as shared by… Mr. Manish Gupta, General Manager, PP and IP marketing, Konica Minolta Business Solutions India Pvt Ltd.
The world is witnessing some really testing times, positivity is something each human being is Looking forward to, same is the case with printing industry Since the onset of the ongoing pandemic, supply chains the world over have been severed, effectively causing the global industries to come to a grinding halt. With a sudden surge in the demand for essential supplies printers have really taken it head-on and helped the manufactures in numerous jobs 24X7 with very limited manpower but it all goes unnoticed since that is one of the elements of the final products but holds a significant value in the complete product lifecycle.
According to recent report by Quocirca, around 66% of print industry executives across Europe and the US said that the pandemic has made a considerable impact on their business while almost 3% asserted that the impact is critical.
However, not all is grim and dark. Amid the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, a paradigm shift is taking place in the global print and printing landscape. This transformation is marked by a shift from paper to digital processes as private sector enterprises are embracing the online ecosystem to sustain business continuity and streamline everyday workflow despite the lockdown situation.
How innovations in the print industry are helping new-age enterprise cope with the lockdown
On account of the pandemic, a range of business operations that relied on physical interactions has taken a shift more towards the virtual meetings.. Also evaluating more online solutions to keep the businesses on track providing customers easy access to job submission and fulfilment To mitigate the economic fallout, many enterprises invoked their business continuity plans and enforced work from home policies since around the time the lockdown and travel bans came into effect.
Against this backdrop, new-age organisations are actively using online tools and resources to manage operations, connect with stakeholders, and sustain business as usual. In its wake, players in the print industry are rising to the occasion to extend digital-first printing services and products to help enterprises meet their deliverables amid the lockdown.
With working practices having transferred their playground from the offices to the home, the ongoing crisis has given way to a rapid shift from paper to digital processes. As home workers are getting the hang of working digitally, vendors are adapting their services and providing digital-led solutions to quarantined employees. Hence, in tandem with the diminishing of office print volumes, the adoption of Cloud-enabled and AI-powered digital printing tools that seamlessly receive commands and deliver the desired output has risen.
Opportunity in adversity: The ongoing disruption in the print market
Besides this, new-age industry players are endeavouring to come up with innovative solutions to efficiently meet the operational as well as organisational needs of industries across sectors in the post-lockdown, post-pandemic world. As per the same report, nearly a quarter (21%) see the COVID-19 crisis as a trove of opportunities. On the other hand, nearly half (48%) of the respondents firmly believe that the pandemic will accelerate innovation and supply substantial impetus to the ongoing disruption in the market.
These ideas were echoed by lot of people to address the rising concern of the Indian printers about the impact of the viral outbreak on the industry and shed some light on the post-COVID-19 recovery prospects. It is requested that organisations need to help their employees during and after the pandemic. To achieve this, they can implement the necessary trainings & infrastructure improvements in the organisational structure to make employees future-ready by equipping them with cutting-edge skills in sync with the digital-first job roles of the future.
