'Color' Up Your Business

Today, we are living in a 'color' rich world, which has evolved from being
plain jaded black and white to the one with exuberant 'color'.

We watch 'colored' movies rather than the black and white ones, read
multi-colored newspapers, drive innovative 'colored' cars than the mundane
'white' ones and use mobile phones and laptops, especially designed in vibrant
colors to attract the youth. We even experiment with our hair color and the list
goes on.

'Color' means telling a story beyond monotone grays and blacks, and one with
greater context, texture and meaning. 'Color' adds life to everything and
anything. It captures our mood and helps to make a style statement. Color also
makes commun­ication much more empathetic. Ever wondered the impact of watching
a Charlie Chaplin film on a 'colored' reel rather than a B&W one, or MF Hussain,
painting his canvas on a monochrome palette, or even better, if MNCs, in this
age had to build their brands without using any tinge of 'color'-consider the
brand recall variation of companies such as Pepsi or Coke or Apple, if they had
to do without 'color' in their logos?

Gaining prominence

It has evolved over the years to leave an impact and become powerful. The
use of 'color' for maximizing communication impact has been seen as an emerging
trend. IDC estimates that the color printer market should grow with a 17 percent
CAGR at 69,400 units in 2009. 'Color' is compelling as it adds value and makes
business sense. It helps clear the clutter and make an impression. This trend is
fast gaining acceptance with the reduced equipment and running costs.

Princy Bhatnagar

Demand for 'color'

Organizations from advertising and design houses, to textile, BFSI and
education sectors, etc across large enterprises to SMEs, have revealed growing
usage of color. 72 percent of small organizations across India are using color
printers. The 'color' market is one of the biggest areas of growth in the office
automation industry.

'Color' is being looked at as the best alternative in these times when we are
overloaded with information, in the form of digital or online information, as
printed documents or delivery information in the form of daily postal mails.
'Color' helps to skim through this maze of information and find what one is
looking for, without spending a lot of time searching for information.

One document type for which 'color' has been used most effectively is the
quarterly statement in the financial services industry. The increasing
affordability of color printers has also led to increased adoption of 'color'.
Today, a color laser printer would start from sub Rs 10,000 (MRP) as against sub
Rs 16,000 in 2007.

'Color'ful predictions

Today, there is huge untapped market for 'color', with only about five
percent of the total business documents being color printed. Companies are
investing a lot of money and resources to develop high-quality and
cost-effective 'color' technologies.

One of the key factors that has driven the growth of color is price. Xerox
was amongst the pioneers to track down the emerging 'color' potential way back.
We offer diverse solutions today that help improve work processes for small and
mid-sized businesses, as well as large enterprises.

In India, 'color' is still at an adoption stage. The year 2009 will earmark
huge demand and growth for 'color' category in India, paving way for innovative
technologies to emerge for better economics, flexibility and higher business
efficiencies.

In the coming years, 'color' will see significant rise in adoption and usage
across various industry verticals and enterprises of varied sizes. IDC expects
the Indian market to witness faster adoption of color laser printers over the
next two to three years, with the market expected to grow at a 23 percent CAGR
in unit shipment terms for the period 2007-12.

The prime factor that will stimulate adoption of color printers is its
affordability across the entire range. It will prove instrumental in customer
retention, for businesses of all shapes and forms due to inherent advantages,
such as increased productivity, faster turn-around and high-quality
documentation. Most importantly, it will play a vital role in all companies that
are victimized and want to break away from clutter of 'information overload' and
make them profitable by saving cost, man hours and improving efficiency.

With the backdrop of current global economic tightening, the need of the hour
for businesses will be to remain competitive by managing cost efficiencies to
achieve maximum return on investment (RoI). Companies will need to adopt color
strategically, looking at the business benefits of 'color' and evaluate its
value add against their respective business goals. Vendors would continue to
introduce products that will offer better print speeds, quality and consistency
of print, which would enable a number of businesses to print many of their
'color' documents in-house.

However, there are a few challenges that both the printer vendors and
end-users have to overcome. These include a significant one-time expense (on
purchase), cost allocation between various departments and color printing
through networked devices.

The author is Director-Office Business Group, Xerox India