Printing industry has been growing at a significant pace majorly owing to evolving customer demand from tier II & tier III cities amongst other drivers. Further, the combined impact of the Internet and digitization have moved the printing industry ahead and it true that the print industry has embraced huge transformations in recent time.
Canon has been at the helm of innovation since its inception and it is constantly innovating and bringing in newer technologies to help its customers .Having a vast product range that includes digital cameras , digital SLR’s , lenses , accessories , digital copiers, multi-functional peripherals, fax-machines, inkjet and laser printers, projectors, scanners, All-in-ones, digital cameras, dye sub photo printers and semiconductors, card printers and cable ID printers, Canon’s corporate philosophy is kyosei. It conveys company’s dedication to seeing all people, regardless of culture, customs, language or race, harmoniously living and working together in happiness into the future.
The Three Selfs, the foundation of the company’s guiding principles that have been passed down since Canon was founded, are self-motivation, self-management and self-awareness. For Canon, which strives to be a truly excellent global corporation while maintaining the legacy of its corporate DNA, the Three Selfs continue to serve as the company’s most important guiding principles.
SME Channels has recently got a chance to interact with business heads from different divisions at Canon, K Bhaskhar, Vice-President, Business Imaging Solutions(BIS) Division, C Sukumaran, Assistant Director, Consumer Systems Products (CSP) group and Puneet Datta, Director, Professional Printing Products(PPP) Division, which helped us to understand Canon’s business strategy and future plans.
Canon Business Imaging Solutions (BIS) Division
Canon has witnessed many enhancements and achievements in the last few years. From 2005 to 2013, over eight years in a row, Canon is at number one position in market share in copier division. Then after a small dip in its share, it lost its Numero Uno position, but gained its number one tag once again in 2016 with market share of 23.4%. This way, Canon has become the most admired brand.
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“With the help of our channel partners and direct sales team, we have successfully bridged the gap with our end customers in understanding their business needs.”
K Bhaskhar
Vice-President
Business Imaging Solutions (BIS) Division[/quote]
K Bhaskhar, Vice-President, Business Imaging Solutions(BIS) Division shares, “There are three important pillars of Canon strength, which are making Canon, a customer friendly brand, which are convenience of using the products, reliability and good after sales service. From year 2007-13, we are continuously showing growth at CAGR of more than 15 percent. Keeping a note of the difficult business situation in India, we are expecting a growth of 10 percent.”
Canon’s Business Imaging Solutions (BIS) division over the years has made a strong foothold in the industry by venturing into new domains, expanding its product portfolio and catering to a wide customer base. The company has always emphasized on offering unparalleled technology through its wide product portfolio to all business entities like large enterprises, SMEs, Government sector across verticals. K Bhaskhar further adds, “Our aim has been to aggressively penetrate the Indian market especially the commercial segment and to increase our share of voice as well as visibility through expansion of our services. We work cohesively towards providing value offerings to our customers which helps them in increasing their business productivity.”
With various launches in 2015, the BIS division is growing at CAGR 10% and the company is hoping to keep up the momentum. One of the major focus areas is the ever growing SME segment in India which is a sizeable contributor to the overall growth of the BIS division in 2016. The Business Imaging Solutions division with 22 – 23 % contribution is the second highest contributor to the overall Canon business figure. For 2017, Canon is expecting a sizeable contributor to the overall growth of the BIS division, although IDC is not showing very positive signs of market growth.
Bhasker further adds, “MDS has really helped us to create a major market share. Today, it is able to contribute around 25% of the share to BIS Division overall market share. Canon has evolved as a value provider for complete imaging requirements from input to output management, security through network video surveillance cameras & print security with solutions.”
Having both direct and indirect channel partners, Canon grows with its partners. Further, emphasizing the role of channel partners in company’s success, K. Bhasker adds, “With the help of our channel partners and direct sales team, we have successfully bridged the gap with our end customers in understanding their business needs. We also offer back-end financial support to our partners.”
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“To increase our reach to the Government segment, which is one of the potential segments for Canon at present, we are looking for VADs having the required calibre.”
C Sukumaran
Assistant Director
Consumer Systems Products (CSP) group[/quote]
Apart from MDS, Canon has also introduced Canon Business Services. CBS (Canon Business Services) is a new ripple in digitization and document printing industry. Canon Business Services addresses current needs of India-based organizations by enabling them to outsource information intensive processes, communications and administrative functions. CBS is helping companies streamlining their printing infrastructure and enhance their processes along with bringing down the cost.
Most of the canon devices are equipped with RAPID fusing technology to reduce energy consumption and eliminate long warm-up times. Canon has three important Cs for customers, which are convenient, control and cost optimization. Canon stands at number three position with respect to number of patents registered with US.
Having around 170 channel partners pan India, Canon fosters a strong relationship with its partners and their growth over the years has aided in continuous growth for Canon. It is closely working with its partners for expansion of its business in tier II and tier III cities.
Consumer Systems Products (CSP) group
Canon India has been faring well compared to other players in the consumer printer segment in India. The market for both Inkjet and Laser products are still evolving owing to the changing customer requirements. The CSP division has contributed 24% to the overall Canon India business till March 2016.Owing a market share of 15 percent in Inkjet only, which is growing at 20-23 perecnt, Inkjet printer category has been a very strong success segment for Canon, driven by emerging CISS segment in India. In accordance with its Laser printer portfolio, Canon would extensively focus on strengthening its reach to the enterprise as well as Govt. segment.
For the Inkjet segment, it is expecting to continue to develop strategies to amplify company’s services and strengthen its association with existing and potential customers. C Sukumaran, Assistant Director, Consumer Systems Products (CSP) group excerpts, “Canon is having a robust plan to address the diversified needs and requirements of customers with its comprehensive range of products and services. CSP as a division is able to gain 12 percent for Canon’s share, which is growing at 8-10 percent.”
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“At present PPP division contributes 7 percent, which the company is targeting to double in 2017. To the reader’s surprise, Canon is earning almost 60-70 percent from its amazing after sales services.”
Puneet Datta
Director
Professional Printing Products(PPP) Division
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These days, the choice of printer solely depends on usage requirements of the consumers and can also be defined by their printing infrastructure. Consumers are becoming smarter with respect to their buying options. With increased adoption of mobile phones, we have witnessed a significant rise in the demand for Cloud-printing and Wi-Fi printing. On the other hand, SMBs majorly look for feature rich products. The most important factor that is leading to evolving print requirements by customers would hugely revolve around Cloud Printing, Mobility, Internet of Things, Mass Customization and increased adaption of mobile devices.
According to C Sukumaran, Assistant Director, Consumer Systems Products (CSP) group, “Out of consumers, enterprise & SMEs and Government & PSUs, we are witnessing more traction in mid markets. This is the reason that we are extensively focusing on SMBs and SOHOs with our varied product portfolio of both inkjet and laser printers. To increase our reach to the Government segment, which is one of the potential segments for Canon at present, we are looking for VADs having the required calibre.
With a vision of accelerating growth and secure profits for Canon, Canon believes that channel partners are integral to the division’s growth prospects; hence the company will be looking forward to work closely with the partners to create the required reach. Canon is specifically making efforts to penetrate into newer markets to create a wider and stronger customer base for Canon.
Professional Printing Products(PPP) Division
With customers exploring new business avenues across different verticals including visual communication, industrial printing, packaging; the demand for the commercial printers market is growing rapidly. Canon’s range of production printers provides an excellent answer to the demand for customised, small print runs.
Initially, Canon was not a very strong player in professional printing products, and there are only 2 ways to build company’s strength, one way is to develop new products equipped with innovative technologies. The other way is acquisition and as canon always aims to be global leaders in professional printing domain. Thus, it opted to do a partnership with Océ, who was a global leader in professional printing both in terms of the high speed variable data, direct mail and book printing as well as the white format domains. Canon acquired this organization in 2010 and formed a partnership which got completed by end of 2012. In Asia this new division got formed within Canon known as the “Professional Printing Products Division i.e. PPP division” and since then Canon has been growing fairly well. While digital printing is growing at 10 – 15 percent from last almost 5 years, canon is growing at 25 percent.
As a product division Canon has two broad segments in which it operates i.e. Commercial Printing & Wide Format Printing. Commercial printing encompasses products for both cut sheet and roll feed inputs for both color and mono reproduction at very high speeds. Digital print volumes are high for applications like, credit card bills, banking statements, books on demand, direct mail etc.
According to Puneet Datta, Director, Professional Printing Products(PPP) Division, “We have two kinds of go-to market strategies. For large enterprises, which are more capital intensive, we have a direct sales team. The other who are less CAPEX intensive, we have a set of distributors and channel partners. The big change that you can see in 2017 is that we are looking for the channel partners even in the production phase. Effecting January, we will be searching partners who are capable to take our products and strategies to even smaller towns. As of now, Canon’s professional printing products are available in almost 50 cities. We are expecting to expand reach to top 100 cities within a time span of 3-4 years. We are totally interested in increasing our reach in terms of our partner ecosystem, and also looking out for new partner. Production sheet wide format products from Canon are 80-90 percent channel driven. In production printing sheet cut, the market size is 900- 1000 units, but the value of these products is very high. In these printers, we have our reach to 50 cities that too through direct channel partners. reach So we are looking for channel partners which can help us to deepen our reach to newer geographies as well as the older ones. By 2020, Canon is aiming to have at least 30 percent market share in every product segment.
Two years back, Canon opened a new training center in Noida to provide technical skill development to its engineers and channel partners, investing 10 crores. This is to empower the partner ecosystem with techniques and information, which will equip them to handle customer’s queries and installation with utmost care.
At present PPP division contributes 7 percent, which the company is targeting to double in 2017. To the reader’s surprise, Canon is earning almost 60-70 percent from its amazing after sales services,.
Finally…
The printing industry is always changing – new and exciting software offers both opportunities and challenges – which means printing businesses must constantly adapt to keep up. Keeping a note of this, Canon machines are continuously going smaller, but the way technology is changing, the company is trying to equip the machines with advanced applications.
BY : Satinder Kaur
skaur@smechannels.com
