Fuji Xerox industry marketing manager Stephen Ball said a lot of printers failed to appreciate why their clients wanted their services and how those clients planned to use them to market to their customers.

"Not a lot of them understand how value is created and where it's created," he told ProPrint.

"Our customers and their sales forces don't know how to talk to people who make decisions around buying."

Ball said one message that came out of Fuji Xerox's ninth annual Innovate conference was that printers needed to gather intelligence on their clients and tailor pitches accordingly.

Another message was that printers needed to keep an eye on all consumer trends given that their customers and end clients covered the entire economy, said Ball.

Ball said he had been pleasantly surprised that more than 100 people had attended the conference and that most had been customers.

The event was held at the Fuji Xerox Epicentre in Eveleigh, Sydney.

[Related: Lessons from Innovate 2010]

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