By Benoit Chatelard, Vice President, Production Printing, Ricoh Europe

Two years on from its launch more than 60 Ricoh Pro VC60000 continuous feed inkjet press engines have been installed by Print Service Providers choosing to transform their print production capabilities.

For many it is its high-quality results on a huge array of offset papers, including gloss, which has proven the biggest attraction. This ability allows those in the high end direct mail markets to develop a highly creative product portfolio. 

Among them is MBA Group. The London-based marcom and transactional specialist is in the final stages of installing its second Ricoh Pro VC60000 as part of a £5m strategic spend to target growth in direct marketing and transpromo markets. 

Next level investment

Kevin Stewart, MBA Group sales director explains: “We’re really a hybrid house for marketing and transactional output, which were two separate markets that have come together over the past 10 years. We’ve had continuous colour for a while now, so we’ve always been at the front of that evolution, but now we want to take it to the next level.”

Adare, the leading British provider of marketing and secure communication solutions, has also installed a second Ricoh Pro VC60000. The technology was adopted improve print quality through a 60% increase in print resolution. Barry Crich, Adare SEC’s Managing Director, said the investment was made to meet customer demands for higher quality in this medium.

Pondres, the Dutch full service print provider and expert in data driven marketing also chose the Ricoh Pro VC60000 to refocus its inkjet printing production towards higher quality. The business has replaced traditionally printed mass marketing materials with personal and relevant marketing communications. 

Delivering customised campaigns  

American firm Heeter liked the Ricoh Pro VC60000’s ability to support its need to deliver customised campaigns while meeting tight deadlines. The Pennsylvania company provides offset and digital print, direct mail and fulfilment solutions, for clients in the casino, life sciences, retail and higher education sectors. It picked the press to raise response rates.

President Scott Heeter says quality is paramount for his customers. Exceeding expectations by delivering that quality with fast turnaround times is at the heart of Heeter’s operation. Ricoh’s insight on the reduced touch points, variable data advantages and cost per page savings of inkjet piqued his interest. Its team of end-to-end experts closed the deal. 

To increase efficiency and productivity 

Tri-Win, a Texas direct marketing company, identified the need to couple its customer focus with direct marketing response rates and strong customer campaign ROI.

Scott Fish, Founder and CEO, says the Ricoh Pro VC60000 supports the company’s think global, act local ethos. Ultimately it helps the business maintain and enhance its approach to customer service through increased productivity and faster turnaround times. 

Recent European adopter Walter Digital ordered the press to support its mailings, point-of-sale-material, marketing collateral and manuals.  

Axel Walter, who runs the fourth-generation family-run German digital and offset print services provider with his brother Felix, says clients will benefit from a technology platform that combines the features of both digital and offset production. He says they will enjoy high print quality, broad media handling and output performance just like offset printing, combined with the versioning and flexibility of digital printing.

The versatility of the Ricoh Pro VC60000 enables creative operations to develop exciting new markets and expand their services. Hansaprint, Finland, now produces The Financial Times, Zalsman outputs B2 posters on demand while Haberbeck has enhanced its on demand printing of car brochures and catalogues. This approach to opening new worlds is supported by an expert team of Ricoh advisers with a rich source of ideas.

Tackling production pressures

PSPs are very aware of the production pressures they need to address to better serve an increasingly broad range of clients.

They understand the need to manage fast turnaround, highly complex, data driven, targeted campaigns. 

They know that imaginative substrates and clever design will grab attention. 

But they need to be confident that they can consistently combine all these elements into an affordable and repeatable offering.

The Ricoh Pro VC60000 platform has shown that it can address this combination of challenges highly effectively.

What’s more over 60 installations support this.

Now we are working with many PSPS to help them review their current practice and understand what further market opportunities the Ricoh Pro VC60000 can help them develop.