A Xerox Corporation survey conducted from the show floor of On Demand 2001, a premier digital printing and publishing conference confirms that digital printing technology is radically changing the printing industry. Nearly all respondents - 96% - said they expect digital printing, or a combination of digital and offset, to replace offset-only as the printing technology of the future. Xerox is surveying daily the commercial printers, quick printers, graphic arts services providers, and other professionals attending the show to better understand and validate customer views about important printing industry issues.

Other results from the survey:

* More than 89% of attendees feel today's digital colour presses provide appropriate quality for most short-run printing jobs.

* About 88% see digital colour as a way to increase their profits.

On Demand attendees also expressed strong opinions regarding variable data printing, the process in which elements of digitally printed materials are customised using information from databases:

* More than 20% expect the amount of variable data printing to increase dramatically in the next year, and 67% expect the amount to increase somewhat.

* 74% feel variable data is a strong way for printing professionals to increase their profits.

Paul Haglich, Xerox SA Production Systems Marketing Manager, adds, "These survey results reflect our experience in the local market. A number of our corporate clients are already embracing database driven digital colour printing as a means to improve their external customer communications.

"For example, high value clients can now be provided with regular, highly personalised up-to-the-minute investment reports, printed in high quality full colour, incorporating personalised marketing brochures, virtually at 'a touch of a button'. Using traditional offset printing methods, a generic investment report would have been printed, collated with a customer letter and generic brochure, then mailed. By the time the customer received it the investment information would probably be out of date and the impact of personalised one-to-one communication is lost."

Xerox South Africa

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