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Against the Wall
Many
consumers are aware of its established reputation as a manufacturer,
but there is clearly a gap between how Fuji Xerox is perceived on the
market and how it actually sees itself.
To many, the joint venture between Japan-based Fuji Photo Film Co and US-based Xerox Co is a printer and copier maker.
It’s
definitely not far off the mark. The company offers a wide range of
high and low-end document processing products including printers,
copiers, and large printing machines for publishing companies.
But
that’s not exactly what Fuji Xerox wants to be. It instead prefers to
define itself as “The Document Company,” as its company logo states. It
positions itself as a provider of document processing solutions, and it
expects to generate more revenue from document-related services in the
future.
Toshio Arima, president of Fuji Xerox, says that the company is actively promoting and developing its service business.
“We want to provide our customers with value-added, document management services, not just hardware,” he says.
Arima
hopes that document-related services, which currently account for only
15 to 20 per cent of the company’s revenues, will contribute 30 per
cent by late-2010.
The company’s revenues over the fiscal year ending March 31 stood at 1029.2 billion yen (US$8.63 billion).
Arima acknowledges that Fuji Xerox is experiencing a strategic shift in its business structure.
“We want to be the industrial leader in document management within five years.”
Fuji
Xerox currently competes with a number of big names in the printer and
copier markets, including Canon, Ricoh, Hewlett-Packard, and Epson.
It
is taking a gradual approach to its goal, by continuing to strengthen
its manufacturing capabilities while it provides more document-related
services.
“There are admittedly many companies providing e-document solutions.”
The shift to supplying document services is introducong changes to the company’s internal structure and sales channels, he adds.
“It is just the beginning.”
The
company has invested heavily in its labs in the United States and Japan
to develop new applications for business customers. It has come up with
an e-document processing platform called “Open Office Frontier” (OOF).
Based
on broadband telecoms and Internet services, OOF is designed to
encourage frequent, interactive communication between companies and
their clients and offices, regardless of location, time zone, language,
or specific information technology (IT) framework.
The “Interactive
Wall” lies at the heart of the OOF-style workshop. It is a touch-screen
with a number of functions, and Fuji Xerox has developed processing
software for it. Partners will offer the facilities.
The screen can
be used for video-conferences, and the wall connects companies’
internal area networks. This enables conference attendees to register
on-screen by using IC cards, which makes it easier to see who is absent.
Images displayed on the wall can shift between the meeting and audio-visual presentations.
Speakers
can use special pens to add notes and highlight key points on the
screen. The wall also provides hardcopies of speakers’ e-documents
through network printers. Opinions can be shared by scanning messages
for immediate display on the wall.
These are only some of the many
applications of the Interactive Wall. If it is shaped as a desktop,
engineers can show their product drafts to clients who are at other
locations and discuss details. Both sides can easily express their
ideas by drawing on the screen and talking as in a video conference.
OOF will be particularly useful for employees of multinational companies.
“OOF makes PCs almost invisible,” says Hidetaka Kai, corporate vice-president of Fuji Xerox.
Employees
travelling overseas can simply carry IC cards instead of laptops. These
provide access to data on office computers from any location, because
information is stored on Internet-based corporate servers.
“We’re
still in the research and development stage with OOF, but the
Interactive Wall, which is a part of it, is already being marketed in
Japan,” he says, without elaborating further.
Fuji Xerox has
installed the device in 23 of its offices, including its facilities in
Shanghai and Shenzhen. Four more are to be installed in its plants by
the end of this year. All the walls are connected and operate online in
real-time.
“Customer needs are driving our growth, and we believe
that document solutions hold huge potential in the Chinese market,”
says Arima. “We are prepared to introduce the latest document
processing technologies and solutions to our Chinese customers. Local
governments, large domestic enterprises, and foreign multinationals
will likely be our first customers.”
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