Guy Gecht, CEO EFI, on whirlwind ANZ regional tour

“We’ve got some very good business here, through our partners and direct. It’s a very important market for us and I like to come here as often as I can,” he said, during a two-day stopover in the region before heading to Tokyo.

The newly released Fiery System 7 is the latest upgrade of the company’s ubiquitous RIP that is built-in as standard on most of the digital production printers in use from such suppliers as Fuji Xerox, Canon, Oce, Ricoh and Konica Minolta. The new iteration is promoted as bringing WYSIWYG job composition and imposition tools, workflow automation, advanced production tools and flexible and open VDP capabilities.

Gecht’s visit coincides with 100-day mark of EFI’s Vutek acquisition. He reports a 10 per cent increase in quarterly sales for the ultra wide format printing business with the September quarter results coming in at US$37 million. The new business, known as EFI Vutek, claims market leadership in Australia and is among the leaders in grand format equipment in New Zealand.

“Vutek has proven to be a very good acquisition for us. It’s got a strong brand and produces printing of the highest quality,” said Gecht.

In recent years the highly profitable EFI has sought to broaden its portfolio of products. Apart from entering the ultra wide printing market with Vutek, it has developed a presence in proofing with its Colorproof solution, based on the acquired Best technology, as well as a recent foray into management information systems (EFI Hagen, Logic and PSI).

According to Gecht, the Fiery business now only constitutes around 60 per cent of the company’s revenue with the new ventures proving themselves in the market. Local director of sales EFI Asia Pacific, Eric Holtsmark, says a number of MIS sales are about to be announced. “We’ve had good success following up on PacPrint leads,” he said.