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The success of Fuji Xerox proves that the right strategies and products as well as grooming talent are key to winning in the tech world.
According to Mark Tan, director of business planning & marketing at Fuji Xerox Hong Kong, the company's long-term strategy in the transition from black & white to colors is crucial to its growth in the color device market. "We have been the number one in office-use color printers for 10 consecutive years," said Tan. "Our success, especially after 2003, is a result of this long-term strategy."
Fuji Xerox also saw the growing importance of services and began to develop its service business last year. In addition to several investment bank customers who use the company's services and office color devices, Fuji Xerox won deals from two retail banks, which ordered its networking-capable multi-function color devices.
Each of the retail banking deals is worth more than HK$1 million. "It's a real breakthrough for us," said Tan. "Retail banks are especially price-conscious. But they are changing and are in need of our services."
Color challenges
Despite growth in the office color printer market, businesses didn't perceive color printing devices as a feasible option right away. According to Tan, cost is a barrier because color printing is 10 times more expensive than black-and-white printing.
"We must show customers the benefits of color printing and we have done this by focusing on their business processes," said Tan. "Banks for instance often have last-minute update of data inside a pitch book [a document banks need printed in color] and the window to print is short. Thus, the printing machines must be reliable and respond quickly."
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Innovative technologies
Tan also attributed Fuji Xerox's success to technologies such as the Apeos platform, which is designed to offer a flexible and secure way to input and share data from a multitude of sources over the entire enterprise locally as well as globally.
In February this year, the company unveiled the ApeosWare My Document Portal, which introduces a whole new experience of using multi-function devices. With a web-based user interface on a color panel, the portal is easy to use.
As the complete workflow of document processing such as scan, print, fax, email, and store is streamlined, any task can be completed by pressing no more than three buttons.
Much more flexibility is offered to users in personalizing their own user interfaces, scan/print/fax settings, and other preferences in using Apeos-based multi-function devices. For example, private address books for emails and faxes can be set-up through a web browser or batch-uploaded as a text file exported from MS Outlook or Lotus Notes.
The portal's capability in centralizing user configurations and settings allows more effective use of administrative resources. Once a setting is changed through a web browser interface, it will be automatically applied to all ApeosPorts multi-function devices through an intranet or the Internet.
The right people
Fuji Xerox believes that talent contributes to the company's success. According to Tan, the company provides training for employees in technologies and mindset. "We have leadership quality training for the newly hired to make sure they have the right, customer-first mindset," said Tan.
In addition, the firm continues to improve its processes including those with employee participation, in a bid to ensure excellent customer experience. Tan said Fuji Xerox always makes sure that its sales executives are professional; proposals and solutions are able to address user requirements; solution implementation is efficient; engineers respond swiftly to customer requests; and invoices are clear.
Next steps
In the coming year, Fuji Xerox aims to deliver more complete solutions to the market. "We are not just selling multi-function devices, but we bring valuable solutions including hardware, software, industry specific applications, plus networking capabilities to our customers," said Tan.
He added that customers are particularly in need of applications because they want ready-to-use apps to solve problems.
Furthermore, Fuji Xerox will make sure its multi-function devices help manage business processes effectively and efficiently on the Apeos platform, said Tan. The firm will also further enrich features and functionalities of Apeos-based multi-function devices. The Apeos platform has already allowed customers such as legal firms, accounting companies, and logistics service providers to integrate Apeos-based machines with their ERP applications, according to Tan.
"In the future, our Apeos-based machines will be able to integrate with more third party software and increase flexibility for customization," he noted.
In general, the color devices from Fuji Xerox will have enhanced security and workflow features as well as cost allocation analysis that allows customers to clearly see the volume of document each employee prints and volume of documents printed for each customer, Tan revealed.
In the document imaging realm, Fuji Xerox sees new customer requirements. Previously customers sought to turn paper documents into electronic format and archive them properly, Tan said. But customers now want more features that enable faster document retrieval and better workflow integration, he added. "Documents must be scanned and retrieved quickly, as quickly as customer copies," Tan noted.
In Hong Kong's SME document imaging market, the firm has seen stronger momentum. "In the past two to three years, we added around 1,000 new customers annually," said Tan. "We expect to see more SMEs embrace document imaging solutions because they can be more easily implemented in a small office or department environment today.
Fuji Xerox goes for green
Fuji Xerox has seen positive result of its green efforts such as ISO 14001 Certification for environmental management standards by 14 operations in 12 Asia Pacific countries including Hong Kong and its energy-saving products designed to reduce power consumption at customers' offices.
In 2006, 12 products covering six models, including ApeosPort/DocuCentre C7550 I series of digital color multifunction devices won the Director General's price for energy conservation at the 17th annual Energy Conservation Awards held in Japan. This marked the eighth time that Fuji Xerox had won the award since 1999.
The award winning models reduced customers' energy consumption by 36 percent and warm-up time has been cut to just a quarter of the time their predecessors required-all without impact on printing speed and quality.
In addition, Fuji Xerox last year surveyed and confirmed all of its suppliers in Japan and Asia Pacific complied with the Environmental Health and Safety Requirements for Paper Procurement" established by the company in 2004.
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