By Armando Zagalo de Lima, president, Xerox Technology Business
drupa is called the Olympics of printing, because it’s the industry’s biggest show, it’s held every four years and it attracts such a global audience. In 2008, visitors came from 54 countries, and this year promises to match or top that.
Xerox has come of age at this global trade fair. We morphed from a more or less detached observer in the 1990s into an upstart revolutionary in 2000, proclaiming that digital would change the business forever. As our bold predictions came true, we evolved further into the anchor drupa exhibitor that we are today.
Over that time we’ve learned a few lessons from our drupa experiences, as well, and some are reflected in the new organization we established for the business earlier this year.
For the first time, Xerox has a single organization that is dedicated to graphic communications worldwide. Not that we weren’t devoted to this market before. But now our structure is built entirely from the customer out to deliver a consistent, benchmark experience everywhere in Europe and North America and eventually, around the world.
drupa 2012 is the coming out party for this organization and its president, Jeff Jacobson, a 25-year industry veteran, who joined Xerox in February. What I saw on the first day of drupa fully reinforced my belief that we are headed in the right direction. With the new Xerox iGen150 and CiPress announcements, workflow and cloud offerings, and business development tools, we continue to lead the digitization of this evolving industry. And we continue to make a strong case for being the industry’s partner of choice.
But what really struck me was the passion for this industry that I saw from Jeff and our entire team. Because of our heritage and the fact we work so closely with many of the world’s top graphic communications providers, we know this industry well. Our passion is for using that knowledge to help our customers succeed in all of the 160-plus countries we do business in.
drupa is the perfect time to ask ourselves: What am I doing to keep pace with changes in an increasingly global graphic communications industry?
Armando Zagalo de Lima has served as president of Xerox Europe, Xerox Global Customer Operations and currently leads the Xerox Technology Business.
