BOULDER, CO- December 10, 2007 - InfoPrint Solutions Company, a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh, today announced that Vesa Direct, a leading direct and promotional marketing company and subsidiary of Telefónica Group, has installed multiple full-color InfoPrint 5000 color production systems for an innovative color transpromo printing project for Telefónica Movistar. The InfoPrint 5000s will enable Vesa Direct to position itself as a leading supplier of transpromo in Spain.
"Transpromo" transforms traditional transaction documents such as statements into high-value communications by incorporating relevant personalized marketing content (e.g., based on consumers' purchasing behavior or other parameters) to promote products, services, and/or loyalty. With the InfoPrint 5000, businesses can use color to make transpromo communications even more attention-getting and effective communications. The statement is an actionable document between a business and its customers, and therefore provides a unique opportunity to leverage relevant marketing messages.
Vesa Direct plans to continue to expand its color operations as it achieves key milestones, complementing the InfoPrint 4100 and InfoPrint 4000 high-speed black and white printers already in production. Vesa Direct is responsible for printing Telefónica Spain's invoices as well as statements for the country's leading banks. This involves printing more than one billion pages every year.
According to Dionisio Mateo, Vesa Direct's Technology Director, "The addition of the InfoPrint 5000 will help us to rise to the challenge of new projects and position us as genuine early adopters, making us one of Europe's most innovative promotional and direct marketing companies."
"Marketing directors will soon be taking full advantage of the power of the new print services transpromo offers and which Vesa Direct can now provide for the Spanish market. This new project represents a milestone in innovation and a significant competitive advantage for Vesa Direct," stated Jesús Ayllón, Managing Director of InfoPrint Solutions Company in Spain.
The signing of this contract has demonstrated a renewal of Vesa Direct's commitment to InfoPrint Solutions Company. In 2006, the Telefónica Group replaced its Océ high-speed digital printers with an InfoPrint environment in a contract valued at millions of euros. At that time, Vesa Direct installed multiple InfoPrint 4100 and InfoPrint 4000 systems to create an overall digital print capacity of 6,000 copies per minute.
Earlier in 2007, Vesa bought additional InfoPrint 4100 and InfoPrint 4000 systems for its new offices in Valencia and increased the capacity at its Tres Cantos facility. Vesa Direct's entire print environment is managed using InfoPrint Manager (IPM) on IBM eSeries pSeries servers and is designed for high availability.
Installation of InfoPrint 5000s for color transpromo is the next step in Vesa Direct's plan to provide even greater competitive advantage to its clients. This project is one of the first of its kind in Europe.