The OEM has announced an “aggressive growth strategy” for the Indian market.
Financial Express reported on Konica Minolta India’s new strategy in the country, in which it aims to “strengthen its offerings and delivery mechanism”. The news outlet interviewed the OEM’s Managing Director, Yuji Nakata, about the plan to focus “extensively on the enterprise segement, education and healthcare sectors”.
Nakata stated that “in terms of our geographical presence, we have established our presence in most parts of India and going forward, we will focus on expanding in a number of tier two and tier three cities that present a big market for our products, solutions and services”. The OEM withdrew from the camera business “six years back”, with 70 percent of global business now “printing-related”, and Nakata believes this has improved its market position in India “in this short span of our stay here”.
By creating customer connections and “understand[ing] our customers’ needs”, he says that “the last year has been good for the company”, despite the overall printing market in India “still [being] in the growth phase”. Production printers enjoy 50 percent market share, whilst A3 colour printers have a 26 percent market share, and the OEM “recently forayed” into A4 printers, aiming to create a network of partners and resellers.
Its key areas in India, Nakata states, are “customers”, with one such focus being on “the start button” in the printers being “blue instead of a regular green, which is standard in any other brand printer”, in order to “facilitate customers who are colour blind and old”, showing the “sensitivity of the company and its desire to cater to the needs of customers”.
Education and health sectors have also been a focus for the OEM in India, with document management a “big area of focus”, whilst optimised print services combine “consultancy, hardware and software implementation, workflow management and automated services and supplies” to help customers “lower the costs and improve the workflow efficiency”.
He believes that mobile printing “has already become one more platform that organisations plan for when designing their print environment”, commenting that mobile printing is “here to stay”, whilst adding that with its services alongside its machines, the OEM knows that “customers expect more than a box from a supplier today”.