By Andy Slawetsky – Canon recently held an Analyst Summit at their headquarters in Melville, NY. Building on promises of improved communication, Canon put on a show for dozens of analysts from a variety of print and content backgrounds ranging from office to production.

After being quiet for many years, the new Canon is clearly focused on getting their message out. This is the fourth time I’ve been to a Canon event this year and it’s only August.

After a nice mixer the night we arrived, we started bright and early at Canon’s HQ in Melville. Incidentally, it was nice there were a handful of Canon executives at the welcome event.

When we arrived the next day, both Canon USA and Canon Solutions executives welcomed us – something that hasn’t happened much (if ever) in the past. Typically, it’s either a Canon USA or a Canon Solutions event with very little crossover.

This fit right in with the One Canon theme at this meeting, which opened with Chairman and CEO Joe Adachi addressing the group. He talked about the power of Canon and the strength of their research and development. Indeed, Canon is consistently one of the top 3 patent holders world wide over the last few years. Mr. Adachi reminded us of how much of the Olympics would be seen through Canon lenses as they dominate the professional camera market.

Mr. Adachi also talked about the importance of the US market to Canon – Canon USA accounts for over one third of all Canon office sales.

Next, Toyo Kuwamura, executive VP/GM again talked to us about the “One Canon” theme. One Canon involves streamlining Canon’s four groups – Business Imaging Solutions (BISG), Canon Solutions America (CSA), Canon Information Imaging & Solutions (CIIS) and Canon Business Process Services (CBPS) to make them more efficient and to help them collaborate and work together better for the customer. The org chart all leads to Mr. Kuwamura in the end.

This is an excellent first step and I have wondered for years why dealing with Canon USA and Canon Solutions was like working with two distinctly different companies. Now it seems the plans are in place to make that a distant memory. While this is a very positive step, I wonder if customers will see any difference.

They’re still going to be working with the same point of contacts. They may not even know there’s a difference between CSA, BISG and others. To them, Canon is probably Canon – a great branding benefit to those selling the big C.

Mr. Kuwamura also discussed Canon’s expanded product portfolio that includes more software and end-to-end workflow from companies like NT-ware (uniFLOW) and Therfore. More about NT-ware later.

SVP Mason Olds then spoke to us about Canon’s steady growth they’ve achieved the first half of 2016 VS 2015. While A3 was flat – no doubt affected by customers waiting for the forthcoming A3 launch that recently occurred, production sales are up an astonishing 94% and A4 is up 17%. Solutions are up 18% as well. Overall, revenue is up 3% (Enterprise, Production, Aftermarket).

Mason went on to say that Canon is looking to continue to establish their relationships with dealers. “We have some of the strongest dealers in the nation selling the best products” he said. After looking at the list of list of dealers on the slide, I have to agree, they have their fair share of heavyweights for sure.

One thing I think is kind of funny is how stung Canon still seems over the loss of IKON. I heard it three times during the sessions that day from different executives. Let’s put this to bed. Nobody cares that IKON is now Ricoh. It was 8 years ago. You’re clearly succeeding without them. We’ve moved on. You should too.


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Canon took the opportunity to build on Mason’s messaging about the importance of dealers to bring out Leo Bonetti from Flo-Tech in CT. Leo spoke about solutions and predictive maintenance and how they’re helping build his business. Following Leo was his customer who just started using uniFLOW from NT-ware. “We’ve saved a million dollars in print…they keep my company running,” he told listeners.

VP Dennis Amorosano gave us an overview of CIIS and its role in the organization. Analytics and big data will be an area of concentration for Canon.

We heard about some heavy business signed at Drupa as well as overall business updates from production executives like EVP Mal Baboyain, SVP Francis McMahon, VP Sal Sheikh and some new product Chromera ink updates from wide format director Rich Reamer. In case you’re wondering, Canon did $85 million at this past Drupa.

One of the most impressive slides was this one showing Canon’s utter dominance in the light production market with the imagePRESS C700/C800 where they outsell the next best competitor (Ricoh) two to one and outsell Xerox by more than three to one. There’s no doubt Canon is king of the hill in this segment. (Click here to view slide) *NOTE this information was provided by Canon U.S.A.

[After receiving many emails asking about this slide and my comment, I do have some questions about the data. I was told it came from infoTrends, but I have seen other infoTrends slides that seem to contradict the information, showing both Xerox and Ricoh ahead of Canon in the light production graphic color engine market. Perhaps Canon is looking at a more specific segment of the data. I will provide an update should I receive additional information on this topic. ~Andy]

Next came NT-ware’s president and CEO Karsten Huster who talked about uniFLOW’s incredible growth – 23% (40% in the US). Karsten has built quite a successful organization with NT-ware and with the introduction of uniFLOW Online, they appear poised to continue their growth for the foreseeable future.

Overall it was a very nice event. It is great that Canon has finally started providing updates on technology as well as the health of the company. Pulling the four groups together is a positive step and having accountability all flow to Toyo seems like it can only be a good thing.

It was a very short meeting but it was meant to impress. Sessions were brief though informative. They didn’t focus specifically on products for the most part. It was more about strategy and where they’re going.

I appreciate the new “open” and more communicative Canon. It makes covering them considerably easier.

~Andy