The role played by shows, exhibitions, open houses and customer events in the printing industry is one that seems to be under constant scrutiny. We believe all these events are vital elements in our broader customer communications calendar.

However, the red letter event for us is Print Efficiently. As well as showcasing the latest in the portfolios from our industry leading post press equipment manufacturers we welcome the ability to present our solutions as part of a complete end to end production line up with an array of well-respected partners such as Apex, Koinca Minolta, Fujifilm, Vpress, Colourbyte and Premier Paper. This provides visitors with a very clear idea of how systems work independently and together to help them create the most streamlined production.

For us this year Print Efficiently was once again an outstanding success for IFS and all its partners including Horizon, Foliant, Tecnau and Perfecta. We connected the end user to suppliers like never before during the two weeks and had key staff from Tecnau, Horizon, Foliant and Perfecta on hand to meet customers, listen and respond to their questions regarding finishing production challenges and detail best practices. They also addressed general technical points and looked at how best to anticipate future expectations.

I am certain customers enjoy being able to chat to the whole IFS sales team and directors as well as meeting our technical staff and the manufacturers’ technical staff. They relish the opportunity to relate their actual needs to each finishing device available.

At this event we saw a lot of directors visiting with a key member of the finishing production team and often the directors would talk general business with us and the finishing guys would go inspect the systems with our demonstrators to understand new methods of working or software upgrades.

Undeniably it was Perfecta that proved to be the stand out star of the show with four units ranging from a Perfecta 92 to a Perfecta 168 sold. As a result we anticipate orders taken during the event will exceed £250,000 and from a customer experience point of view feedback has been terrific.

Roll on Print Efficiently 2016 – See you there!