Minuteman Press, a digital print and copy store based in Rosslyn, Pretoria, has completed the installation of a new Xerox Versant 180 to supplement its production capacity. The Versant 180 was supplied by Altron Document Solutions and facilitated by Compleo, a Concessionaire of Xerox South Africa.
Minuteman Press is the number one printing and marketing franchise on the planet with nearly a thousand stores globally.
“Xerox equipment is state of the art and features high quality, speed and productivity, which helps increase the capacity of what you can do in your store,” said Duncan Diesel, area manager for South Africa at Minuteman Press. “The support from Xerox is great, we have good relationships with all of the branch managers and the head office looks after us as a national account. The training provided was also good and is ongoing. It is a partnership that keeps evolving and developing in an ever-changing print environment.”
The Xerox Versant 180 offers automation and quality in a compact footprint, and delivers on speed and productivity, at 80ppm in full colour. It prints on a variety of media types, including coated and uncoated papers, bright papers, labels, glossy brochures, window decals, durable and synthetic papers, tabs, embossed and polyesters. It also prints on a variety of print products such as business cards, greeting cards and lots more, and it supports mixed-media jobs. The press offers variable data printing and can print on NCR (no carbon required) paper for invoice books.
Without replacing their presses, Xerox Versant 180 owners can now offer print pieces that grab even more attention with the Xerox Adaptive CMYK+ Kits. The kits add shiny metallics, bold whites and glowing fluorescent colours to a Xerox Versant 180 press, extending the user’s palette to more than a million colours using 11 new toners. That means more opportunity to bring ideas to life, and more ways to get printed pieces noticed. This opens the door to the fast-growing, high-margin specialty “Beyond CMYK” printing market and sets businesses apart from the competition.
Enhancements
“There are enhancements available that will allow Minuteman Press to do special effects and 12=colour printing with these adaptive kits,” said Richard Attwell, director of Compleo. “It is not necessarily an investment in a new press, but rather you can use your existing press. Some business owners have two Xerox presses, so now they can have one specialised press, and one that is not specialised running together.”
“You have a really awesome product that offers high-definition printing with integrated automation and combined with excellent national support and service,” said John De Beer, national account manager, Altron Document Solutions. “If there are any issues, the technicians are very responsive. You need a partner who is going to help you continue printing, because if you are not printing you are not making money, and that is what Xerox understands. Minuteman Press is not a customer; we are in partnership with them.”
“I first engaged with Minuteman Press two years ago about owning a store,” said Minuteman Press Rosslyn owner Linda du Preez, who left the car rental industry after 19 years to venture into the printing industry. “With Covid-19 retrenchments, the rental company I had worked for offered severance packages and I thought that it was the right opportunity and time to open the store. The support from Minuteman Press has been amazing throughout the whole setup. I’m sure with their support, this business will go far.”
Minuteman Press store owners encourage and support each other, as shown by two other Minuteman Press store owners from Pretoria who were at the Rosslyn branch pre-launch to show their support and welcome Du Preez and her team to the area. Minuteman Press creates a supportive environment for store owners, as well as a networking community. This includes a WhatsApp group, where questions are answered daily, and the launch of “lunchtime learning”, starting this week, where store owners get together on Zoom and discuss what has worked, what hasn’t, and new ideas for marketing.
“We have a dedicated research and development team in America, which benefits our store owners, who are buying into tried and tested equipment and ideas,” said Diesel. “We are a very flexible franchise – owners can make their own decisions; they are not forced to buy from anyone and they can sell whatever products they want. Our owners deal directly with our suppliers.”
One of the initiatives Minuteman Press launched during Covid-19 was Bounce Back South Africa, which helped local businesses “bounce back” by giving them a place to list their businesses for free in local communities, and to supply them with free Covid-19 information posters for their place of business.
Altron Document Solutions
Altron Document Solutions (ADS) is Africa’s leading document management technology and services company and the largest Xerox distributor in the world. It is the authorised Xerox distributor in 26 sub-Saharan countries offering the complete range of Xerox document equipment, software solutions and services. ADS forms part of JSE-listed Allied Electronics Corporation (Altron).
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