BANGALORE, INDIA: Canon India Pvt. Ltd., a world leader in imaging technologies, is aggressively penetrating the government sector by bagging good business from projects initiated through e-governance. 

Set up in 1997, Canon India offers a comprehensive range of sophisticated contemporary digital imaging products that include photocopiers, multifunction peripherals, fax-machines, printers, scanners, All-in-ones, digital cameras, digital camcorders and multimedia projectors. 

The company's product portfolio encompasses the entire spectrum of digital imaging solutions and provides end users superior application performance at competitive price points. Canon is divided into three divisions, namely, ICT, Consumer System Peripherals (small printers for homes and Business Imaging Solutions (digital printers).

“The Business Imaging Solutions (BIS) division of Canon has made a mark in offering its products to small office home office (SOHOs), small and medium business (SMBs), large enterprises and digital presses, who require faxes, multi-function devices, all-in-one printers, higher-end scanners and digital printing facilities,” says Som Gangopadhyay, Head, Business Imaging Solutions, Canon.

“With a wide footprint in the above segments, the BIS division is aggressively targeting the government sector.  Revenue from the government business for BIS has been growing at 40 percent plus in the last two years, thanks to the e-governance initiatives by both Central and state governments,” he adds.

“Going by the success of e-governance initiatives, government sector is going to be one of the biggest IT spenders in a couple of years from now,” says Gangopadhyay. “We are looking at the government sector with more organizational focus, through more investments in terms of manpower.”

As regards Canon's entry into the government sector, he says that Canon had been catering to the essential printing requirements of enterprises and other state-level contracts initiated through e-governance projects in the last four to five years. “We also have a very good footprint in the Defence sector,” he adds.

”Our central business area has been Delhi as all e-governance projects takes off from there. In addition, we are also enrolling into different trade contracts and enabling the business,” notes Gangopadhyay. “The backward integration is creating opportunities for us.”

BIS Loungue
In order to showcase its latest technology solutions, Canon has established a BIS Lounge in Gurgaon, Bangalore and Mumbai. All the solutions are showcased by Canon, by way of live shows at these lounges and also about how software works. 

“We have invested quite a lot of money. In future, we want to do more by way of aggressively promoting our solutions,” he adds. 

Tapping rural markets
Elaborating on the importance of e-governance modules adopted in rural areas, he says there are 36 different projects that are operational through e-governance initiatives and of these, 15 large projects are spread across the country.

“These e-governance modules act as facilitators for various government organizations. The huge amount of printing, documenting and transmission of data by various means offers us a good footage,” says Gangopahyay. “We are also in touch with various states that are not into peripherals yet.” 

Canon will appear as a leader in certain areas like archiving of existing data in terms of paper documentation and digitizing them. Government organizations are realizing the importance of digitalized content. The major focus will be on integrating imaging capabilities and providing last mile connectivity, he explains.

Enterprise offerings
Canon has been doing business with the enterprise segment for the last ten years. “What’s new is that organizations now-a-days are looking for central procurement and facility. They are quite techno-savvy in terms of applied technology and are looking for integrated solutions. This is where we need to have an edge over the others,” says Gangopahyay. Canon’s solutions have been seeing good results in this segment, he adds.

SMB market presence
“Canon is not that strong in the SMB space so far. We have released a spate of products for SMBs in the last year and a half. Our cartridge-based and toner-based products are doing well in this space. Our current revenue share from SMBs is around 10 to 15 percent. We are targeting to take it to 20 percent,” he says. 

Canon presently has over 145 product offerings in India. As part of its efforts to improve its after sales service and customer support in smaller towns, Canon has set up 32 Canon Care Centres which are exclusive franchisee service centers providing single point access to customers for all their service needs for any product.