EFI Reports Successful FESPA with Opportunities in Wide-, Grand-format Printing

FOSTER CITY, CA—July 9, 2013—EFI, a world leader in customer-focused printing innovation, announced that it had its most successful FESPA exhibit to date, with strong sales activity and a high number of leads coming from the June 25-29 FESPA London 2013 screen and digital printing trade show.

EFI completed record number of equipment sales deals during the show, with attendees acquiring EFI VUTEk and EFI wide-format printers driven by EFI Fiery digital front end (DFE) systems. This year’s FESPA was also one of the best yet in terms of software sales, with several companies purchasing new MIS and ERP systems from EFI.

One attendee, Fengate, U.K.-based Total Displays, made a pair of purchases at FESPA. Having signed with EFI authorized distributor CMYUK to take home a VUTEk QS3 Pro UV printer, Layth Karagholi, Total Displays’ managing director, came back to FESPA the next day to also purchase EFI Pace MIS software.

“As we were looking into a new investment, it was at EFI that we found the best combination of versatility of applications, print quality and production speed,” commented Karagholi. "We come from the indoor business where resolutions are high but speeds are slow, so we used to think UV was not an option. With the VUTEk printer, UV is now possible without our customers noticing the transition. The printer's full 320 cm width and hybrid-ready capabilities were additional reasons for us to go with EFI.

“EFI Pace offers the versatility we were looking for,” Karagholi added. “It links seamlessly with the printer to offer good reporting, CRM and automated workflow. We can get Pace to tell us what we need it to tell us."

Technologies to win new business, reduce costs and grow profits

“Our end-to-end offering—from Web-to-print and MIS workflow to DFEs and the world’s leading UV inkjet printing portfolio—helps print professionals enter new markets, win new business and reduce their total cost of operations,” noted Scott Schinlever, senior vice president and general manager of EFI’s Inkjet Solutions. “FESPA attracts some of the industry’s most discerning print professionals and our performance at this year’s show validates the investments EFI is making to give them more automation, productivity, quality and versatility.”

FESPA attendees like Nancy, France-based PLS appreciated the compelling market advantages of EFI’s LED UV print offerings.

"We have been using a VUTEk printer for five years now and have always been impressed with the quality of EFI's people in sales and service,” relayed PLS CEO Olivier Philippot, who purchased a VUTEk GS2000LX LED UV printer at the show. “When we started to look for a new machine and learned that the GS2000LX can give us much higher print quality than our current machine—at a higher production speed and with environmental benefits as well thanks to LED ‘cool-cure’ technology—we knew we did not have to look any further to expand our customer service offering and grow our business in the years to come.”

Leading-edge, integrated workflow solutions for profitable digital printing

FESPA attendees’ interest in improving their businesses extended beyond print hardware, as print professionals made deals to acquire Fiery DFE and EFI Productivity Software MIS and ERP workflow systems. Showgoers took advantage of the newest EFI Fiery platform for proofing, production prepress and RIPing, purchasing DFE, color management and other Fiery components that are now optimized to work with inkjet print devices from a wide range of manufacturers.

FESPA attendees’ Productivity Software investments at the show included new orders for EFI Pace, PrintSmith Vision, Digital StoreFront and OPS products. SmartSign Analytics, a Productivity Software product that uses webcams, licensed facial recognition and new analytics tools to automatically gather detailed signage viewership data, was one of the more talked-about technologies in the exhibition centre. EFI secured serious inquiries for potential SmartSign Analytics beta users as a result of the high interest shown at FESPA.

EFI’s exhibit at FESPA London emphasized the complete, end-to-end offerings the company offers for print professionals looking to profit from integrated, streamlined and versatile print operations that can connect everything from Web-to-print file submission, to business and production management, file prep and digital printing using the industry’s leading MIS/ERP, DFE and UV inkjet products.

About EFI
EFI is a worldwide provider of products, technology and services leading the transformation of analog to digital imaging. Based in Silicon Valley, CA, with offices around the globe, the company's powerful integrated product portfolio includes digital front-end servers; superwide, wide-format, label and ceramic inkjet presses and inks; production workflow, Web-to-print, and business automation software; and office, enterprise and mobile cloud solutions. These products allow users to produce, communicate and share information in an easy and effective way, and enable businesses to increase their profits, productivity, and efficiency.

Source: EFI.