
Over the years, digital printing has made various advances to cater to the evolving needs of customers. To keep pace with the changing times, Canon India recently launched Clicktrace, a print shop management software. The software has exclusively been built for digital production printers. It is designed to optimize order processing and pricing, exactly find out the print jobs done from the shop floor about clicks and media usage even when one is away. The software also allows users to adapt to the increasing demand for fast and safe information access through an easy-to-manage software solution.
Clicktrace offers an intuitive interface and an in-built instructional system to ensure a short learning curve for the existing as well as new users for better productivity. With growing media types and changes in customer demand, Clicktrace grants an overview of purchase, media consumption and alerts for low stock media in time. It eventually helps in reducing the stock of media which is less or never used.
To serve the various purposes of digital printers, Clicktrace has been developed in India taking into considerations the needs of Indian printers. Canon India designed and conceptualized the product in the country. Delhi-based Avantika Printers, a long time Canon user, has often been the first buyer of new Canon products and has also been the first one to buy the Clicktrace software.
At the launch, MN Pandey of Avantika Printers ordered the software that was accepted by Kazutada Kobayashi, president and chief executive officer of Canon India. “Today’s scenario reflects less business. In such cases, the quantity of jobs reduces but the print jobs increase. Using offset, there is more wastage. For a print job of 1,000 copies, close to 1,200 sheets are wasted that harm the environment. So, my tagline is to not control cost but to control waste. Digital helps to reduce the wastage incurred. This wastage is difficult to monitor and control without appropriate software,” says Pandey.
“So far, we’ve been growing double digits, which signifies that we’re gaining market share. We’ve now become a brand to be reckoned with in the Indian market. Digital printing and adoption as we know is growing in India and we feel happy to be a part of it. So, the journey has been good barring the last few months where the economic situation has taken a turn. This puts pressure on the banks and NBFCs to provide a loan. But with the festive season ahead, we’re pretty confident about growth in the business. As far as professional printers, we’ve only seen a slowdown in terms of loans getting sanctioned for capital goods. The intent of buyers has still not changed. In phase one, we have developed and designed the software for integration with Canon production printers only. If it is a success, and there is a demand for other brands as well, we will then think about it. We’re not against it,” concludes Puneet Dutta, senior director of Canon India.