Konica Minolta Australia’s sales teams, management, partners and suppliers have spent two days on the Gold Coast celebrating the company’s achievements over the past 12 months and laying out innovation plans for the year ahead.
The event was part of a number of Kick Off conferences held by Konica Minolta across the globe and was attended by Konica Minolta Inc senior executive officer Yuji Ichimura and Hiraoki Saijo, general manager, production print business unit, Konica Minolta Inc.
Konica Minolta Australia chairman and managing director Dr David Cooke encouraged attendees to adopt a philosophy of limitless possibilities as they go about their business in the years ahead, urging them to find new ways to achieve outcomes they might not have originally thought possible.
Dr Cooke recounted his personal experience of 15 years ago repeatedly applying to do a PhD on the role profit making corporations have to play in improving the societies in which they operate and how he faced many barriers, including being told about four people would ever read his work.
He eventually gained access to the programme and went on to complete the 80,000 word PhD on the topic. Contrary to what he had been told it has since been downloaded 17,000 times. It has also played a role in the leadership Konica Minolta Australia has shown in its work to eradicate human slavery, improve human rights and bring more gender equality to the workplace.
“We have to challenge ourselves,” Dr Cooke told the gathering.
“Do you have the courage to say I can do something that I can’t do today but I’m going to be successful in this new field? I’m going to challenge myself, I’m going to take on something new. I’m not comfortable doing it but I’m going to give it a crack.
“It involves expanding our thinking.”
Dr Cooke also laid out the goals for 2019 including hitting higher revenue targets but also improving operational efficiencies, embracing transformation and new products and becoming a company of choice based on Konica Minolta’s citations on gender equality and winning the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Human Rights Business Award.
This message of expanding thinking and limitless possibilities was the theme across the entire event.
Konica Minolta Australia’s sales and service director David Procter had some good news on the business front noting the Australian arm of the global Japanese technology company had delivered its 10th consecutive year of growth bringing in $255m in revenue.
Procter noted the market overall had shrunk by one per cent so gaining growth in these conditions was particularly heartening. He also pointed to big wins in the production print category, adding that of the $21m in sales in Australia, more than 50% was new business.
“It is the first time we’ve sold over 300 production units in Australia – great result. It’s the first time the company has sold 18,000 production units globally – again a fantastic result. That’s an exceptional number,” Procter said of the segment which includes the AccurioPress range.
He also emphatically declared that “print is not dead”, adding the 3.735 billion pages printed on printers on Konica Minolta devices in Australia this year is proof of that.
“It’s a huge number, print is not dead and there is 3.7 billion reasons why it’s not.”
3D printing technology and robotics are also on the horizon of Konica Minolta.
“We’ve now got 120 3D printers installed in the market. We’ve slowly been getting into this, 120 is a solid base and I dare say none of our competitors have got anywhere near the number of installations in 3D across Australia.”
Nicole D’Souza, Konica Minolta Australia’s manager of ethical sourcing, also gave a presentation which highlighted the financial benefits that can be gained through using ethically sourced supplies as many businesses now seek to promote themselves as ethical and sustainable operators.
“I’m going to introduce you to the modern slavery legislation and what that means for your customers and what that means for your business and for our society going forward. I really want to challenge you to think about the incredible work we are doing at Konica Minolta to contribute to society and to make the world a better place in your everyday conversations with your customers and potential customers because believe me they care and their businesses care and together we can truly move mountains,” D’Souza said.
Yuji Ichimura gave a company wide overview of its innovation areas including its core technology segment but also the work it is doing in material, imaging, optics and nano-fabrication taking in research and development going on in vast segments across the world.
“We have to be sustaining our position in the market. Growing, scaling but we are now changing this product-oriented strategy to a value-based strategy so we will be talking more about customer value, not just market share. Market share is also very important. We are going to release another new product, we are going to increase our market share in the global scale but at the same time we are transforming ourselves to talk about value in the market,” Ichimura said.
Another area that Ichimura pointed to as coming to Australia was the genArate, augmented reality feature and the expansion of the company’s robotics and blockchain.
The Kick Off ended with an activity where all attendees set about building 200 solar lights to be distributed to those living without electricity. Konica Minolta employees also had the opportunity to write notes to the children who will receive the lights.
This part of the conference was organised in conjunction with SolarBuddy. For more info visit:
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