing held annually for the last 14 years in the scenic surroundings of Gold Coast in Australia, printing major Lexmark International Inc expects to benefit tremendously in terms of branding and mindshare.

According to Lexmark VP (Asia Pacific & Latin America) David Goodnight, the association with Indy last year helped Lexmark increase its market share in the Australian market. “Other regions also benefited from the same,” he added.

Called 'Lexmark Indy 300', the event spread over four days saw some high quality action with racing cars speeding in excess of 500 km per hour. And, it is the 13th stop on a 15-race series. This event is today recognized one of the biggest motorsport events of the world. Four championships hotly contested on the streets of Gold Coast include--Champ Car, V8 Supercar, Carrera Cup and Formula 3.

Commenting on the relationship between Lexmark and Indy 300, Lexmark Australia and New Zealand MD Henrik Stensfeldt said, “There are many synergies between our organization and this event--we are both technology leaders and we both use the latest technology to stay ahead of the competition.”

Off the track, Lexmark worked closely with Indy officials to develop a wide range of IT solutions. All the drivers at the event read thousands of pages of information during trialling and racing. Every morning team members lined-up in the driver administration tent on the Gold Coast to collect a wide range of information on track conditions, official announcements and race updates.

Going a step further, Lexmark now plans to slash future administration costs and improve communications at the event. As the event's leading technology supplier and naming sponsor--other major technology sponsors included Acer and Intel -- Lexmark will be designing workflow solution for the event following an extensive information distribution audit.

While the solution will be deployed in 2005, the first step was to record every printout, fax, photocopy and email during this year's event. This was no small feat considering that more than 50,000 pages were printed during the four-day event. The hardware at the track was linked to monitoring devices for further analysis. Infrastructure at the event included almost 30 Lexmark laser printers and hundreds of email and Internet-enabled devices.