By Sharmee Roy
Canon has restructured its strategy for its Large Format Printers (LFPs), and will now focus on developing the market for them. As a first step, the company has begun a nine-city road show.
Said Puneet Datta, Senior Manager, Marketing, Business Image Solutions, Canon India, “We were not able to develop the mindshare for this product, so we did a study and realized there are three verticals—CAD and GIS, the photo industry, and the graphic arts industry—on which we need to focus if we want growth for LFPs.”
The company then appointed five partners with a significant presence in these verticals. “Once these partners were on board we started investing in their training. Since Q109 we have trained 150 sales people and 90 service staff of these partners. To specifically target opportunities in the CAD and GIS space, we have partnered with companies like CAD Centre and eprographics. We have appointed partners in the photo printing segment,” Datta said.
For the old partners, Canon is evolving another strategy to grow. “With them our aim is to move to non-metros, and through the road shows we would like to recruit the second layer of partners in these non-metros. This expansion will happen only in the second half of 2009,” Datta informed.
This year Canon plans to add 15 vertical-specific partners and 30 tier-2 partners, and has set a target of pushing 1,000 LFPs. |