Interaction - Tai Nizawa, MD, Konica Minolta Business Solutions India

With WFH coming into vogue, B&W printing machines have risen in demand. Tai Nizawa, MD, Konica Minolta Business Solutions India speaks to us about his printing business.

What are your products including printing machines that are rising in demands in 2020? Give some figures and charts etc.

Tai Nizawa- In the monochrome category, a couple of printing models, namely bh287 and bh367, have been doing extremely well recently. This is besides our other office line printers, i.e., bh306i (30 prints per minute in monochrome) and bh C226 (22 prints per minute in color) that have gained a lot of traction in fiscal 2020. The demand for monochrome machines has gone up considering the work from home scenario, although we are doing equally well with our color models too.

We are confident that our color MFPs will attract more demand in 2021 as schools and offices reopen and the need for color printing solutions is restored.

What kind of sustainable technologies does Konica Minolta use in its hardware?

 Tai Nizawa- Konica Minolta has always been working towards building a sustainable future. This reflects in its array of printing solutions that are developed and aimed to reduce energy and paper wastage. For instance, the proprietary polymerised toner technology, Simitri HDE, is designed to consume minimal energy and mitigate carbon footprint and sulfurous/nitrous emissions.

In today’s connected world, remaining safe from virus attacks is crucial. This statement is equally important for multifunction products. As a result, we have pioneered in bringing the virus scanner for bizhub MFP’s. It works similarly as it works on a PC or mobile and safeguards MFPs from any external virus attack. Our sustained innovation on the hardware has resulted in better printing and scanning productivity since the launch of the “Dual scan document feeder.” A two-sided document passes through the scanner only once, reducing wear & tear changes of the crucial document. This helps enhance the life of the document feeder due to less movement of parts while scanning. Our shift to “Solid State Drive” from “Hard Disk Drive” in our MFP’s is also a step towards making the MFP more robust.

Are there any products that are falling in demand?

 Tai Nizawa- We have not witnessed any fall in demand specifically as of now. But we have seen customers consuming more black and white printing machines during the pandemic, maybe owing to the increasing WFH culture. The growth in demand for monochrome printing can also be attributed to the price factor. These machines are usually more affordable than colour printers.

How are you helping the reseller community to get your products without a break in the supplies?

 Tai Nizawa- We understand that channel partners are key to success, especially in a diverse and fragmented market like India. Thus, product planning played a crucial role as we could foresee the market demand and accordingly create the stocks. We did not face any major challenge in our supplies as our logistics ecosystem is fully functional and working fine.

As a part of our vision, we have been hosting several resellers meets through virtual connect, where we educate them about the most frequent FAQs, give them a demo of our new products and train them on how to serve customers better. We have increased the level of connection to the reseller community through our team with consistent marketing activities.

Last but not the least, we have seen an increase in the number of resellers getting associated with our brand, which is a positive sign.