Latest trends: Copiers with multiple functions

Burhanuddin Abe, Contributor/Jakarta

The establishment of more business today has meant a rapidly increasing growth in the need for office equipment. These companies need office equipment for their daily operations.

"A workplace or an office must combine fun and entertainment. It must stimulate everyone working in it to be creative, imaginative, productive and open-minded. Everyone needs to concentrate when they work but they also require interaction and spontaneity," said Vinda Budisurya, a Jakarta-based business consultant.

In addition, security and discipline among employees are absolutely necessary. That's why a modern office must also provide itself with a time clock, which may be either just a simple gadget, or something more sophisticated using high- technology including bar codes, magnetic cards or even fingerprints.

The goal is to manage employees in such a way that a working environment characterized by discipline, security and efficiency is established.

Such sophisticated equipment is available in many office equipment stores in Jakarta. In this particular market, PT Datascrip offers several models of fingerprint time clocks including the Secure M-140, Secure M-300 and Secure F1.

Established in 1969, the company also sells various other products ranging from computer peripherals to stationery and office machinery, and also office furniture and filing systems to multimedia presentation systems and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions.

A photocopier is just one type of office equipment that PT Datascrip offers. Take, for example, the Canon ImageRUNNER C3100N. This machine is not only a photocopier but it can also serve as a printer, scanner, and fax machine. It has a speed of 31 pages per minute (ppm) for documents in monochrome or 7 ppm for documents in color.

"The Canon iRC3100N is a multi-function instrument suitable for a developing company. It is useful not only as a printer or a photocopier but also as a very smart information connector and distributor," said Merry Harun, director of Canon Division of PT Datascrip.

Meanwhile, medium-size businesses, SOHO (Small-Office-Home- Office) or small workgroups may opt for the Canon ImageCLASS MF3110, MF5630 and MF5650, which are ideal multi-functional laser printers characterized by high speed and network capability. Each of these multi-function gadgets can photocopy and scan documents as well as facilitate fax dispatches (in MF 5650 type). Using one of these machines, you can be cost-and-space efficient as well as raising your productivity.

Major office equipment distributors not only sell innovative products specially designed to ensure users' satisfaction and convenience but also provide after-sales service and guarantees for every product it sells.

Service satisfaction are the key words for players in the office equipment business. PT Perdana Jatipura, for example, even guarantees no less than three hours for services and repair of the products that you buy from them. With a head office in Jl. Bungur Besar, Jakarta, this company also offers multi-function copiers manufactured by Konica Minolta, such as the Di1610, Di 1611, Di2011, Di2510 and 3510 series, which can be also used as printers, scanners and fax machines.

Perdana Jatipura not only sells brand-new photocopy machines but also pays quite a high price for old photocopiers and printers in exchange for the new products it sells.

Like other office equipment distributors, Perdana Jatipura uses a trade-in marketing strategy to halt the sharp growth in the sales of imported used photocopy machines that have dominated the photocopier market.

The demand for used photocopies rose when Indonesia was jolted by the monetary crisis several years ago but, unfortunately, this demand continues to increase even now. That's why there is stagnation in the market for new photocopiers.

It is estimated that, nationwide, the demand for photocopy machines stands at between 25,000 units to 30,000 units a year. About 80 percent of photocopier sales transactions come from imported used photocopying machines.

As a result of tight competition, Canon has concentrated more on offices. All Canon products are engaged in a competition with similar imported products.

The players in this particular business are not unaware of this stiff competition. Hewlett Packard, for example, has tried to win the competition by introducing their new and increasingly more innovative products such as the Office Jet 4255 and OfficeJet7210 series.

Both instruments can perform as printers, fax machines, scanners and copiers at the same time. For monochrome documents, the printing and copying speed can reach up to 30 pages per minute (ppm) while for documents in color this speed is 20 ppm.

You can easily scan and fax information as much as you wish thanks to the Automatic Document Feeder feature. With an ability to print on both sides of the paper, these series are supported by 8 types of memory cards, PicBridge and 4800 dpi color resolution, resulting, in excellent photo printing.

Fuji Xerox, usually known simply as Xerox, may be the most well-known photocopier brand in Indonesia. Distributed in Indonesia by PT Astra Graphia Tbk, Xerox's innovative products include digital photocopiers, basic multi-functional products for printing and copying and MFPs, advanced products for printing, copying, faxing, scanning and e-mail dispatching.

Marketing analog photocopiers in Indonesia since early 1970s, Astra Graphia became in 1995 Indonesia's first company to market multi-function devices, then including only functions for photocopying and faxing but later including also capabilities for printing and scanning.

Today, the functions are broader, ranging from an increasingly varied document output (printing, faxing, copying, e-mailing and web-viewing) to document management (sharing, archiving, distribution and routing) and document input (scanning merging).

Astra Graphia also concentrates on software solutions developed by eight industrial partners using the open architecture of Xerox multi-function system and focused on innovative community-based services to help customers cut their costs in document matters and improve the productivity of their workers.

According to Planning & Marketing Chief of PT Astra Graphia Tbk, Teddy Burhanuddin, Xerox is a "one-stop provider" for all office services and products, ranging from stand-alone digital photocopiers and printers to the best products in integrated monochrome and color multi-function systems.

One obvious thing is that today's photocopiers serve not only as copiers but are also combined with sets of other functions, which is the reason why these machines are sometimes referred to as All-in-One (AIO) or MFD (Multi-Function Devices).

Today's level of progress shows that conventional photocopiers will soon give way to machines that can also serve as fax machines, printers and scanners.