INTERVIEW: Canon looks to enhance business in Africa: Managing Director for Central, North Africa
First of all, what are your expansion plans for the MENA region? How does the new business unit Canon Central and North Africa (CCNA) fit into these expansion plans? Where is CCNA headquartered?
Canon’s strategy is to create sustained and profitable growth by strengthening our core business, building solutions & services business and improving our capabilities. In Central and North Africa region, we aim at strengthening our regional coverage in country to get closer to our customers.
The formation of Canon Central and North Africa (CCNA) in 2015 was a strategic step that aims to enhance Canon’s business within the Africa region by being closer to our customers in this fast growing region, and meeting their demands in the rapidly evolving African market. Our growth in all our markets including Africa is based on our vision of enriching lives and businesses through imaging experiences. 
For CCNA, future partnerships are a big part of our plans for both Central and North Africa region. We aim at expanding our local presence in our key markets, and to strengthen our network of distributors and partners around Africa region. We will also make investments in local markets to build awareness through marketing and sponsorships in the region, to further enhance our brand presence and communicate our value proposition. We will increase and reinforce our sales force capability and capacity.
We want our customers to gain a better understanding of the Canon brand. Reinforcing the company’s corporate philosophy of Kyosei, which is living and working together for the common good, Canon launched a Miraisha Sustainability programme, aimed at helping local people in Africa region develop livelihoods in professional photography or print.
Africa presents large growth opportunity for us; these regions have positive GDP growth, unlike Western Europe, which is flat. The average GDP of African nations is set to grow by more than 6 percent in the next decade – double that of the rest of the world.
We expect 20 percent growth in our business in Africa this year by offering customers new services, solutions and world leading products. Our focus is on acquiring new customers, supported by investments in marketing, sponsorship, new offices, additional employees and more training.
CCNA is headquartered in Dubai. The location allows us to utilise the existing functional infrastructure of Canon Middle East (CME) and manage our resources efficiently by utilising the support of Finance, Business Operations, Legal, Corporate Communications and HR functions as the organisation builds its capabilities.
Canon has such a wide portfolio of products. Please share your plans to manage this portfolio in the CCNA regions?
Canon has been represented in the Africa continent for more than 40 years through distributors and partners that have successfully built a strong customer base in the region.
The fast-growing African market was earlier served through Canon Middle East(CME) in the UAE, established in 1998. As part of the geographic expansion, CME added Egypt, as part of its markets in 2000. A representative office was established in Cairo in 2001, followed by the transfer of 21 countries in Maghreb and West Africa to CME in 2005.
CME continued to strengthen its presence in Africa with the opening of a local office in Morocco, transferring under its remit the East Africa territory in 2011 and also establishing an office in Kenya in 2012. To strengthen its logistics efficiency in Africa, Canon opened up a new shipping distribution hub at Spain in 2014 to serve the Maghreb, and West Africa markets efficiently. This added significant value to the business opportunities of the partners in these countries.
By continuously investing in enhancing the supply chain, fostering strong partnerships, and being closer to customers, we will be in abetter position to understand any shift in consumer attitude, and subsequently allow us to deliver the right products and value-added services.
Canon has now created a high value proposition with the setting up of CCNA to focus on the Africa region. Our entire product portfolio will be available in the most efficient way to our customers in Africa due to the continuous investment in this region and it will ensure the provision of high quality, technologically advanced products that meet the requirements of Africa’s rapidly evolving marketplace.
From a business point of view, how do you manage such different markets? Are there different approaches required?
CCNA will manage sales and marketing activities across 44 countries in Africa responsible for all aspects of business in Central and North Africa meeting customer demands in the region. The company has more than 20 Sales employees who are mostly present in these countries. This will allow our customers to have increased on-ground support from Canon in the region.
CCNA’s strategy is focused upon expanding our presence in our target markets across the region; we believe this will help us capitalise on market opportunities, as we will be closer to our customers and able to provide high-quality, customised service.
We will continue to invest in market expansion activities and diversifying our business. There is growing demand for innovative products and we are leveraging this opportunity to provide various sectors a wide range of products in the market.
We will likewise continue to invest in R&D, which remains central to Canon’s global growth plans. Canon invests more than 8 percent of annual sales in R&D across various facilities worldwide, and we are strongly committed to sustain our aggressive R&D programme to develop and introduce a much wider array of technology solutions, while incorporating new product features and specifications that meet our customers’ changing and local needs.
Canon is also steadily expanding its globalisation and business diversification programmes as we look to expand our worldwide presence and develop new products that cater to emerging customer demands.
Canon believes that a genuinely global company must foster good relations not only with its customers and the communities in which it operates, but also with all people and the environment. As a socially responsible and environmentally conscious company, Canon constantly seeks to establish meaningful partnerships as part of a long-term commitment to bringing the world closer to “kyosei,” our corporate philosophy which embodies the ideal of living and working together for the common good.
What are your biggest markets in the CCNA region and can you provide the market shares of each country from the total regional revenue?
Canon is a global market leader in providing imaging technologies and this is how we position ourselves, which is backed by our market share. CCNA represents multiple markets of varied sizes in the African region and we are fully committed to growing our share and market size across these markets.
We need to bear in mind that our market share varies for each product category and for different countries in the region. We hold the number one market share in many of our categories. We maintained our market share in all the different categories and Canon actually had the leading products in most of its categories.
Canon’s brand value and the company’s passion for innovation and quality, and a genuine commitment to social and environmental causes are among the key factors that have helped increase the popularity of the Canon brand across different markets.
What are your plans for the Egyptian market? How do you intend to expand your business locally? What are your plans to increase your market share in Egypt?
With the formation of CCNA, we are accelerating our focus on developing our operations right from the grassroots level and being closer to our customers in Egypt. CCNA manages 44 countries from its HQ in Dubai and Egypt is one of our focus countries because of the vast opportunity that the country offers.
We have a lot of areas to develop in Egypt, led by the government’s focus on strengthening the standards and quality of services provided to the people, particularly in the education and healthcare sectors.
We also have two dedicated country managers based in our office in Cairo. They will be responsible for growing the market share in coordination with our partners and to understand the market requirements.
Further, we are expanding our business by developing our Tier 1 and Tier 2 partners and resellers network for better coverage and more focus on our operations.
We also have plans that includes sales,and after-sales services including total document cycle solutions for the next 3 to 5 years.
What are the products you would focus on this year in Egypt?
We will be mainly focusing on the newly launched generation of the office products along with the laser office color products. We are emphasising on our solutions that make a lot of difference when implemented in some customer sites.
Further, we will keep building on our success with our amazing range of scanners and Large and Wide format printing products especially with our new technology, whereby our customers can link all of our products through one unique software.
We are very optimistic on our G series range of inkjet printers in Egypt. In addition to this we would continue to build the market for DSLR cameras in the country.
We recently unveiled 12 new printing machines and solutions where we demonstrated how the full portfolio of Canon’s print solutions, services and value-added support, can help our customers grow their businesses.
Often organisations find their resources drained due to excessive colour printing, inefficient processes and personal copying. Canon’s new solutions and products address this gap with holistic customised solutions, services and products.
The 12 new products and solutions are designed to meet the increasing demand from both commercial and in-house print service providers ensuring enhanced throughput, ensure consistent colour, accurate registration controls, and flexible media handling and finishing. The new lineup includes: Canon’s flagship printer, the imagePRESS C10000VP,imageRUNNERADVANCE 8500 Series, imagePROGRAF PRO 2000. 4000, 4000s & 6000s, and imagePROGRAF PRO 1000.
In addition to these products, Canon is showcasing its workflow solutions such as imageRUNNER ADVANCE GEN3, Uniflow, Therefore and IRIS in a specially constructed ‘Enterprise Zone’. These industrial style workflow solutions ensure automation and management of printing processes in organisations, driving productivity, saving their costs and delivering against the most demanding deadlines.
How did the Forex change affect your business in Egypt?
This has impacted the capability of our partners to import products due to payment delays caused by the shortage of USD. We are working with our partners to address and overcome the situation.
If available, please provide figures surrounding revenues and growth rates in the Egyptian market.
We expect double digit growth this year in Egypt led by our operational strategy of being closer to our customers and through our range of new products and local presence.
