Canon India
Interview with Mr. Puneet Datta,Director of Professional Printing Products Group, Canon India
1. How do you define Canon’s PPP business in India & Globally?
As you aware the Canon is the worlds’ No. 1 brand when it comes to imaging technologies. So if you talk about laser printers or digital SLR cameras we have been No. 1 for more than a decade. We also have the highest number of patents in the last decade as compared to many other organizations and that speaks a lot about our Imaging Strength. But thenCanon is was not a very strong player in professional printing products, and there are only 2 ways to build our strength, one way is to develop new products and technologies of our own and that is a long drawn process one which could have easily taken us a decade or maybe more. The other way is acquisition and as we always aim to be global leaders in the domain we are present. Thus we looked at 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. So we acquiredthis organization in 2010 and formed this partnership which got completedby end of 2012. In Asia this new division got formed withinCanon known as the “Professional Printing Products Division i.e. PPP division”.
India was one of the first countries to have this synergy, because Océ did not have a large organization in India and it was primarily represented through distributors in India. Thus we could quickly absorb the manpower and align the distributors very quickly to Canon India. Thus in Jan 2011 at Print Pack we announced that the Canon India will take over the Océ India operations and since then we have been growing fairly well.
As a product division we have two broad segments that we operate in viz 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. Wide format printing space encompasses the ink-jet printers, UV inkjet printers and LED printers. There is a very new technology known as the UV flatbed inkjet printing technology and with the acquisition of Océ, we are very strong players in that worldwide. The other place where we are now getting very strong is the commercial photo printing, where we have recently launched globally a product known as DreamLabo 5000, and we have the 1st and the 2ndinstallations of South Asia in India and within a year of launching the product in India. This product will change the quality & way we print photographs.
2. What are your share & outlook for Indian industry, in terms of the PPP business?
We have various percentages of market share as we represent 6 different market domains, and each domain has its own fair share of competition. The market shares are varied. However the ultimate goal for market share for any Canon product range is to be the No. 1 in the category. It will take us some time, to do that but I think with the Canon &Océ partnership, not only in the terms of products but also in terms of R&D has created world-wide the largest organizational strength with unilateral goal of being ‘Global Leaders in Printing’. With this synergy we offer the widest range of product groups that a single printer could envisage. So if you looking for one stop solution for any professional printing product today Canon is the only organization that can offer you this. So as you scale up or as you diversify as a printer we would be able to take care of every need. Again we would like to reiterate that this synergy was created to build global leadership in printing and we intend to do it in India also. It might take us good 2-3 years to do that as we said we are very young product division within Canon.
3. What are the challenges that you see in the Indian market? Please highlight technological core – competencies, that distinguish you from other market players.
Canon is very Technology oriented organization. We pride ourselves in technology we develop, as it is usually a generation ahead. It’s the most liable & consistent technology. Japanese brands are known for that, and Canon being one of the largest Japanese brands is also fairly known world-over for its reliability & technology. Having said that we agree that there will always be competition. In fact, as a division we face tough competition, because every segment you have 2-3 competitors. We have 6 segments, and thus we can really talk about 15 – 20 competitors that we face on a daily basis. Competition is always healthy, because as far as we are concerned that give customers choice of selection. Canon has premium products which deliver the most effective ROI for investment. We operate in the value creation zone and we believe in customer loyalty. We are also now starting to develop more and more products which can take care of the requirement of customers for lesser investment products in the professional printing domain and we recently launched such products. So with that we are fairly in the line for creating the global leadership. However it will take some time and technologically we are known to be more superior. Our strength lies in the sales & service strategy in India. We only have direct sales & direct service strategy for commercial printing which is very unique to this industry.
We believe in creating value, if the customer understands the value and if the only reason is financial capability for product selection, then we examine that and we have various options available for the customer to still buy our products. So we have relationships with various financing institutes, that can provide finance for them, we also have our own internal lease or rental scheme, which enable customers to pay us in 2 -3 years for the CAPEX. So we make it affordable. As long as people believe in technology and affordability is a question, I think we are more flexible, and the customer should be able to have a Canon product. Financing options are there for people to look at and I think that’s one of our focus areas.
4. Please share with us your after-sales strategy.
We are known in the industry for the highest up-time. Various surveys done by people like, IDC or global agencies on services for the professional products within India has always put us as “Highest Satisfaction Index of customers” and that only because these are very high demanding customers….people whose bread and butter is printing. For some customers if printing stops their livelihood stops, and we are well aware of that. We have a well-established structure and we even have machines that can be used at standby to customers. Part from that we have well established 3 or 4-tier service structure in terms of spare parts. So we have various levels of spare parts stocking at our end. We also provide remote diagnosis, provided the machine is connected with internet.
5. What kind of extension facilities is available in your product lines? Can you existing line of PPP be upgraded to next level?
As you move up to the value chain, yes it is possible. For example, some of the Océ models, you can buy even temporary licenses for speed-up. So if you say your run length is X and you only expect the run length to be 2X only once a month in the whole year, it doesn’t help you in buying a high speed machine. In our products you could buy a low speed machine and you can upgrade your machine speed for 1 month with the temporary licenses. If you require a permanent speed upgrade, that is also field possible. Similarly, on the high end production, not only on the cut sheet but on the high end production, you can upgrade speeds, you can also upgrade from Mono to 4 colors in Inkjet CFat site as well if needed. Naturally it takes time, but can be field upgraded.
6. Please talk about some of the latest trends in commercial, digital and graphic printing in India.
Canon builds products and technologies taking into account two aspects, One, what is the customer feedback, or what they would require in the future and also, insight into what new technologies are available in the market, and then discusses on how we could help imaging go further. These are normally long-term projects and our R&Ds are working on that. However, in a short term perspective we have new and new technologies & products coming up. In the Indian digital printing market one side we see diversification, which is happening. Let’s say transactional printers want to get into book printing as transactional printing might be going down, because of e-invoicing. The question would be then, is solution from Canon able do it, the answer is yes. As I said there are field upgradable machines, and technologies available, by which we can give solutions to lessen their learning curve. Second we also have keen interest in getting products for the masses. India and China are getting to be very crucial for any market for any organization to look at and we know that, it’s a mass market. The economy of scale that works or the economy of ROI that works in Europe, that doesn’t work in India or China. As In India and china, manpower is available, so third shift is not a problem; ware-house cost is very low. So the way we are looking at trends is slightly different. We are actually trying to bring the good practices from across the world into India. So I think in India 2-3 trends I can share with you.
1. Offset printers are going digital, seen in last 2-3 years, but this year the growth in trying to get digitized is far higher, so next 5 years we see a lot of commercial printers have at-least having a digital accession.
2. We see a lot of print on demand in books. It was there earlier but the volumes have shifted more and more towards digital book printing
3. The most interesting trend is the skilled man-power availability is going down, which is very surprising in India so automation, is taking over. There are people who were not looking at work flow or automation in their printing organizations is now forced to look at that, because they got lesser and lesser man-power and more automation.
4. What is Canon’s go-to-market strategy for its PPP division?
“Go to Market” we have both direct sales & direct service for high end equipment. Looking at the value chain we have channel partners, national partners and regional channel partners and direct sales & service for high end products. So our go to market strategy is dependent on the range of products and what we feel is the competence of the channel partner or the competence of direct sales. We believe in direct marketing to get our knowledge to the end customer in a manner that he appreciates and understand it, as we are a technological organization and technology oriented product we need to educate people on the technology more and more. That’s our interest area, and we participate in lots of exhibitions, conduct a lots of road shows, hold knowledge seminars etc.
