The world’s leading roll-to-roll wide format printer manufacturer Roland DG is working to develop new applications, outside of its traditional area, for its customers to exploit.
Speaking to Australian Printer on his first tour of the country its new president Hidenori Fujioka says, “The wide format signage market is still growing, but is now highly competitive. We will be bringing new solutions to the market, based on innovative printing technologies that will give our customers new opportunities.” Fujioka-san says, “The key for our customers’ wide format print businesses – to grow their market – is to be able to differentiate, and this is what they will be able to do when we bring the new applications to market.”
Investing resources in the development of innovative core printer technologies such as print heads and inks as well as software is central to the strategy, with the company currently spending almost eight per cent of its entire revenue on R+D. Roland DG has also created entire separate new business development units, or BDUs. They are based in head office in Japan, but are operated by competitive talent from different locations around the world, and have been allocated their own R+D engineers. The focus is on specific solutions and applications.
Fujioka-san says, “Roland DG is careful with its cost management, but has always recognised that continual R+D investment is at the core of the business. We put a high priority on it, as can clearly be seen by our accounts, and the results over the years enabled us to provide our customers with innovative solutions.” Fujioka-san is not yet revealing which new applications Roland DG is working on, but as market leader, and a company that introduced the plotter cutter and changed the way signage was produced, it has a proven track record of innovation. He says the company is working on ‘several different new applications’.
Roland DG has already launched four new printers that come with TrueVIS Ink, engineered specifically for the new Roland DG FlexFire print head. The VG-640, VG-540, SG-300 and SG-540 operate at ultra-high speeds, and can be smartphone or tablet operated. For the VG Series, the new TrueVIS Ink is available in four-colour CMYK or seven-colour with light cyan, light magenta and light black or seven-colour plus white. It can come in dual four-colour mode with auto switching between ink pouches so the machine runs non-stop. Four new Roland DG FlexFire print heads fire precision droplets, in three sizes, and a wide print swathe, for high quality output and efficient ink usage. It is an entire new platform for Roland DG.
Fujioka-san says that personal-isation applications are currently the strongest growth area, with the sales of the Versa UV LEF Series growing by around 20 per cent year on year. “We have seen an increasing number of e-commerce businesses using its LEF printers to provide custom printing of smartphone cases and accessories,” says Fujioka-san, “Also, in Europe, dedicated personalisation areas are being opened in hypermarkets in order to create a new shopping experience for their customers.
“Equipped with not only the LEF series printers, but also devices such as the BN-20 desktop eco-solvent printer/cutter and Stika portable vinyl cutter series, these boutique stores-within-a-store provide on-site printing of photos and illustrations brought in by customers onto various blank goods sold in the same space. Further expansion of such businesses is anticipated, given the growth of e-commerce and individuals’ increased desire for self-expression.”
Overseas strategy at Roland DG
Fujioko-san succeeds Masahiro Tomioka who was president for 30 years. Fujioka-san joined in 2014 having previously worked for Riso and Seiko, and has been head of R+D at Roland DG. He aims to encourage a culture of ideas coming from staff. He has set himself an ambitious target of a Yen76bn revenue by 2020 with a 13 per cent operating profit. Tomioka remains as chairman. Fujioka-san says, “I do not intend to stay for 30 years, and part of my role will be to find a successor.”
One of Tomioka-san’s successes was in taking Roland DG out from the Japanese market, today there is barely a developed country in the world where the company is not successfully operating. Fujioka-san says, “My predecessor had an unusual approach for a Japanese company. His strategy was to allow the overseas subsidiaries, like Australia, to manage themselves, as his belief was that the local people were in the best position to understand and work with the local market, whereas most Japanese companies send their own executives to run the overseas subsidiaries.” The proof has been in the pudding, Roland DG is the most successful printer manufacturer in its category, and now approximately 90 per cent of the company’s revenue is generated from outside Japan.
Now a publicly owned business, Roland DG was partly owned by the musical instruments manufacturer Roland Corp, which had a 40 per cent stake in the business, but this is now down to three per cent and will shortly be zero. Roland DG is not just in the graphics business, it is also a major developer of machinery in the dental sector, where it is achieving significant growth, in fact around 30 per cent a year from the milling machines that make dental prosthetics.
Roland DG now owns a San Diego-based technology company, which among other areas is looking into systems for supplying digital content targeted to a variety of businesses worldwide.
Hidenori Fujioka has a tough act to follow, a 30 year president who achieved massive growth and consistent profitability. However he has a clear vision and is making strong investments to turn that vision into reality, in a world that is rapidly evolving.
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