Here’s the interview snippet from the interaction with Mr. K Bhaskhar, Senior Vice President – Business Imaging Solutions, Canon India
Prateek: How was the year 2021 for Canon’s contribution towards the BFSI segment? What is your plan for enhancing your market share in the BFSI segment for 2022?
The last two years have been a new ride for business across segments and we were no different to it. However, due to our strategic decisions, we witnessed excellent business results in 2021. With a growth of almost 30% over 2020, last year we reached approximately 90% of the business we did in 2019. And a major contribution to this growth has come from the BFSI, manufacturing, auto, and supply chain vertical businesses. Out of all our segments, BFSI continues to remain one of our key business verticals for us.
The BFSI industry has been the most impacted industry by the Covid-19 pandemic, as it forced financial organizations to incorporate digitization and digital workflows into their processes. Hence, the sector witnessed a large influx of demand for office automation solutions during the pandemic. As the banks have digitalized their processes from account opening and KYC to banking transactions including fixed deposits, document management systems have become crucial for necessary documentation and compliance.
We help our BFSI clients cut the cost of key processes by simplifying and streamlining essential systems and digitization of paper-based administration. With our portfolio of digital solutions (document and cheque scanners), curated tools, cloud services, document management solutions (DMS), and multi-functional devices, we are redefining the digital transformation journey of the BFSI segment, enabling them to be a digital-first organization. The expansion and consolidation in the BFSI segment is driving efforts towards cost optimization and process efficiencies. With the push towards bringing the TCO of the systems down, we will offer them with relevant printing and document management solutions to bring down their workflow costs and efforts.
In 2022, we would further expand our BFSI business by becoming the end-to-end solution providers to our customers, supporting them to grow their businesses and achieve their desired operational goals.
Prateek: What are your focus areas for the overall Canon BIS segment for 2022? Are there any targeted business objectives that you aim to meet this year?
Our mission is to continue to bring forward new products and new technologies that will help streamline repetitive day-to-day tasks and bring in increased convenience, efficiency, and productivity across sectors. Going forward, we will focus on diversifying our range of offerings with the addition of newer products that will enhance our business outlook and place us as the one-stop shop for our customers’ printing requirements. We have also witnessed that in the recent past Cloud has brought significant changes in the office automation sector. It brings ease of doing business, increased security, and flexibility to the users. Hence, cloud-based solutions will also be one of the key focus areas for us going ahead this year.
Additionally, Network Video Surveillance (NVS) is a key business area for us in 2022, and we aim to strengthen our portfolio through strategic partnerships and curated experience centres.
Prateek: Could you talk us through your channel roadmap for this year? Are there any special initiatives that you have planned?
After technological innovation and our diverse product portfolio, the most important pillar for our success is our channel ecosystem. They have contributed a lot towards the growth of Canon India, particularly for our B2B division. We believe that our channel partners are the one of the critical driving partners for our business, and without their growth, we cannot grow.
For our channel partners, we have several ongoing initiatives like – we have regularly organized webinars for them on how Document Management and Cloud based Solutions can be beneficial for their business as well as for their customers. We also have training programmes for our partners and their sales teams to upskill them in selling solutions, and how to effectively use digital marketing for their business. We have also enabled them to offer No Cost EMI facility to their end customers.
As businesses nowadays prefer to get a demo of the product before they purchase, we have opened BIS Lounges in association with our partners wherein customers can experience all Canon Office Automation products as well as evaluate the best model that suits their business. At present, we have 13 BIS Lounges operational across the country.
Going forward this year, our aim is to further strengthen our channel partner network through focused and newer initiatives like identifying and nurturing the top 100 partners to boost business. We will also be scaling them up with latest business innovation, that will help them and Canon strive ahead in the competitive market.
Prateek: Amidst the new normal, the dependence on office automation and digitization solutions for businesses has increased manifold. What in your opinion are the advantages of implementing these solutions to ensure enhanced business productivity and long-term growth?
The new normal at workplaces has led to a tectonic shift towards digitization across industries. Greater adoption of digital or online communication, cloud storage, collaboration services, and office automation tools have emerged as essential requisites. With the acceptance of hybrid workplaces, the need of the hour has been to streamline workflows and access documents on the go as employees are now working flexibly across locations. This is where office automation tools and Document Management Systems (DMS) have been playing a critical role as they can manage routine communication, data entry and maintenance, documentation, and several other operations flexibly.
With an increased focus on resource optimization and automation, businesses have started pushing for operational efficiency, cost reduction, improved turnaround time, and better serviceability. Thus, we foresee a positive demand for office automation and DMS in the coming times, with data accessibility and security as the key aspects to be considered and Canon’s business solutions are well equipped to help businesses across industries in achieving their desired objectives effectively.
Prateek: Since the onset of the pandemic, the BFSI segment has rapidly been adopting the digitization of its services to ensure ease for its customers and employees alike. How have you supported this industry in streamlining its processes?
COVID-19 has unlocked multiple untapped possibilities for the BFSI sector, eliminating many constraints that they had previously faced in implementing the digital dream, especially in today’s fast-paced environment. Thanks to advanced automation solutions, the BFSI sector is better placed to overcome redundancies and manage day-to-day tasks more efficiently. Making business simple is the philosophy based on which all our products and technologies are designed. We aim to provide compact, convenient, secure, and reliable solutions to all customers that will improve efficiency and optimize costs.
The BFSI sector is one of the most important industry verticals for us. Even during the pandemic, as an essential services sector, we saw an increase in business from this vertical. With Efficient Digitization and Secure Document Management as the key asks of this sector, we provide the same through our range of high-speed document scanners, MFDs and document management solutions like IRISxtract. Our scanners support fast processing of KYC documents, CTS compliant cheque scanners with UV sensors for fraud detection. Apart from this, we also provide on-premises and cloud document management systems for end-to-end document and workflow management.
Prateek: Are there any sectors that have benefitted from the implementation of automation and cloud-based solutions across their businesses?
Since the onset of the pandemic, apart from our office automation tools and Document Management Systems (DMS), interest in our solutions like – Therefore, IRIS, and Kofax have also skyrocketed as they can help organizations in their digital transformation journey.
Businesses across industries like BFSI, Healthcare, SMEs, Manufacturing – which are critical to the functioning of the economy, have started exploring office automation solutions to enhance work-life productivity. In terms of meeting customer expectations across these diverse segments, we are proud to say that Canon has been at the helm of ensuring customer delight by fulfilling their last-mile office automation and printing needs. There has been immense penetration and demand for our products, services, and solutions across sectors, especially in the last few years.
