Issue #0515/1 - Re-identifying itself, Oki wants to increase its presence in the printer market by creating an image specifically of a printer solutions provider.
Oki Data / Oki Systems, an Oki Electric group member, has announced that it is to change its identity as part of global repositioning exercise.
Involving a change of name, image and branding, the company hopes to move from being an indeterminate supplier of products to being a global printing solutions provider.
Now to be called “Oki Printing Solutions” right around the globe, Oki is labouring on the fact that it is not just a printing hardware supplier but a supplier of solutions that help businesses, and especially small businesses, to project themselves in a competitive market with materials they can produce easily and cost-effectively in-house.
Oki is not a name that many will be familiar with, let alone have experience with. And this is the problem. Oki wants to be recognised for what it is – a major challenger to the market leaders in the page printer market.
Oki’s strength in years past was dot matrix printers. While Epson was the overall market leader at the time (1980s), Oki was one of the strongest players alongside Epson, with a range that made most other manufacturers’ ranges look paltry by comparison.
With the advent of desktop laser printers, both companies attempted to make the transition to laser technology but newcomer, Hewlett-Packard, left both Oki and Epson standing.
While Hewlett-Packard’s laser printers were based on engines from Canon, which were also used by DeskTop Publishing pioneer, Apple, Epson took engines from Minolta. The early laser printers were disastrous for Epson and the company was never able to fully recover from the poor start once Hewlett-Packard stole the lead in 1991 – a position that it has maintained ever since.
Preferring to develop technology of its own, Oki used an LED array instead of a laser to write the image to the imaging drum. LEDs are less expensive to manufacture but, like most other page printer manufacturers, Oki was never able to make sufficient headway against Hewlett-Packard to make a significant name for itself in the page printer market.
However, with the advent of colour, Oki was able to have a far higher impact on the market than previously possible.
Oki was one of the pioneers of single-pass colour printer technology, having used four-pass technology briefly from 1998 to 2001 in the OkiPage 8C. Its first single-pass prototypes were on display at CeBIT for at least two years before any products reached the market.
Industry analysts IDC (International Data Corporation) indicate that, three years ago, Oki claimed a 6.1% share of the Western European colour page printer market with its sales of the C7000 and C9000 series – putting the company in 6th place.
Since then Oki has launched the C3000 and C5000 series and, just a year ago, Oki began a major drive to promote these colour laser printers by introducing the C3100, C5200 and C5400 with prices that began down amongst the prevailing prices for four-pass machines.
With the launch, came a strong message that Oki colour laser printers could enable small businesses to produce professional colour documents and marketing materials in-house much more easily than printers from competing manufacturers could. Printers were shipped with a suite of software to ease the process along and beta program test users claimed to have found the Oki the easiest printer to use.
As a result, Oki’s position has strengthened considerably. IDC now reports that Oki takes a 12.3% share (Western Europe, colour page printers) and is now second only to Hewlett-Packard in terms of units sold – this represents very impressive growth over a three year period.
But does anyone actually know about it? Do corporate IT and Purchasing Directors realise that Oki has risen to the number two slot?
Concerns were growing within Oki that this success was being stunted by the rather vague and misleading perception of Oki as a company. Having always been a business-to-business supplier, Oki was finding that its potential customers simply could not relate the company with the products. In other words, “Oki Data”, as it used to be, and “Oki Systems” were not names that projected the right message – in fact, if anything, they projected the wrong message.
If asked what products Hewlett-Packard or Epson manufacturer, almost anyone will refer to printers. But Oki? As a generalisation, people just do not know what Oki is or does! If there is an association with printers, then it tends to be with Dot Matrix printers.
As the Dot Matrix market has condensed over the last decade, most manufacturers have pulled out – leaving the market very largely to Epson and Oki. Where market share is concerned, Oki is second to Epson in terms of units sold but number one in terms of sales value.
Like fax, Dot Matrix printers will survive for a long time to come. In their case it is because their robustness makes them eminently suited to rugged environments, especially dirty environments such as the automotive service industry, and also to sales environments where multiple copies are required but where laser copies are not wholly desirable.
So Oki’s future should be assured in the Dot Matrix market but this success is not transferable, as already alluded to.
Another problem was that the company had no truly global brand identity. For instance, the company was originally called “Oki Data”. However, although there are offices in more than 120 countries, their names ranged from “Oki Systems” in Western European countries like the UK, France and Germany, through a simple (but inappropriate) “Oki Europe” in Middle Eastern countries like Israel and Turkey, and “Oki New Zealand”, to the vague “Oki Products Australia” and a rather cumbersome “Oki Sub Sahara Africa Division”, while in the US the original “Oki Data” has still been in use.
Oki’s new identity is due to make its presence felt on the internet on Tuesday 10th May but the newly designed web sites are live in advance of that date in the Americas.
Unfortunately, marketing of the software leaves something to be desired. It barely scores a mention in the general specification shown on the web site or the brochure. Even in the main brochure text the software is only mentioned in passing. There is no detailed description of this major feature that Oki believes is the root of its success in the colour sector.
In order to discover the potential for the Oki Template Manager software, potential customers have to look at the ‘Ask Oki’ web site, itself not highly visible, from where they are pointed to the Oki Community web site for information on how to create the materials. Trouble is, users have to register for this site – not exactly welcoming to the casual potential customer.
Flexibility of media is another major component in the mix, again lost in the bland marketing material. The Oki C3000 and C5000 series printers can handle media from A6 to a banner sized 210mm by 1.2m (1.2 m long at A4 width).
So, Oki is now in a position to move forwards with its challenge to Hewlett-Packard with refresh colour products in the 3000, 5000 and 9000 series colour printers due during the course of the next month or so.
In addition, Oki is due to announce products in a market area new for the company. Details are not yet available (in Europe at least) but one would assume that it will be the centred on the C5510n, ES1624n, and ES3640e multifunction products announced in the US. Early information on these products will be featured in the next issue of TCPglobal.
Oki is also known to be targeting retail and web channels as a means of increasing coverage for its low-end printers in particular. The C3100 colour page printer is already available through the Staples business retail store and Oki has experienced high growth in web sales in recent months.
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