A blog from Kyocera Commercial Printing:
Your customers’ expectations are changing. Shorter runs and tighter deadlines put pressure on the economics of every job. So, why continue to produce work the same way?
Changing buying habits and advances in production technology give print providers good reasons to reassess where inkjet fits in their business.
Shorter runs are changing the production equation.
Print buyers are asking for greater flexibility. In PRINTING United Alliance’s 2026 State of the Industry survey, 54.6% of participating companies reported clients moving to shorter runs, while 64.7% reported requests for faster jobs.
For a print provider, a smaller order still needs to make commercial sense. The time spent preparing and managing it matters just as much as the number of pages produced. That’s where inkjet comes into play. Inkjet’s production process makes this type of work worthwhile because it’s suited to short runs and quick startup times.
Your next investment should make growth easier to manage.
More work should be good news. But if taking it on means hiring another operator or stretching an already busy team, how much of that extra revenue will translate into profit?
That’s where inkjet comes into the conversation. Developments in automation are giving print providers more ways to reduce manual intervention and manage production. The opportunity is to increase the amount of work your team can handle while keeping operating costs under control.
Yet, conversations should also focus on uptime. Every unplanned stoppage takes time out of your production schedule and puts pressure on the jobs that follow. That makes reliability an essential part of the business case for inkjet. For print service providers, the value extends beyond keeping a press running. Dependable production makes schedules easier to manage and gives teams greater confidence when committing to customer deadlines. When assessing inkjet, consider how sustained performance could help your business turn available capacity into completed, billable work.
The future is inkjet, Kyocera believes.
Inkjet gives you more ways to compete.
The jobs you can profitably accept today should not set the limits of your business tomorrow.
As inkjet systems mature and expand with accessories and applications, print providers have more ways to win. For your business, that creates a reason to revisit opportunities you previously ruled out. Could you bring outsourced work in-house? Develop an offer for a different customer segment? Produce personalized communications using variable data?
Each opportunity needs its own business case. Start with the customer need, then assess whether inkjet could help you serve it profitably.
Plan for the business you want to become with inkjet printing.
If you’re planning a future in print, inkjet deserves a place in that plan.
Its potential extends to the services you can offer and the customers you can compete for. The strongest starting point is a specific opportunity: work you want to bring in-house, an application you want to develop, or a customer requirement you want to meet.
At Kyocera, we’re building on five consecutive years of leadership in U.S. cut-sheet production inkjet shipments with an expanding portfolio spanning monochrome and higher-volume color production. That’s the ambition behind Inkjet For All: making production inkjet accessible to more businesses, with options that support their next step.
Speak with our production inkjet team about where you want to take your business.
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