Digital transformation could take place faster and more cost-effectively if organisations work from the ground up, starting with the print environment, instead of taking a top-down approach.

This is according to Jonathan Osbourne, Head of Sales at Altron Document Solutions, who says: “A lot of CIOs and CTOs look at the main platforms that drive the business and start at the top when they embark on a digitisation strategy,” he says. “Many large enterprises have a large focus on that top-down strategy, focusing on data and analytics, which eventually filters down to print.”

In contrast, Altron Document Solutions’ ground-up approach to digitisation looks at how print (paper-based data) flows within an environment to inform digitisation programmes to improve efficiency and security.

“It’s a very simple and effective strategy. We assess the input and output of information, and around 90% of that happens through multifunctional printers. So we start looking at the analytics behind how the information is coming into the organisation, where the areas of the business are, the type of data being onboarded and off-boarded, what drives processes and the compliance and efficiencies around it.

We then start at the grassroots and build up from there. From a cost perspective, because we’re cannibalising the print environment, organisations can repurpose the print budget for other digitisation initiatives.”

Osbourne says the business has identified the easiest places to start for various industry verticals. “For example, in manufacturing, you have a lot of blue-collar workers coming in using time stamps; we can digitise that process. In smaller businesses that process a lot of invoices, digitisation addresses the costs and time associated with having a team of people printing thousands of invoices, capturing, processing and archiving thousands of invoices every month. We look at the printers with the highest print and scan volumes, because that’s a clear indication of information input and output, and then we bridge the gap with digital platforms.”

Osbourne believes that print will continue to feature in office environments, but that digitisation of the environment should be embraced for greater efficiencies and savings. “The big problem is people are sceptical of digital tools that will scan, drag and drop the information into a programme with optical character recognition, extract the data into digital form, put it into workflows and archive it within a secure and compliant environment,” he says.

“There aren’t many organisations focusing on the ground-up approach to digitisation to create more efficiencies in workflows. This is due to old habits and the need for change management around digitisation on the office floor, because a lot of print is generated by human behaviour. In addition, there could be resistance to it because many people are concerned about their job security,” Osbourne says.

Smaller and mid-tier organisations in particular believe that digitisation that creates efficiencies is a time-consuming and costly exercise, he says. “But processes can be digitised and automated surprisingly quickly and cost-effectively. And if they look at the amount of time and money businesses spend on hard copy archiving and retrieval, they will see that digitising the print environment and the workflows makes a lot of sense.”

Once this environment is digitised, the business can also start harnessing analytics to make intelligent business decisions, as well as BI reporting, Osbourne notes.

JSE-listed technology company Altron has announced the appointment of Werner Kapp as Group Chief Executive with effect from 1 October 2022.

Altron Executive Chairman Stewart van Graan said: “After a rigorous search and recruitment process by the Board, we are very pleased to appoint a well-recognised leader with extensive expertise and sector experience.  Werner will drive our vision as Altron to become a preeminent technology services provider with ambitions to strengthen our local and global presence in the digital solutions market. This is a market where the opportunity is substantial.”

Kapp was at Dimension Data where over a twenty-two-year period, he held various roles as Chief Executive Officer (Middle East and Africa), Chief Operating Officer (Middle East and Africa) and Regional Executive. As Dimension Data’s Regional Executive for the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, and Gauteng regions, he led the best performing regions for the company.

Commenting on his appointment Kapp said: “It is an honour and a privilege to be joining a company like Altron which has a solid set of intellectual property and a variety of digital solutions. This is an exciting and challenging opportunity, and I look forward to working with the Board and employees in taking Altron to its next phase of growth as a successful and sustainable business that responds to our customers’ challenges.”

Werner Kapp holds a law degree from the Nelson Mandela University and a Master’s degree in Business Leadership from the UNISA School of Business. He has a global leadership development certification from the IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland.

In a statement, the Altron Board thanked Stewart van Graan who has been Interim Chief Group Executive since July 2022 and will revert to his role of Chairman of the Board from 1 October.

While technology tends to get the plaudits, the fact is that the human element remains vital in moving from the germ of an idea to a well-implemented solution. Everything begins with the formulation of an idea by somebody, somewhere, who fosters it, plans it, researches it and develops it into a tangible offering.

Keith Knott, senior manager: sales at Altron Document Solutions, points out that this is the essence of research and development (R&D), which is a critical part of the process of developing customer-focused solutions.

“It’s important to recognise the necessity of the research part of the equation, since without proper research, you won’t know what you need to develop and why. There have been many occasions where vast amounts were spent on developing products that turned out the users weren’t interested in. Research is how you determine the user requirements and what the consumers want,” he says.

“During product development, customer feedback is an obvious tool to help you more clearly understand the customer’s demands. After all, the more rapidly you can identify what they want, the more quickly you can identify additional needs and eliminate design errors. This is why the need exists, to place beta test models with the customers in order to obtain direct feedback that can be leveraged to improve on the products.”

In this way, explains Knott, you are able to listen directly to the voice of the customer and ensure their requirements are incorporated into the latest product design. Xerox understands the importance of beta test sites in effectively developing technology in this manner.

“This is more important than ever; due to digital transformation, technologies are evolving far more quickly and thus it becomes easier for mistakes to creep into the design process. The real challenge is if the problems only come to the fore once the device is on site with customers. Problems arising at this stage will create unhappy customers, reputational damage to the supplier and additional work for the service department.

“Although launching a new product is never an absolute science, the likelihood of success increases exponentially as you undertake more R&D, as the growing base of knowledge helps you to more effectively calculate the risks and deliver according to requirements.”

Research, for example, is vital in determining whether a large enough number of customers will make use of a product you plan on launching. It is about balancing the potential demand with the potential risk.

“Remember too that with certain devices, such as standard office printers, the goal may not be a product with a range of new features, as much as it is to design and place a device offering simplicity and ease of use. Research around the human element remains key here in order to achieve these.”

Knott suggests that there is often talk of a paperless office, but we remain a long way from achieving this. Paper remains vital for a multitude of reasons – exam papers, study books, citizenship papers and travel documents, to name a few – are all examples of why the need for printed papers continues to grow.

“Considering the importance of print in today’s world, there can be little doubt that print device design needs to take into account the human element, developing it in a way that enables people to more easily and affordably leverage it. Paper remains a vital aspect of any business, and as long as it does, we will need to continue to improve the technology and make it more accessible to people through ongoing R&D,” he concludes.

Despite the economic slowdown from the COVID-19 pandemic over the past few years, the production printing market in Namibia has continued to grow significantly. That’s the view of Jannie Steyn, Sales and Business Development Specialist for Altron Technologies Namibia, who heads up the company’s Xerox business in the country.

Altron Technologies Namibia is a subsidiary of South African-based Altron and has distributed Xerox production and office printers in the country for more than 25 years. Its customers include traditional printing service providers, along with small-to-medium businesses, schools and universities.

“Most of our clients started off with printers from other brands, only to switch to Xerox when reliability and print quality became a problem down the line,” says Steyn.

“Namibia is a relatively small market in the sub-Saharan Africa context, so there’s nowhere to hide when it comes to technology issues, especially with high-volume production printing,” he says. “Customers are also increasingly looking for a one-stop solution from their technology providers, which in the printing world means everything from paper and toner to the machines themselves, and then after-sales service and support. No one does end-to-end like Xerox and Altron; we provide every link in the chain, and if we don’t stock it, we’ll source it.”

Altron Technologies has the distinction of supplying the first Xerox Versant 4100 production press in Africa, quite an achievement for a country of 2.5 million people on a continent of more than 1.2 billion. Its bread-and-butter, however, is in the smaller production printer market, like the Xerox Primelink C9070 and B9125 printer/copiers. Recent installations include a major printing overhaul at one of Namibia’s largest universities and a large print shop in Windhoek that needed to supplement its colour printing business with high-volume black-and-white.

“The university we’re working with had the same reliability issues that we come across with many of our clients, where their production machines are down for maintenance in an environment where downtime is impossible,” says Steyn. “Not only did we help them resolve these issues with the Xerox C9070 and its built-in bookbinder option, but we’re also now looking to overhaul their admin printing and equip their new medical department with printers.

“The print shop faced another common scenario in that they needed to find a better and more cost-effective way of making black-and-white prints. Like everyone else, they were using their colour printers for monochrome printing, but this is less efficient and more costly. The Xerox B9125 is an ideal complement to a Xerox Colour press and is far better suited to both large and small B+W production runs.” Steyn says the ‘secret’ to growing the Namibian production print market is not really a secret.

“My role is to plan ahead for our customers, to figure out what they’re going to need in six weeks and six months, and to slowly but surely introduce them to the solutions we have available,” he says. “It’s not a hard sell, but rather something that takes patience and persistence, and continual follow-up, even with those customers not currently invested in Xerox.”

“It’s fair to say that COVID and the lockdowns have radically changed our business cycles, if not the business itself,” he adds. “Six years ago, customers were planning up to a year ahead, whereas today I’m meeting clients who aren’t quite sure what they’ll need week on week. It’s a challenge for sure, but one that we embrace as a company, and have the products and expertise in-country – and across the border – to properly service.”

Steyn has helped grow Xerox’s colour production market in Namibia by more than 90% in the last three years, economic slowdown notwithstanding. With businesses starting to return to a ‘new normal’, the forward trajectory is very much upward.

“The reality is that we live and work in a vast country with a very small, widely dispersed population, so growing the market means constantly being on the move and having the reach to service outlying areas with the same skills and resources we have for metro customers. It’s a challenge we embrace and one that I believe sets Altron apart from other, smaller distributors that simply don’t have the feet on the ground to go that extra mile.”

Centurion-based full-service printing company Fine Art Printers (www.fineart.co.za) has upscaled its digital production by purchasing a Xerox Versant 4100 Press from XBC-IT through their distributor Altron Document Solutions.

The family-owned business, founded more than 60 years ago by the Kalianjee family and currently managed by Ashesh Kalianjee, offers a broad range of printing services to walk-in, online and corporate customers alike, from basic commercial printing, business cards to annual reports, high-end packaging, gift bags, pharmaceutical insert printing and general promo printing, using both traditional litho and modern digital equipment.

“My background was in the corporate industry working with IBM, but now I’m a third-generation Kalianjee printer and have been involved with the business for six years,” says Ashesh Kalianjee. “I’ve been an XBC-IT customer for the past four years (including the purchase of the Xerox Versant 2100) and believe that we’ve found our level now that we’re working with the industry standard for digital printing.” Kalianjee says the Xerox Versant 4100 was “a bit of an impulse buy” but was made with a strong sense of business momentum.

“When I was first introduced to XBC-IT and Xerox, I could immediately tell that their commitment to the productivity of my business was high on the priority list,” he says. “This matched my thinking at the time, especially since the machines we were using were starting to show their age and became increasingly unreliable. So fast-forward a few years, and when the opportunity to buy the first Xerox Versant 4100 in South Africa came along, I couldn’t resist. It opens up new market opportunities for us, but it takes us to the highest possible production level, and ultimately, that’s where I want the company to operate.”

XBC-IT Production Specialist Chris Stoltz added that the Xerox Versant 4100 will improve productivity and increase application offering, printing up to 400gsm. In addition, with PredictPrint Media management, it is as simple as scan, load and go. With print speeds up to 100ppm at full image quality, the Xerox Versant 4100 is one of the fastest and most versatile high-performance production presses on the market. Compatible with a vast range of media, from envelopes to labels, tabs and special substrates like synthetics, polyesters, window clings, transfer paper and magnetic stocks, operators can print on stock as small as 98mm x 146mm and as long as 330mm x 1.2m).

It also features Xerox’s industry-leading ultra-high resolution print engine, which combines 10-bit 1 200 x 1 200 RIP rendering with 2 400 x 2 400 imaging at the engine. In addition, it uses Xerox EA Low Melt Dry Ink toner for small, uniform particles, lines and overall superior image quality to competitive toners.

“Unlike the Xerox Versant 2100, the Xerox Versant 4100 supports heavier stocks, which opens up the market for light packaging production – something we’ve wanted to offer our customers for quite some time,” says Kalianjee. “As a business that started small – basically in my grandfather’s lounge – we’ve always been about helping smaller enterprises meet their printing needs.

“Some of the smallest one-man customers we worked with back in those days are now multimillion-rand corporates and still rely on our personalised service,” he says. “Part of my thinking regarding the new Versant was how the added speed, reliability, volume and media options would help us keep costs lower and therefore be able to continue servicing small clients with short-run, high-impact digital printing products.”

Kalianjee contends that, as a small business, when you have an idea and can realise it through packaging or printing, one day you can become a potentially big company with that single idea. “If you’re forced to use an expensive and time-consuming litho solution to bring your product idea to life, you might give up too soon, but with a digital press like the Xerox Versant 4100, we can run off 10, 20 or 100 samples or short runs and turn them around same day – or next day with mild die-cutting – and you’re on your way.” With faster and more cost-effective operation, the Xerox Versant 4100 allows Fine Art Printers to increase the litho versus digital cap, shifting some of the runs onto the digital where previously it was litho.

When it comes to supporting the new Xerox Versant, Kalianjee says you must test your boundaries on rare occasions with your suppliers, get them “to step out of their comfort zone and send someone over to help with certain ‘unconventional’ situations. I can have that conversation without excuses.” Kalianjee says the plan is to grow the family business to become nationally recognised by expanding the entire digital footprint and introducing more options like digital labels and point of sale products.

“This will necessarily mean heavy investment on our part, but I believe that despite competition from the bigger printing companies, we can still go for that market. XBC-IT has a reputable production print footprint in the printing market, but they continue to support smaller family businesses like ours. The majority of companies in South Africa are small businesses, and we can only succeed if we work together to grow together.”

For almost 25 years, co-founders Lisa Saville and Nic Johnson have been running Cape Town’s premier full-service printing centre, Hot Ink, like a tight ship. Located in the bustling heart of Cape Town’s CBD, Hot Ink has seen its share of challenges over the years, but has steadfastly retained the formula that continues to make it the go-to service for high-quality, colour-accurate printing in the city.

“I guess you could say we’re always looking for what we can add to what we already have, which is really the key if you want to be able to give everyone who walks through the door a high-value solution without sending them elsewhere,” says Saville.

“For example, before the pandemic and lockdowns of the last two years, we weren’t able to offer our clients any in-house bespoke packaging solutions, but now, with the combination of our heavy grammage-compatible Xerox printers and a recent investment in our own digital die-cutter, we can.”

Pointing to a shelf in the interview room stacked to the brim with packaging samples for local artisans and smaller boutique businesses, Saville says that while many companies have had to pivot and adapt to the ‘new normal’, Hot Ink didn’t have to change much to keep up with demand.

“We’ve been fortunate that our business model was always intended to cater to large numbers of smaller businesses as opposed to the other way round,” she says.

“When COVID hit, many larger companies shuttered their doors or downsized, leaving people having to find new ways to generate an income. When you have an idea that needs to be packaged before it can be sold, you need a way to turn the concept into reality, and that’s really what we’ve always done for our clients, on-screen and on paper and now with physical short-run packaging.”

In-house skills

According to Saville, many clients don’t even know the options available when it comes to presenting their products, so it’s up to Hot Ink’s in-house design team to help them create even better products from their original ideas.

“Not many other printers employ such a dedicated and qualified design team as part and parcel of their service offering,” she says.

“Design is very much at the heart of what we do and, as such, we felt it just as important to have the best designers as it was to have the best equipment. There’s a reason why so many ad agencies and design houses choose us for their printing, because we literally speak the same language. They don’t just come to us for technical printing solutions, but engage with us throughout the design process and trust us to honour their work through to its physical manifestation.”

Xerox partnership

“Part of Hot Ink’s ability to meet market demand head-on has been due to its longstanding relationship with Xerox,” says Johnson.

“In the early days, we worked with many of Cape Town’s leading model agencies (and still do), and as you can imagine they demand spot-on colour accuracy and skin tones every time,” he says.

“Working with a global brand like Xerox isn’t about showboating, but rather knowing that our investment in printing technology means we can count on reliability, consistency and – with Altron Document Solutions – expert service as and when we need it. It’s quite simple really, in this business we trade on solutions, not excuses, so we can’t be seen to be blaming our tools when things go wrong, which thankfully, they rarely ever do.”

Hot Ink was the first printer in South Africa to invest in the Xerox Iridesse platform in 2018, back when gold, silver and white ink printing was in its infancy in the short-run digital printing domain.

Co-founders Lisa Saville and Nic Johnson.

“At the time, we became the pioneers of embellished printing, offering short-run, lower-cost and quick turnaround solutions, previously only possible as part of costly high-volume print orders. If someone comes to us now needing to print black on black or white ink on black, or to accent their packaging with metallic inks, we are still one of the few companies that can do it. We even have other printers outsourcing work to us.” says Johnson.

Not only has Hot Ink actively invested in the latest technology, where it makes business sense, they’ve also invested in the necessary technical skills to maintain it.

“As with our design team, it makes such a big difference to have in-house technical skills on the equipment side. It’s what makes it possible for us to push the envelope when it comes to taking our machines to their full potential and beyond.

“For example, we’ve tried and successfully printed on artificial substrates that no one else has touched because they were told ‘it’s not laser compatible’, and yet we’ve made it work.”

Sustainably into the future

One of Hot Ink’s selling points is carbon neutrality – the company has been an officially certified carbon neutral business since 2012.

“It started with Nic and I thinking this would be a good thing to explore,” says Saville, “simply because we felt it was the right thing to do.”

“Once we achieved our certification and we put it out there, a lot of new customers found us and worked with us, who perhaps wouldn’t have done so without us being carbon neutral. Because there is a growing amount of company legislation that specifies that the procurement process must now be from sustainable suppliers, it has not only put us at the front of the queue when it comes to choosing printers, but it’s also pushed us to explore more sustainable print solutions.

“It’s pushed us to look for self-adhesive options that are recyclable. It’s pushed us to look at how we operate within Hot Ink. How do we package our products? Let’s not use bubble wrap, let’s use corrugated cardboard. Let’s not use clear plastic packaging tape, let’s use gummed tape. It’s also forced us to rethink the way we do things from within and what we can offer our customers on the outside.”

Johnson adds that one of the eco-friendly substrates Hot Ink has been using, called Rock Paper, is a waterproof stock made from minerals, which uses zero water for its production. During the pandemic this was particularly useful for printing items like menus that needed to be washed down regularly to comply with COVID-19 regulations.

“That’s just one example of many, but goes to show how innovation in one area often leads to innovations in other areas too.”

Looking ahead, both partners believe Hot Ink is on course to continue with its upward trajectory.

“We print business cards and brochures and booklets as our bread-and-butter, but we’ve never actively gone after the ‘low-cost, high-volume’ market, choosing instead to focus on smaller high-value clients with broad industry diversification,” says Saville.

“That’s why you’ll see a very wide range of clients passing through our door, people who come to us when they need to get things done that no one else can do. It’s the model we came up with when we were young and passionate with little industry knowledge and which fortunately still holds true now that we have the experience and track record to show for it.”