Dr Alok Bharadwaj,
Executive Vice-President,
Canon India Pvt. Ltd
With over 1,100 registered patented technologies in Digital cameras, 2,300 in Inkjet printers, 5,600 in multifunctional printers, Canon has emerged as one of the leading technology innovators in the digital imaging space worldwide. It takes pride in not only bringing quality products to the market but also contributes to minimizing environmental burden through effective application of environmental technologies. The company focusses on the development of resource-conserving products that are smaller, lighter and easy to recycle.
There are several growth engines in India for Canon such as Education, Healthcare, BFSI, Pharma, Manufacturing and IT-ITeS where there is high document centricity, which not only involves printing and scanning but also includes operations around document. “This is the reason why the whole gamut of digital imaging has moved beyond hardware. These verticals are particularly creating new opportunities at a faster rate.”
For 2015, there are several new marketing programmes that have been launched or will be launched across these different verticals. The thrust on three of these initiatives is going to be quite innovative. One of them is expansion of its business services. “What started as hardware initially has moved into services and Canon is now looking at offering several business services and converting the proposition from a pure hardware supplier to one taking contracts to handle entire end-to-end. For instance, for a library that wants to get its books digitized, Canon here will not supply any hardware but involve itself into the entire digitization process. Likewise, record services, record management and e-publishing are several of the services Canon has in its portfolio.”
Since system integration has not been leveraged well by Canon, a strong thrust on system integrators will be another initiative by Canon for many of the mid-end and high-end products. “The third will be the initiative around consumer market which are our Inkjet printers, Digital SLRs and PIXMA printers. Here, we are looking at a younger generation as potential customers. Large initiatives will be taken at the school and the college levels and even for the school children who are not our customers yet. But this initiative will ensure that we are creating a pipeline for future customers. That is vital when it comes to B2C customers.”
These initiatives can be a big opportunity for Canon to grow in the times to come.
