Océ’s digital colour challenge - feature

Océ has long been regarded as a quiet, competent digital imaging manufacturer, a notable identity in the high-speed transactional printing space and the black and white large format plan-printing niche. But that is about to change as the Dutch-based corporation joins the headlong rush into the world of colour. New Australia managing director, Servio Notermans, gives his view of a radically different future to Patrick Howard.

Making a brand work harder is the trick. A brand is a power name that has the potency to drive product into the market, define the identity of a company and often decide its destiny. Brands have become billion dollar properties as it becomes more difficult to break through the competitive static. The ultimate accolade for a brand is that it becomes a verb, an action. The most famous ‘verb’ brand of them all was Hoover; housewives didn’t vacuum the carpet, they ‘hoovered’ it. Office workers in the 1950s used to ‘roneo’ copies, before they began to ‘xerox’ them.

There is a loaded message behind every successful brand, which is why Océ is such an enigma. Ask someone what is the emotional content of Océ and they’ll likely be at a loss. Press them for an explanation of what the company does and Joe (or Josephine) Average will not have a clue. Yet in the niche markets of high-volume transactional printing, or wide format plan imaging it can successfully claim ‘action brand’ status. To ‘Océ’ something is quite a reasonable request if you work in an architect’s office or in a fulfilment company.

The difficulty comes when a brand is migrated out of its comfort zone.

Come out fighting Servio Notermans is a rare bird in the ranks of Océ managing directors in Australia. In the first instance, he talks to the media. He also shows a fairly aggressive determination to raise the profile of the company throughout the graphic arts industry. Not for him the grey comfort zone of Océ’s traditional market niches. In line with the more active participation of the international company, he is looking to migrate it to the broader reaches of commercial digital colour printing and large format signage printing.

Notermans’ ambition is not only to be a player in commercial digital colour but also to lead the field in the same sense as Océ ‘owns’ its traditional niche markets. “I want us to be the dominant player in the digital colour environment. I believe our technology is very different from what is in the market and when people see it and compare they will recognise that we have come up with something that is really special,” he said.

What is ‘really special’, and the spearhead product Notermans and his divisional marketing manager for Océ’s Digital Document Solutions Tim Saleeba, are pinning their hopes on, is the CPS Platinum, the latest iteration of Océ’s colour digital imaging engine. This is a worked-over model of the groundbreaking CPS seven-colour imaging technology Océ first brought to market four years ago with its CPS700 and, late last year, its CPS900. Platinum is an upgrade platform which builds on this technology. Using a radically different method of putting toner on paper (it doesn’t pile toner on top of toner, every grain has its own discrete position on the paper) it eliminates the need to calibrate the imaging engine. This means Océ can promise the same repro from different machines in widely diverse locations – without prior calibration. Which is a significant differentiation.

The other notable feature is because there is less need to ‘bake’ the toner, there is little or no silicon oil used, which in turn means it can be laminated or varnished without fear of the image lifting from the substrate.

The business of colour Technology has always been Océ’s strong suit; where the ground needs to be made up is in the marketing. Even Xerox, which started earlier, had difficulty migrating its brand into the world of colour. (To ‘xerox’ something surely is to copy it in black and white.) Océ has only been in the digital colour business for four years and its difficulty is in cutting through the ‘static’ with the message that it actually does do it differently. While many copy shops already employ Océ large format, it is going to take some time for these customers to embrace the notion that digital colour is also available.

At this stage Notermans is happy to make steady progress. “Throw a stone close to home,” he says. There are already 25-30 CPS units in the field since its introduction in Australia four years ago. He is convinced that because the company has a well-established service and support system throughout the country it is simply a matter of getting the Platinum in front of enough people for them to see the superior quality of the imaging.

He may prove right, but it’s not going to be easy for Océ to suddenly emerge as a full service provider in the digital colour world. It is a highly competitive arena where the possession of superior technology is no guarantee of success. However there seems little alternative for a company as large and ambitious as Océ if it wants to play in all sectors of the printing market, other than promote itself as ‘the digital colour supplier.’ In Notermans it just may have the right character for the job.