Screen Printing - December 2017/January 2018 - 15

4. Deal with unreliable production.
5. Suffer frequent, expensive breakdowns that may be
difficult to find someone to fix.
Sound familiar? In the wide-format industry, there are a number of legendary tales of technicians who essentially lived in
the plants where new printers had been installed. Making this
set of challenges more formidable is that fact that competitors
who enter the market after you can buy faster, more stable,
and better equipment at a lower cost.

The InnovaTor's DIlemma

Being the first to have a true innovation, even if the product
is half-baked, allows you to carve out and gain new market
share since there is little, if any, competition. The downside
is a longer sales cycle as you spend more time educating your
customers on the features and benefits of the new technology.
This delay burns into the life cycle of the current generation of
technology you're working with.
Buyers have a natural reluctance to jump on board. After
all, they have no point of reference. From a strategic perspective, it helps to position your new offerings as being just
beyond what's currently available and commonplace. If the
technology seems too far ahead, customers are likely to react
conservatively; not far enough ahead and they won't see the
obvious advantages of what you're suggesting.
You can wait until the price of the technology comes down
and is on a more stable platform, but that has its costs as
well. Delay means you'll be fighting for market share. As any
technology becomes more common and accessible, the price
drops and the advantages become commoditized. This happens first in the larger markets and eventually filters down to
the small markets and cities.
So how do you approach the question of when to take the
plunge? You have several options. The first step is to fully
understand the innovation cycle and how a new technology
fits in, and the second is to understand how technology is
adopted and what pattern makes sense for you.

The InnovaTIon lIfe CyCle

Every technology goes through four distinct phases. The same
steps apply to the life cycle of any philosophy, political structure, religion, or society, but we'll stick to technology here.
The first phase is true innovation. You and I know it as
"the next big thing," where a brand new idea is invented.
These types of breakthroughs are very rare. Almost all ideas
are derivatives of previous discoveries.
True innovation is a very dangerous place to be because there
is almost always no infrastructure in place to make the technology work to its full potential. When Edison invented the incandescent light bulb, there were no centralized sources of power,
distribution lines, or houses with electrical wiring, plugs, or
receptacles. There were no fuse boxes or circuit breakers to protect from overload. There were no portable generators. In short,

you could not make the invention work outside of the laboratory.
This brings us to the next phase, extension. This phase
begins with infrastructure developments needed to support
the original invention. Think of charging stations for electric
vehicles or, in our world, pretreatment applicators for DTG
printing. Once these elements are in place, this phase gets into
the territory where most of us are comfortable - faster, better,
cheaper, as the technology grows and is adopted. This phase is
where most purchases of the technology are made, and it can
last decades or longer. The life cycles are shorter in the digital
age, but can still be substantial.
The third phase is called substitution. This is where the
original invention is now replaced by improved technology
that may work differently, but still delivers the same result. In
the case of the incandescent light bulb, substitution happened
with compact florescent bulbs followed a few short years
later by LEDs. In each case, the energy consumption dropped
significantly as well as the toxic disposal concerns.
Substitution signals the downward slope of the life of
the invention. Extension can still occur here, significantly
extending the life of the technology. Unfortunately, this is the
current phase for screen printing. It still has applications and
always will, but in some sectors, such as wide-format graphics, it is being substituted by inkjet. In other sectors, like
garment printing, it is being hybridized with digital to extend
the life of screen.
The fourth and final phase is demise. This is where the
original invention has become irrelevant, or is no longer functional, or has become economically uncompetitive. Millions
of innovations have cycled out. Ultimately, everything reaches
this point, as long as we keep innovating. With the light bulb,
OLED panels or surfaces will eventually render the light bulb
irrelevant, adding new capabilities way beyond light emission.
Think of the holodeck from "Star Trek: The Next Generation,"
where you could sit by a mountain lake or immerse yourself in
a dynamic virtual reality set.

The DIffusIon of
InnovaTIon

Something we are all very
familiar with in this day
and age is the process of
technology moving into
our lives. Think of how
technologies such as the
internet, smartphones,
and, in our industry, largeformat digital printers were
integrated. This concept is called the diffusion of innovation,
a term coined by Everett M. Rogers in 1962 to explain how an
idea, product, or technology gains momentum and spreads
through a specific population or social system. His landmark
book "Diffusion of Innovations" is a must-read for anyone facing
the adoption of technology and the associated organizational
december 2017 / january 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Screen Printing - December 2017/January 2018