What started as a nationwide lockdown has become the environment we will live and work in for months to come, and that means lots of you are looking at investing with more certainty about where your companies are going.
This month, we bring you five ways in which you can future-proof your print room in 2020.
Invest in end-to-end print solutions by bringing finishing in-house.
Did you know that Duplo has recently launched two great new products?
Firstly, the Duplo PFi Blade B3+ digital cutter, designed especially for short-run, on-demand digital printing and packaging. It cuts, kiss cuts, die cuts, scores and creases a wide variety of paper and card stocks.
Secondly, the brand-new Duplo DC-618 Slitter Cutter Creaser is a fully automated compact and powerful all-in-one finishing solution. It can process 6 slits, 30 cuts and 20 creases in a single pass. With automatic set-up, intuitive PC control and unattended running, it brings automation and precision to a new level.
Upgrade your office technology – PCs, laptops, tablets and more.
Are you being held back by computers that have seen better days, but unsure whether now’s the right time to outlay a significant sum for new ones?
We now offer Tech-as-a-Service. It means you can subscribe to your technology and pay your subscription on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis. Need, say, a new Mac, a couple of tablets and mobile phones for your team? We’ll give you a quote, and it usually works out at pence per day per person.
You get up-to-date technology when you need it and save a capital outlay. We offer IT support to go with it and can even get you money back on your old devices, contributing to a more circular, greener economy. If your business needs change, you can flex your contract and get additional kit as and when you need it.
Enter a new print market, maybe by extending embellishments and metallics.
While the Iridesse remains the queen of metallics (and you can talk to us about one of those too!), you can take a smaller step into the embellishment and metallics market with the Xerox PrimeLink C9065/C9070.
Choose either a Vivid Kit (with Gold, Silver, White and Clear toners), or both a Vivid and Fluorescent Kit (with the addition of Fluorescent Cyan, Fluorescent Magenta, Fluorescent Yellow, and Black). What’s more, we can offer affordable C60s retrofitted with a vivid kit – a simple way to add an extra dimension to your print alongside your existing services.
As of just yesterday, we can now offer Vivid and/or Fluorescent Adaptive CMYK+ toner kits for the Xerox Versant 180 as well! This is huge news for the Xerox production range and means that additional colours now span entry-level, through Versant 180, and right up to the top.
Automate where you can to free time for additional print jobs.
Automation doesn’t have to mean wholesale and invasive changes but can be as simple as creating print presents for your most common job types and learning more about what your digital front end (DFE/RIP/Fiery) can do for you.
You could also investigate FreeFlow Core or Fiery JobFlow, dedicated pre-press automation solutions that automatically check jobs for errors and offer fixes. A good workflow can save you time and energy, and with a modular set-up, you can choose which parts to start with and grow your solution with your business. Remember, you’re not limited to Xerox devices here, FreeFlow Core works across brands.
Read more in our previous Automation blog post.
Personalise across print and digital.
As Xerox said in response to the findings of the 2020 Future of Work survey, ‘Make Now Work’ by offering personalisation at scale. Personalisation is predicted to be one of the most prominent packaging and marketing trends of 2020; add a name to marketing material, and the recipient is much more likely to take a good look at it. Offer slick, personalised campaigns across the print and digital piece, and the value to your customer is even higher.
XMPie is forever growing and offering more and more ways for print rooms to diversify, providing services across paper into digital – from email to video and much more. We admit the weather is a little warm for Father Christmas right now, but here’s our festive reminder of what XMPie can do.
“That’s great, but how can I finance print room investment right now?”
First of all, talk to us. It is our business to support your business for the long term, and we want to help you make the right decisions for your print room today. Our account managers can talk in detail about how one or more of these options could work for you.
We also think it’s sensible to make a note of the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (affectionately known as CBILS) here. This is a scheme to provide financial support to smaller businesses affected by coronavirus. It helps firms access loans and other types of finance of up to £5 million, and the government guarantees the first 80%. The government pays interest and fees for the first 12 months, and if you’re based in the UK with a turnover of up to £45 million, you may be eligible.
The scheme won’t be right for everybody, but it’s worth investigating it along with any local grant schemes you may be able to apply for on a more local level. You might also be able to try the following:
New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership’s new Business Resilience and Recovery Scheme, and the Local Authority Discretionary Grants Funds for small and micro-businesses not eligible for other schemes.
Here’s to the future!
Now’s the time to contact us to future-proof your business. We are confident that there are great opportunities available for you right now, and we are similarly confident that even more will be coming your way over the coming months.
Here at First Copy, we are innovating and adapting every day, and we’d like to help you do the same.
