Canon - Afrikan Heroes

Making it: “Your Customers Will Only Stay With You if You Remain Relevant”

November 8, 2022

Eiji Ota, Sales & Marketing Director, Canon Central and North Africa

By Eiji Ota

It’s no longer enough to just print and sell a product. In the competitive, modern print landscape, print service providers (PSPs) need to be more consultative, thinking about how they can provide more creative solutions to meet customers’ needs while also maintaining good relationships. However, the reality is that few print businesses are fully matching their clients’ expectations when it comes to that added layer of value. Our own research[1], where we interviewed marketing decision makers, revealed that less than 25% of print buyers feel they’re getting this much-needed expert input.

UK book printing specialists, Halstan, are a clear example of how adopting a more consultative approach has positive outcomes, not only for their customers but for their own growth and success. As an international, fourth-generation family-run business operating for over a century, they have a wealth of knowledge and experience, with some loyal clients going back over 80 years. In conversation with Chief Executive, Rupert Smith, he explained the five steps the Halstan team have taken to continuously adapt over time and deepen their customer relationships. I think they offer excellent, actionable advice for PSPs everywhere who want to cement customer loyalty and drive growth:

Find out your customer’s objectives – Recognising that printing is a commoditised market, Rupert and his team constantly look for alternative ways to input and help deliver results. “My advice is to always start with what your client wants and then work back to your offering. This helps us to understand if there’s more we can be doing to tailor our services to support their business.” For example, Halstan now has print operations in Germany and USA in addition to the UK as a direct result of listening to its customers and then setting up operations in partnership to provide solutions in those regions.

Have an open two-way dialogue – and do so regularly – One of Halstan’s relatively new markets is notebook and stationery production. Rupert finds that clients in this space don’t necessarily expect Halstan to advise on creative aspects of print and just deliver the end product. But by working collaboratively with the customer and guiding them through the production steps, Halstan can demonstrate their creativity, injecting it along the way, resulting in an end product that both parties are proud of. “Your customers will only stay with you if you remain relevant to them and if you continue to add value, so we want to keep coming up with ideas and taking new propositions to them.”

Move the conversation away from price – The market place is extremely competitive but Rupert believes that, by being more consultative, it puts you in a better position for when the conversation with the print buyer does move on to price. “What we try and do is consult at a business-to-business level, helping customers to streamline all of their processes through data and workflow solutions. We start looking at reducing the overall cost of bringing a book to market, rather than just the cost of printing it. If you look through individual jobs to understand the business issues behind them and what the customer is trying to achieve, it opens up a lot of opportunities.”

Use automation to your advantage – Halstan found that by increasing automation, quality, consistency, speed to market and accuracy all improved. In addition, errors from manual handling were drastically reduced. This freed up Rupert’s time to spend with customers, demonstrating his knowledge in print. “We’re having conversations with publishers about stock reduction, print on demand, removing warehouses, producing personalised books, taking over inplants, outputting in multiple locations.”

Be bolder in your approach to market – Halstan attracted about 15 new customers through their new social media channels as a result of a targeted marketing campaign during the pandemic. This demonstrated the importance of an established company staying up to date with marketing trends and not shying away from the latest technologies so they could reach new audiences.

By streamlining their processes and continuing to evolve their offering in line with market demand, Halstan can spend more time understanding each customer’s individual business and what they are looking to achieve with print. Switching their focus to how they can be consultative in conversations with their clients, they have boosted their business by offering more creative solutions. The result? A strong track record of over 100 years in print and loyal customers who keep coming back for more!

It’s a pertinent reminder that print is not just about product, and process optimisation is not just about gaining production efficiencies. Success can follow when you free up expert resources within your business to spot opportunities, nurture relationships and cultivate growth

Eiji Ota, Sales & Marketing Director, Canon Central and North Africa (www.Canon-CNA.com)

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Canon Expands ‘Women Who Empower’ Program Across Central, North Africa and Middle East

November 10, 2021

Mai Youssef, Corporate Communications and Marketing Services Director of Canon Middle East, Central and North Africa and Turkey

Global photography equipment manufacturer Canon is rolling out newer educational courses, workshops and activities to support women empowerment across Central, North Africa and the Middle East. This is part of an on-going effort to augment, boost and celebrate female empowerment in the creative industries. To this end, Canon has elevated its ‘Women Who Empower’ program with newer educational courses, webinars and mentorship opportunities along with celebrating its ten selected winners from the Middle-East, Central and North Africa regions.

This is owing to the outstanding success and the remarkable response received for the ‘Women Who Empower’ initiative, the company kicked off its ‘Transform and Elevate’ webinar workshops in association with Transform8 to support women entrepreneurs to grow their business and reach their maximum potential.

The webinar series that started this September and plans to go on till March 2022, will delve deep into various aspects associated with the humanitarian side of leadership, with each month bringing in a new theme for learning and discussion aimed at providing engaging, educational, informative and impactful takeaways to support the entrepreneurial journey of participants. Additionally, two lucky winners will be selected each month to receive two leadership coaching sessions by a Transform8 coach. These sessions will present an excellent opportunity for the winners to dig deeper into topics of their choice, problem areas or skills they wish to hone further thus creating a valuable and thought-provoking experience.

The September webinar session focused on time management skills whereas the October session is directed towards dealing with self-criticism during an entrepreneurial journey. The latter sessions for this year will be pivotal in developing mind management skills such as enhanced concentration and focus along with reduced stress and anxiety. Subsequently, the first webinar for 2022 will begin on the note of advancing social enterprising skills teaching participants the significance of building a business that cares about the society as well as the planet. Following suit, February and March 2022 webinars will lean towards evolving creativity skills via a session dedicated on rewiring the brain and another one on building mental resilience. The last session scheduled for the program will be anchored on the science of manifestation in business, divulging key points related to goal-setting and achievements.

A series of webinars will be organized by Chit Chat with Nat of Egypt and Al Sahm Women of Algeria which are female only platforms that address issues affecting women. Encouraging discussion and engagement, the topics of ‘Female Founders: Business building as a woman in the twenty-first century and strategies to move the needle in your business’ will be addressed. Canon has also joined hands with AWIEF to organize a series of three educational masterclasses to be held in October, November and December 2021, which will focus on topics related to the digital sector. The AWIEF Community is a digital platform and community focused on empowering women to achieve business success and economic power through provision of masterclass, e-learning, mentorship opportunities, networking events and more. The AWIEF-Canon masterclasses will be duly supported by the APO group and will leverage the already existing AWIEF community and network, in order to maximize the learning output for participants.

Speaking about the new additions of the program, Mai Youssef, Corporate Communications and Marketing Services Director of Canon Middle East, Central and North Africa and Turkey said, “The outstanding response received for our Women Who Empower initiative goes to show the amount of female talent we have across our region. We wanted to extend the program further to support more women entrepreneurs by providing mentorship, guidance and skill-building opportunities. We are excited to collaborate with Transform8 and AWIEF to provide learning platforms for women that can benefit them in their entrepreneurial journey.”

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

The leading Nigerian digital printing company chooses Canon for its digital color printing for maximum versatility

August 8, 2019

KAS Prints will rely on Canon’s innovative technologies to provide its customers with the best innovative printing services.

Canon Central and North Africa (CCNA) world-leader in imaging solutions, is proud to have among its clients KAS Prints, a leading Nigerian digital printing company, and to participate fully in the development of its business objectives.

This collaboration, based on commitment, multi-sector knowledge, secure data management and high value-added solutions that guarantee sustainable innovation, allows them to combine their mutual know-how to provide KAS Prints customers with unique and unmatched services.

Canon’s continued investment in research and development offers KAS Prints confidence that they are using technologies specifically designed to improve their productivity and data security.

Canon appreciates that customer expectations in the digital and printing industries are constantly evolving which has an impact on business models in all imaging sectors. Integrated and intelligent applications allow businesses to reduce the complexity of challenges related to their environment and contribute to positive value creation.

“We have found in Canon a trusted partner with whom we share the same values and is committed to helping us successfully anticipate our customers’ needs especially in our offering of the latest solutions.

Canon’s long-standing experience in the digital and printing world encourages the emergence of innovations that will transform service delivery for our customers. We will be able to quickly adapt to any changes in the printing sector which will enable KAS Prints to maintain its leading position in the digital print market” said Ademola Kasumu – Managing Director and CEO, KAS PRINTS.

Tenaui, the official representative of Canon in Nigeria, was of big support to build this strong relationship between Canon and KAS. “Tenaui is really proud to have a valued partner such Canon and we are working very closely with the team to generate and develop more business in the country” added Yasser Alfara, Managing Director, Tenaui.

“We are very proud to be able to welcome KAS Prints among our customers to whom we have already provided C10000 printers. KAS Prints has a diverse customer portfolio and we are committed to supporting them with increasingly innovative and reliable high-performance state-of-the-art machines.

I am confident that this is the beginning of a mutually beneficial partnership that will last for the foreseeable future, as Canon helps KAS Prints achieve the goal of placing the customer at the heart of service delivery. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Tenaui who continues to support us and have enabled us in recent years to pursue satisfactory growth in Nigeria” concluded Somesh Adukia Regional Sales Office Director, Canon Central and North Africa (CCNA).

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.

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Canon Launches Discovery Week In Nairobi

July 17, 2019

Canon Central and North Africa (CCNA) a leader in imaging solutions, launched the Canon Discovery Week in Nairobi this July with a photo safari and Wildlife photography Master Class led by the Canon ambassadors Jonathan and Angela Scott.

Discovery Week is a consumer engagement to build a closer relationship between customers and photography by facilitating access to Canon equipment and professionals. The initiatives also raise awareness of latest products and develop the education of all levels of photographers.

In order to meet the expectations of Kenyan photographers, whether professional or amateur, Canon hosted initiatives granting many opportunities for customers to interact with experts and retailers.

The set of events and interactions included educational Canon Academy workshops which invited testimonials and debate from attendees; in-store activations to give photographers an opportunity to learn more about their own equipment, and to test new products and solutions; and instore incentives to help photographers get easier access to new equipment.

Amine Djouahra, B2C Sales & Market Director, Canon Central, and North Africa said: “Our objective is plural: to meet and exchange with photographers, give them a satisfying customer experience by helping them become more familiar with our devices and allow us to better anticipate their ever-changing needs.

We aim to maintain this meeting with our customers every year in order to sustain this essential link that allows us to refresh our offerings regularly and launch innovative products that meet or even anticipate our customers’ needs.”

Throughout the month of July, Canon continues to offer its existing and new customers instore incentives, in order to thank them for their loyalty and appreciation.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.