EFI: Riding high on innovation

Could you tell us about the focus of EfFi's India operations ?

EFI has over 450 R&D engineers in India and the number is expected to cross 500 by the end of this year. We invest over $100 million in R&D every year and over 40% of our global R&D staff is in India working on innovative and futuristic technologies that will redefine the global printing industry. It is interesting to be where the action is. The India team is the only one that has its presence in all the technologies and verticals of EFI and is directly aligned to our operations in the US. EFI's India team has designed customized printing solutions for the US defense. This particular process is based in Bangalore with people in the US offices reporting  to the India team. It is a $2.5 million revenue a year business for us.

What are your initiatives in the area of Cloud Printing?

Cloud printing is the big thing. Today, everyone wants to print using their tablet PC and smart mobiles. 3D printing is also changing the paradigm of printing and related industries.

What is your projection for the printing industry?

We are hearing from our customers that businesses are growing in two ways. The first is by expanding into areas where the printed job has a lot more value, such as on-demand digital production and industrial printing—like out-of-home advertising, decoration, labels, packaging, etc. The second way that businesses are growing is by becoming more efficient and, with that, more competitive. Business automation software such as MIS, Web-to-print, Schedulers, and Workflow Tools are helping businesses grow by adding efficiency and cutting the cost of production. And, of course, we have customers that are doing both. But of course there has to be more investment in technology. Until we see it in the market it will be hard to tell the real impact of the technology,

We are trying to advance that by innovating with more advanced digital inkjet printers you can put great images on more and more types of materials. our Fiery digital front ends enable the full potential of digital printing, and software such as Web-to-print and cross-media marketing tools let our customers be more efficient and offer even more to their customers.

So what is else is in the pipeline from EFI? What is your current vision ?

First, there is a great passion in EFI around the mission of helping many businesses in our industry. Most businesses are family-owned and small to mid-sized that need companies like EFI to invest heavily in innovation.  EFI also has some great innovations hitting the market in 2014 across all product lines, and we are looking at potential acquisitions to expand the products or geographic coverage so that  more technology can reach more customers. Our top priority is to continue to enable the success of our customers and continue earning their trust .

What are your plans for the Indian market?

India is not merely a market, but also the future for global players like us. The size of the market as well as the opportunity to get over one billion population is what impresses us about Indi a. Secondly, we can say that the people in the country's printing industry are creative. And finally, a big portion of EFI's overall activities is taking place in India. Indian customers are really good and sophisticated. They know a lot and they can go further and grow further if we could give them great technology.