Trends that will shape the online print industry on future

A Smithers Pira report, pegs the total digital market growth at 225% of the total market value in 2013 by the year 2024. Which means it will grow by 400% in the next 50 years. In 2008, the share of digital printing in the total print market stood at 9.8% and it will grow to 20.6% in 2018. Of these inkjet printing will outpace electro photography. All the processes which are offset will see significant fall in value.

Evidently, a great amount of credit for this goes to web to print. It has enabled low cost printing and which has made it possible for small printers to flourish. This is a very economic form of printing. It has numerous pros over the traditional offset printing. What was initially envisioned as low cost alternative which could be easily turned around has evolved with technological advances and has brought into fold new business models and applications. And this evolution hasn’t stopped, with newer trends developing, constantly remodeling the online print market. Here we look at some of those probable future trends.

1. New technology partnerships will emerge. Staying isolated from the mobility ecosystems is no more an option with each new generation printers and MFPs are becoming the part of a connected world. One can expect leveraging of partners form a diverse and wide ecosystem by top print vendors in the market. This will be done to integrate the latest and the best of technology for products, sales channels, and business models. A good example is Konica Minolta, it has tied up with Hewlett Packard and other tech firms to develop its Workplace Hub Pro platform.

2. Predictive analytics will come to the forefront. To achieve maximum efficiency, manufacturers, ISVs, and channel partners have for long used big data for boosting proactive services and maintenance. This is in fact just scratching the surface. A more sophisticated application of predictive analytics supported by data mining, artificial intelligence, and data modeling to their services and product offerings by big print vendors is imminent.

3. Machine learning models for cybersecurity will emerge as a new differentiator. Enhanced connectivity not only boosts the efficiency but it also significantly raises the risk of it getting attacked by cybercriminals. Subsequently, the market leaders will be focusing on investing in machine learning more so as to counter that growing threat. But the current infrastructure isn’t that easy to secure, because of its obsolete technologies and unsafe legacy. It serves as a far wider cyber attack surface and increases the complexity of protection. Primary defense mechanism today is a detection of intrusion and authentication. But it fails in scenarios like rule-based detection of intrusion will be permeable to a no. of threats. On the other hand, implementing machine learning will enable detection of threats in real time. Early adopters have already started using the technology in 2018.

4. Advancements in voice recognition will trickle through. Voiced assistants have been quite a buzz in the tech market. In print industry, however, the concept is still very basic. Sharp and Nuance have released concept programs though. Alexa will be integrated in MFPs, stated Sharp. Alexa is Amazon’s voice assistant that connects Amazon Echo devices with an enterprise. The concept is still quite rough; with security concern the biggest issue although there is a manifold increase in the amount of productivity in office. Nuance’s offering has better security features with a robust system for authentication that uses Biometrics like voice. With concepts already being adopted by the market leaders, it will be just a matter of time before the segment creates initiatives for the tech.

5. Quality with Stunning Images: - One of the positives of web to print was how it helped phase out outdated traditional printing methods and cut down costs. Digital printing has also led to the production of excellent quality of images for the consumers. People now prefer printing online digitally with online photo album maker instead of opting to go to a studio to get it done. Quality will steadily increase over the next few years as the technology evolves.

Summary

Web to print has revolutionized how the print industry works. Cutting costs increasing output, in a shorter span of time, has worked in favor of this printing segment. And it’s not limited to just paper printing, with online design software; it can design products and get them manufactured. Digital printing stood at only 18.5% in 2008 of the value of offset printing. By the end of 2018, it will boast of value 50% of the offset printers, and even more in regions with advanced printing sector. Contrastingly, its share of volume in offset is much lower than that of traditional offset printers. This means that digital is giving far more ROI than offsets for the same investment in both.