Coming Together as One Canon

Six months after launching its “One Canon” initiative at its U.S. headquarters in Melville, New York, Canon U.S.A. hosted an intimate gathering of analysts and members of the press in Boca Raton, Florida. Partially serving as an update to this new vision, one which replaces a product-centric approach with a greater focus on customers, the event also afforded Canon executives the chance to recap last year and reveal key 2017 goals in the office, production, and wide format spaces.

As Canon works to mold all of its many parts into a more cohesive and unified operation, a heavy emphasis has been placed on the deepening of partner relationships. Whether it was in the form of success stories from customers during the general session or software demos from third-party developers in the showcase, it’s clear: Canon desires tighter integration and better communication not only within its own company but with anybody who uses Canon products, too. Simply put, “Without input, there can be no output,” said Yoroku Adachi, Chairman and CEO of Canon U.S.A. and Executive Vice President of Canon Inc.

Make no mistake, while workflow solutions had a big role in the three-day event, there was still plenty of hardware talk. The company announced a couple of imageRUNNER ADVANCE A3 MFPs (completing the third generation of the platform), a pair of imageRUNNER ADVANCE A4 MFPs (the first time any printer models have been based on the platform), and three imageCLASS devices (one MFP, two printers) that will have broader channel distribution than previous imageCLASS models. Designed for commercial printing and in-plants, the Canon varioPRINT 140 series was also introduced. But the worldwide entrance of the Océ Colorado 1640 into the market was the centerpiece; company employees were seemingly proud of—and, maybe, relieved by—the official beginning of this extremely intriguing UVgel wide format printer.

Even at smaller events such as One Canon, where the quality-over-quantity networking opportunities can be fantastic, the statistics fly by as fast as they do at dealer meetings. Some noteworthy examples from last week: The company has the third most patents in the United States. Approximately 30% of production revenue is from supplies. Canon Financial Services has grown 95% since 2011. Here’s more (based on Canon data or InfoTrends research)…

• Although Canon’s total global revenue was down slightly from 2015, it was still $31.3 billion last year. Of that rather large sum, 28% stems from the Americas while office sales are 53%.

• With software, Canon was able to grow uniFLOW by 12% last year versus 2015. Sure, the company desires enterprise accounts, but it must pay very close attention to the majority of its clients—the SMBs. Case in point, Canon’s partnership with Box and mxHero, which helps bring structure to data trapped in email and email attachments. Technologically speaking, users in any size organization can take advantage of cloud-based capabilities to eliminate the frustration of sending and receiving large files.

• In the mid-range color production space, Canon has been the market share leader in North America for nine consecutive quarters. The company’s response? To not stand pat in other areas, as it unveiled the varioPRINT 140 series. The monochrome family, which will be available later this month, includes three devices (140/130/115 ipm) and the latest PRISMAsync capabilities, not to mention an extended security feature set versus the predecessor and a redesigned interface (mainly when in copy mode).

• Canon is the CAD market share leader in North America, at 37%; however, graphic arts-intensive wide format printers represent only 22% of sales for Canon’s Large Format Division. The company is eager to bring a more even distribution to its wide format pie by 2019, aiming for a 52/48 split between CAD-specific devices and those meant for graphics environments, respectively. The Colorado 1640, then, is a bold step toward trying to achieve that goal—especially with an MSRP of $58,000. It of course remains to be seen what type of impact the device will have in the market, but nobody can deny that it looks impressive. (Read this insightful article for more details, and be sure to check out this very short video.)

• The Canon dealer channel has had five straight years of growth. Compared to 2011 revenue has increased by 25%, and dealers now contribute roughly $1 billion in sales per year.

Nothing works better than a closing quote—here, we offer four that, when combined, tell the compelling story of Canon both presently and down the road…

“On the unit sales side, what we’re seeing is that black-and-white printing in the office is going down—that’s the reality. So, even though enterprise placements were up only 3% last year, the production market has been on fire for us. Our toner cut-sheet production business was up 32%, and we’ve been very strong in inkjet commercial print, where we wound up with 55% growth.” –Mason Olds, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Sales for Canon U.S.A’s Business Imaging Solutions Group

“The Canon Océ Colorado 1640 is the most important Océ product introduction in Large Format Solutions in 25 years.” –Mal Baboyian, Senior Vice President of Océ Products Marketing and Support for Canon U.S.A.’s Business Imaging Solutions Group

“We need to look beyond our own portfolio to bring in more tools to help customers, to break down barriers between industries and drive net-new technologies into the marketplace. One such project we’re working on is with contextual management, which is based on AI. Instead of OCR’ing a document, the CXM engine reads the file to get the best idea of what the document is all about. And the more content that’s added to the library, the smarter the system gets.” –Dennis Amorosano, Vice President and General Manager of Business Imaging Solutions Group Marketing and Canon Information and Imaging Solutions Professional Services for Canon U.S.A.

“Canon is demonstrating its leadership in the industry by the recent remodeling of its channel strategies, a willingness to act inclusively in the broader marketplace coupled with the most powerful technology lineup in a very long time.” –Jerry Blaine, President and CEO of LDI Color ToolBox

InfoTrends subscribers can access "One Canon – Press & Analyst Event 2017" for more in-depth analysis!