MillenniumPost
Beacon

Taking photography to the next level

Canon India's unique initiative to tap Tier II, Tier III and Tier IV cities of the country has been instrumental, with a vision to have a proliferating India, Canon India takes pride to be socially inclined and focused towards its efficient and sustainable projects. Kazutada Kobayashi, Chief Executive Officer and President of Canon India, in conversation with Millennium Post talks about their plans ahead. Excerpts from an interview:
Please tell us about your journey so far with Canon India.
I joined Canon India in January 2006 and this is my 5th year and it has been great five and half years' experience for me. India is my fifth country abroad after Japan to work in, but I still think India is the most unique country with a unique market as compared to all the other countries in my experience. My five years started from a turnover of 1,300 crore and now we are coming to 2,600 crore which is a double. I appreciate all the efforts of my colleagues and it has been great overall.
What is the global scenario? What are you planning to explore in India?
India is one of the attractive markets in the global platform. In terms of growth in the market and potential in the future, we have good expectation for market expansions and are planning to diversify the market from B2B to B2C. As per the industrial demand of the market, I would say that Indian market in global sense has high expectation and potential.
What are the initiatives to promote the imaging culture of the country?
From the point of view photography the bottom line is to expand the demand of photography itself. So we are conducting a number of seminars, workshops and displays of the photo printing opportunity of the shop so that people can experience how good and how wonderful photography as hobby is, this will create basic demand which will help us with more purchases.
Please tell us about your CSR initiatives. How is it different from your contemporaries?
CSR is one of the core activities, it is not only giving money to under privileged groups of people we are also intending to engage our employees with in our CSR activities. We have four villages under our 'Adopt a Village' campaign. Near our regional office in Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Mumbai, the villages are about one to two hour drive from the city and all our employees are expected to visit them to clean their land, and play cricket with them to have certain experience of CSR by themselves. Well, I think this activity is very unique; as evidence I have introduced my activity of CSR in various conferences where my competitors get together they all had to pay and later they even contacted me for details.
Can you brief us about certain achievements of Canon under your leadership?
One is of course growth of the corporation, naturally the company is growing in many number of motivation also there is an increase in the number of dimensions of domain expansion and the people are all directed to work in the corporation. The other thing that I am proud to talk about is the brand awareness of Canon and after my joining I think Canon's name is being improved in penetration but I am not yet satisfied with only metros penetration, I want to step into Tier II and Tier III markets for our products
What is the USP of EOS 6D Mark II? How do you foresee the future in Indian market?
The unique selling point is in the improvement of basic points including the number of pixels of image sensor and the speed of the movie functions – time lapse 4K and handling is as easy as 6D Mark II, the weight is different and I believe it is the most suitable camera for professional usage as it is another option from 5D Mark IV or a step up version of an entry size camera. We want to play a leading role in photography as photography is a world known activity in order to decorate your life event for future including family events considering the number of pictures in wedding and travelling.
Photography has become a career as well, what are your opinions about it?
We want to sponsor the young professional photographers so that they grow in this country and make photography a life profession. So we at Canon are total solution providers. One is input device that is camera and the output device is the printer. We wanted to provide both input and output for imaging industry in order to enhance this area for Indian life particularly for those who have retired, or/and those who have ome extra money to celebrate and decorate life.
Next Story
Share it