Above: Roger Corby, Chris Morrison, Kohei Kobayashi, and Jason Hay from Mimaki Australia
Mimaki Australia has undertaken a restructure of its channel management roles to grow its business further in the local market.
Under the changes, Mimaki national sales manager, Jason Hay, will be relocating from Sydney to manage the business from Queensland, and as a result, well-known industry executive Chris Morrison has been appointed to join the channel management team based in Sydney.
Morrison joins Mimaki with over 20 years of industry sales experience including 11 years with Fuji Xerox, six years with EFI and three years with Fujifilm Business Innovation.
“I was looking for a new opportunity and I have always admired Mimaki as a brand as well as its great product range,” Morrison said.
“I visited Visual Impact recently and I spoke to a number of companies in the room. I had a great conversation with Kohei and Jason, and it just so happened that they were looking for a new channel manager – so I guess it was serendipity.”
Hay has confirmed that Morrison will take over channel management responsibilities in New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia.
“With Chris coming on board, it strengthens the industry knowledge of our organisation and I think he will be a very important addition to our business and the growth of our brand,” Hay said.
“It is important that we recruit the right people to key roles within our organisation to take Mimaki to the next level of growth. We play in six different ink technologies and we are always creating something new and different for our customers – in the dealer network and our end users – the people who use the machines.
“Over the past 11 years, our growth has been astronomical – starting at 1.8 per cent market share of the 1.6m and below category and we are now averaging 25 per cent share in this category. For us to grow further, we are introducing innovative industrial products to the market, including the new TRAPIS textile printing technology with significant wastewater savings launched at Drupa earlier this year.
“We have four important national dealers – Spandex, Spicers, Graphic Art Mart and Fujifilm – and they do a great job across our Signage & Graphics, Industrial and Textile & Apparel products. This national dealer network is supported by a secondary network of satellite dealers with state-based responsibilities. We have three separate showrooms located at Rydalmere in Sydney, Morningside in Brisbane and Mulgrave in Melbourne that house over $1 million worth of Mimaki hardware.
“We now have 25 staff members and half of these are service and support staff that have a very clear understanding of our customers’ needs, wants and time frames.
“Our growth is the reason why we have had to recruit more people to the business. I doubt you would be able to find a manufacturer in our industry over the last two to three years that has hired more channel managers and six engineers.”
The three state offices for Mimaki Australia now consist of six staff in Queensland, with Jason Hay supported by a marketing manager and three engineers; there are eight staff in Sydney with two channel managers – Chris Morrison and Roger Corby and seven engineers; and in Melbourne there are four staff members with channel manager Cameron Bongartz supported by three engineers.
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