During the two-week show in Dusseldorf the company sold 300 pieces of equipment, which Jacobson explained to PrintWeek was within the company’s expectations.

 "When we looked at 2008, compared to 2012 we were fairly comparable and that’s something we were pleased with because obviously the economy’s changed a lot since then," he said.

"The one thing you’ll never know is how many you sold, because you had a trade show, compared with if you hadn’t have had a trade show. But we know many customers put off buying in the months before Drupa because they wanted to see what’s there both from your company and your competitors – this way they don’t have buyer’s remorse."

Along with the sales, the company’s Drupa booth also triggered 14,000 specific requests for information, and Jacobson said his next task was to start turning those into additional business.

"We will have a very systematic approach to that," he added. "We will take every one of those thousands of leads and basically assign them each to a sales person. Every month I’ll review with the managers and see how we doing against every one of those leads. We were very fortunate we took a significant number of orders at Drupa, but at the same time the additional value is all those leads you get."

Even with digital equipment sales one of the few bright spots for the commercial printing industry, Jacobson, who joined Xerox from Presstek in February, said he realizes he remains in a very competitive market.

"Any time we make a sale, our customers have a choice, so every sale comes at somebody else’s expense, just as every time a competitor makes a sale it’s at our expense," he explained. "It’s a very competitive environment out there, but you’re certainly seeing more and more customers going to digital because they know they need to be there to survive. And I think at this Drupa, more than any other, printers realized they have to move to digital and that was driven home by all the offset manufacturers who are trying to make the move to digital with hybrid equipment.

Asked if the company’s sales at Drupa were a sign the credit market for commercial printers worldwide may finally be loosening, Jacobson said, "It all depends on which market you’re looking at. It really differs, but this is such a big investment and so the people who are coming to the show looking to buy equipment tend to be the more credit-worthy companies that made the trip."

Xerox had the most success at Drupa with German customers, but Jacobson suggested that was to be expected given that around half the attendees are from Germany. "We also saw a lot of interest from the Middle East and customers from Asia who would come to speak to us because our partnership through Fuji Xerox," he added. "From the US, the bigger customers came, but a lot of them will hold off until Graph Expo to do their buying."

It’s now four years since the Wall Street banking crisis triggered the worldwide recession, and Jacobson suggested many commercial printers remain uncertain about the future.   

"The economy is at forefront of everyone’s mind because if you think about the last three and a half years, I don’t think that we’ve had a sustained resurgence at any point," he added. "When I joined this industry 25 years ago, when you talked to commercial printers, they would tell you, "My presses are booked for the next three or four months," so you knew your business would be good because their business was good. But now there isn’t confidence in that sustainability and many times customers have told me they were booked for the next two weeks and couldn’t see beyond that. So it used to be people would buy because they’d say we know the sales will come. Now they don’t buy unless they know they can take capacity off their offset presses, because they’re going to shut them down and go digital or feel they can put at least 60% to 70% on their work on there."

"North American is going to grow but only because of digital," he continued. "If you were to look at growth markets, you wouldn’t say Western Europe or the US – they’re basically flat to down in the total printing market. But if you look at digital, it’s a much different story. Certainly there’s a disproportionate amount of purchases on the digital side, which bodes well for us."