In fiscal 2013, Datacolor significantly increased overall sales, again reinforcing its position as one of the world’s leading companies for color measurement and color management solutions. It was especially successful in expanding its strong market position with solutions for the international textile market.
The company increased consolidated net sales by a significant nine per cent to $61.2 million in fiscal 2013 (2011/12: $55.9 million). The Asia Pacific region generated 32.9 per cent of sales in fiscal 2012/13 (2011/12: 31.3 per cent), continuing to gain in significance compared with Europe, still Datacolor’s largest market. North and South America accounted for 31 per cent (2011/12: 30.2 per cent) of sales in the year under review.
The introduction of a functional organization structure and Datacolor’s clear focus on growth markets have paid off. Research and development personnel as well as production staff were placed under the management of one and the same Executive Committee member in order to achieve a substantial increase in efficiency. Further, focusing mainly on online operations, Datacolor is selectively expanding the sales and marketing organization in order to bring the company much closer to customers and create strategic impetus for the development of new solutions for color measurement and color management.
With innovative products and services geared to meet customers’ needs, a sales organization optimally in sync with the markets and a considerably stronger marketing organization, Datacolor is well positioned for further sales growth.
In the new fiscal year, Datacolor will therefore be considerably increasing the research and development spend and investing additional funds for selective expansion of marketing activities and the sales organization in order to materially speed up the development and market launch of new products.
Datacolor provides worldwide products and services to industrial as well as professional and hobby applications in the area of color measurement, management, communication and calibration. It aims to achieve significant growth by providing innovative hardware and software products, increasing market penetration, and developing new markets, alliances and acquisitions. The products and systems solutions offered are competitive in terms of quality, performance and ease of use. The products are tailored to customer requirements.
Datacolor aims for market leadership in defined customer segments as well as geographical markets. Corporate performance is achieved by a flexible, lean and customer-oriented organization.
The substantial investments made in expanding the direct sales organization helped drive this significant growth, in particular in China. Demand from the textile industry picked up substantially in fiscal 2012-13. Higher sales were reported, particularly in Asia and South America.
Datacolor is one of the leading international suppliers of software and hardware systems for color measurement and communication. It is the global market leader in products for the textile industry as well as digital color management solutions for displays and printers.
In fiscal 2012-13, Datacolor further expanded its strong market position in key areas such as the automotive industry, plastics production, and paint and dye manufacturing in the specialty chemicals sector.
As part of the strategy drive, the company made sizable investments in enlarging its sales and service organization and stepped up its presence in growth markets. In Europe, sales structures were streamlined in the area of digital color calibration systems for displays and printers.
In the year under review Datacolor also set up a sales and service organization in the emerging Turkish market. A company is being set up in Brazil in order to reinforce Datacolor’s presence in the largest and strategically most important market in the South American region.
Datacolor has also invested heavily in expanding the marketing organization by recruiting industry-experienced specialists in the fields of online and product marketing. Efforts to strengthen online marketing for imaging solutions and the newly-launched website for industrial customers also enable Datacolor to respond faster and more systematically to market needs.
In fiscal 2012-13, Datacolor rolled out innovative new products such as “Viewport”, a pioneering camera-based system for precise color quality assessment of multi-colored patterned material samples. The first-of-its-kind technology behind “Viewport” allows objective, digital color assessment under customer-specific light conditions. Relying on a cloud-based exchange of high-resolution color-calibrated pictures, eliminating the need to ship physical samples, “Viewport” enables global market suppliers and retail chains in the textile industry to make significant cost savings in the procurement process.
Outlook
Datacolor has an efficient, functional organization structure, an attractive range of products and services and an optimally positioned, customer-oriented marketing and sales organization. To drive forward the development of new and unique products for unmet market needs and novel, innovative color management applications, the company will channel significantly more investment funding into research and development as well as selective expansion of the marketing and sales organization in the new year.
In doing so, Datacolor will substantially increase the development and number of market launches of new software and hardware products. Its financial strength, efficient customer-focused organization and new products equip the company to consolidate its market position and achieve the ambitious growth targets in a stable overall economic environment, especially in the international textile industry.