Daniel Martinez said 2022 was going to be a big year for the division, with a few new products in the pipeline. While he would not be pressed on specifics, he said that this spring would see an announcement about one of these new innovations.
“It’s not a conventional printer but it’s something that we’re very excited about that opens up a whole new range of opportunities for the business.”
He said the division is now seeing a return to pre-Covid levels for its Pro and Latex product portfolios, “and on the Design space we’re seeing that light at the end of the tunnel in terms of growth in construction and really capitalising on that as it returns”.
He added: “It’ll be subject to any further waves [of the virus] but I think we’re predicting a return to normalcy over the next 18 months, so from that perspective there’s a lot of focus on innovation in our product lineup both on the Design side and on the Pro side.”
Outlining his division’s current big three main focus points, Martinez commented: “The first big area is around the transformation in the industry; when we speak to print service providers and a lot of our customers, with the advent of the pandemic it’s a lot about how their workflows have changed and how they’re looking for better automation.
“We’re seeing a big boom in e-commerce and that’s driving a big change in behaviour, and I think we can really capitalise on that with some of our solutions; a lot of our focus is on developing those solutions further.
“We see a lot of value with PrintOS, for example, and there is perhaps not enough visibility or understanding of all the value PrintOS can bring in that automation theme, especially when it comes to print service providers.
“So something we’re going to be very focused on is giving more visibility into the value of the solutions and how they interact with our products, and managing the products and getting the most out of things like colour management, new applications, and queue management. [We’re looking at] the whole solutions area and how we can help in that with automation and improvement of the workflow.”
Another major focus area for the Large Format Business, Martinez added, was sustainability, which he said “if anything, is becoming more and more relevant”.
“From the very beginning with Latex we’ve been very focused with that message and on how we can improve the sustainability of our products, both on the Pro side and the Design side. We continue to really focus on how we can significantly reduce the overall carbon footprint.
“We have a number of programmes in that space in terms of recycling; we’ve recently launched the Planet Partners Programme, which is aimed at recovering a lot of the waste that is generated, be it on the ink side or the media side, so that we can properly dispose of it. I think that’s another area where we have an opportunity to create more visibility and awareness.”
He added: “We’re working closely with media vendors to ensure that we’re compatible with the most sustainable media. I think from that perspective we’re very well covered but continuing to move the needle there in terms of innovation when it comes to working with partners.
“But we’re also looking at our end-to-end emissions and I think it’s important that we don’t just look at it very vertically but that we also look at it horizontally. In the design and innovation of the technology as we work on future products, that’s precisely one of the vectors that we’re trying to look at – it’s around energy consumption, the media/substrates, and the Planet Partners Programme, and being able to have a consistent story around that.
“The other one is around material sourcing; we have ocean-bound plastic programmes and we’re looking for circularity there too. We’ve made great progress, but we continue to have that as a priority going forward.”
The final key focus area, Martinez said, was around helping the company’s customers with additional, or new applications.
“One of the things that we’re very focused on is growing business for our customers, and in the print service provider space that means more versatility with the same units and being able to address more applications so they can grow their business from that point of view.
“We put a lot of focus around training on new applications, and that’s something that we’re seeing a good reception for – if you’re focused on car wraps today but you want to diversify your business, we make it easy for you to take that step.”
He concluded: “The other thing too that we want to drive – moreso in the future – is to bring more volume to those accounts that are using HP products, and I think that links very much with the solutions that we’re developing.
“With PrintOS for example, if we can benefit from driving more volume to the printers that are currently installed, and help our customers on that journey of diversifying their business, I think it’s win-win.”
