Canon launches new subsidiary in Shenzhen
to serve enterprises seeking future opportunities in the
Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA)
(Hong Kong, 09 Nov 2018) – The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) project encourages collaboration between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau to leverage the three cities’ unique yet complementary strengths and to explore future opportunities for cooperative development.
Hong Kong’s service-oriented system produces service professionals in a wide range of fields, allowing a more diverse service for enterprises. As an international financial hub, Hong Kong’s mature financial infrastructures and strong management can all help guiding the GBA toward globalized development. Moreover, Hong Kong is considered a global information center with data protection principles that adhere to international standards, qualities that are expected to accelerate the free flow of information within the GBA. It is also pursuing integration policies and smart city initiatives that will further contribute to the “informatization” – a shift toward a more information-based economy – of the GBA through disruptive technologies and automated systems.
Canon Hongkong Co., Ltd. today officially announced that it is launching a wholly owned subsidiary, Canon Business Solutions (Guangdong) Co., Ltd., located in Futian, Shenzhen, to facilitate sales and services operations and to ensure its customers’ satisfaction and service level. The new subsidiary also helps GBA companies in a variety of sectors on regional coordination and growth with a new business model. “The establishment of the GBA has created exciting new opportunities for Canon,” said Mr. Shunichi Morinaga, President and CEO of Canon Hongkong Co., Ltd. and Canon Business Solutions (Guangdong) Co., Ltd. “The launch of Canon Business Solutions (Guangdong) indicates our intent to further expand the scale of our business in China’s business imaging market. We also believe we can accelerate the transformation and growth of enterprise clients through our intelligent business solutions and professional services.”
Canon said it aims to connect and collaborate regularly with cross-regional enterprises within the GBA – the “one-hour living circle” – to address its customers’ needs. It also plans on providing a complete product line to the market as well as comprehensive, intelligent and innovative business management solutions.
In response to the trend toward digitalization, which is impacting areas from office document management to large-scale, professional production lines, Canon said its solutions and products can also optimize operating efficiency and productivity and assist enterprises for instant critical decision-making. Mr. Philip Chan, Director and General Manager of Canon Business Solutions (Guangdong) Co., Ltd. said, “Quality solutions such as Canon’s Unified Business Platform (UBP) will be offered to help corporations achieve more convenient and efficient routine document management. Also, because Guangdong’s printing industry is well developed, the expectations for flexible eco-friendly production printing systems are relatively high. Canon will therefore provide professional solutions that can help the printing industry take the next step.” With the further improved free flows of people, goods, capital and information within the GBA in the future, it will pave the way to another level of development, unleash its irreplaceable strengths.
Canon Business Solutions
Intelligent business solutions help making efficient cross-border operations possible. With automated, mobile systems that comprehensively integrate and analyze data, GBA companies can strengthen their information exchange and communications to achieve borderless business management, boost productivity and sharpen their ability to respond quickly to the market and to prepare for future expansion.
Canon Unified Business Platform (UBP) is an intelligent business management solution designed for Hong Kong-based companies with branches in China. It strengthens management of areas including document processing, workflow automation and resource optimization while also capturing useful data and information to integrate into different enterprise systems. This in turn allows more accurate analysis for corporations to better understand their business performance. UBP’s added convenience also enables enterprises to focus on core business, make fast decisions, and collaborate and communicate, benefiting operational efficiency, business development and revenue growth.
Canon points to the example of a prominent multinational hotel management group that optimized its operations by employing UBP for automated workflow and digital account document management, achieving significant human resource savings as a result. The company reduced the average time it spent classifying and sorting invoices from 20 to just eight man-days, while lowering its additional delivery service costs by 80%.
Automated workflow
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is regarded as the starting point of business operation transformation and digitalization, replacing manpower for high-volume tasks that are highly repetitive and require consistency. RPA is now being applied for rule-based tasks such as loan applications, claim processing, customer data updates, customer management and report generation, significantly improving agility and accuracy, reducing operating costs, and helping human resources focus on business decision-making, strategic planning and creativity.
UBP utilizes RPA by to substitute manual operation on tedious tasks. Antelope data-capturing techniques and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology are adopted to capture and automatically extract valuable data in scanned documents, including information such as invoice numbers and billing companies. Scanned documents are then uploaded to Antelope for automated digital workflow initiation. Once workflow is triggered, documents are forwarded to related departments for further handling and approval and relevant reports are immediately generated. Automated technology also ensures more accurate data capture and minimizes the potential for manual input errors. Documents therefore reach departments in a shorter period of time, reducing the time and manpower needed for cross-departmental communications and enhancing business efficiency.
Cross-border information flow
By implementing UBP’s mobile business platform MobileWork 2.0, data from multiple areas can be consolidated into a single database, making cross-border digitalized workflow and information synchronization between two places possible. Consequently, information communication and workflow approval become borderless, facilitating internal collaboration and elevating productivity and market competitiveness.
Integrating MobileWork 2.0 with mobile devices enables multiple tasks to be accomplished easily. Human resource, workflow, document and information exchange management can all be executed via mobile devices without any cross-regional limitations. Staff can access important internal messages via the platform anytime and anywhere. They can also instantly complete document-sharing, editing and commenting with other staff. The platform also handles regular daily functions such as annual leave applications and approvals.
Elsewhere, the multifunctional Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE GEN 3 Series device improves the efficiency of simple yet work-intensive document processing. The device’s user interface connects to the platform, enabling documents such as bills and doctor’s certificates to be uploaded directly to a specific workflow, minimizing approval lead-time and streamlining business workflow. As a result, physical documents are moved online, allowing access from anywhere and enhancing business mobility and collaboration.
System integration
Both large and small corporations are trying to better prepare for future expansion. To boost productivity, it is sometimes necessary to install two or more management systems. However, if a company is unable to integrate its existing and new systems, it will not be able to leverage innovative new technologies, possibly resulting in more expenditure of resources and costs for data transformation and delivery. UBP offers multilingual support, is highly secure and is also capable of integrating with current workflow systems, including third-party business solutions. For example, UBP can be unified with workflow systems such as logistics systems and account-related systems to enable automated management of documents, deliveries and expenses. Data is also illustrated clearly on the unified platform to improve efficiency and resource allocation.
Document intelligence
In order to transform business performance analysis into forward-looking management planning, extremely accurate data is crucial, making tools like UBP’s uniFLOW necessary. uniFLOW is capable of connecting to Canon multifunctional devices for mobile printing, personal login and “Secure Print”. It offers strong security and allows users to select and delete documents before printing, helping save on unnecessary printing expenses. The solution also incorporates intelligent usage analysis reports that include statistics such as the print volumes, preferences and time distributions of each individual user, facilitating internal management and helping companies better utilize the functionalities of their multifunctional devices. The report’s print data can also be integrated with Microsoft Power BI to combine with big data for further analysis, optimizing the operations and management of cross-regional enterprises.
Canon Professional Production Printing Systems
The evolution of technology fosters creativity and breakthrough ideas. Another service offered by Canon’s new office to GBA enterprises is high-quality inkjet printing, which employs advanced fluid dynamics technology to accurately control ink distribution and recreate expected printing effects, meeting the needs of the domestic and international markets and helping enterprises realize their full potential.
Quality color continuous-feed printing
The advancement of technology opens up another door for development. Canon’s Professional Printing Series is equipped with Océ ColorGrip technology to automatically process traditional paper, which increases the ink load of paper and ensures accurate ink drop on both coated and uncoated paper for sharp, vivid color. Its wide color and media range are nearly equal to offset printing in response to the market requirement, making it a strong choice for companies that want to enhance their productivity and competiveness.
Flexible color cut-sheet feed printing
As market demands grow more diverse, flexibility is becoming more vital in addressing the needs of companies operating in various industries. The Canon Océ VarioPrint Series integrates with all-round automated workflow. It has a high-capacity duty cycle and even able to print on offset lithography coated paper with paper sizes up to B3. Cut-sheet paper printing design provides higher flexibility for customers and is suitable for applications including promotional leaflets, booklets and magazines. This combination of proven inkjet advantages including speed, quality and flexibility in turn creates new business opportunities for enterprises.
High-speed monochrome cut-sheet printing
Companies operating in the GBA – especially those operating in professional digital output management – can now experience even faster printing speed from Canon with the Océ VarioPrint 6000 TITAN Series, believed to be the fastest monochrome printing system on the market. It supports printing volumes of up to 10 million A4-size impressions per month, with shades of grey and halftone dot that are comparable to offset printing. The series’ Océ Gemini Instant Duplex Technology uses twin print heads to print simultaneously on both sides of media, with nearly perfect sheet positioning, resulting in faster yet still highly stable speeds. The nearly perfect sheet positioning of two sides leading to better high profitability and quality, making it becomes the ideal option in the field of professional digital output management.
Optimized production workflow
Simplifying workflow and optimization procedures is fundamental for production printing customers as each printing process can significantly impact cost and revenue. Canon Océ PRISMA multifunctional production workflow software allows users to manage overall production plan and high-volume printing at all times, streamlining operations from order acquisition and production to fulfillment and design for the most cost-efficient process possible. It even enables connectivity to third-party software, assimilating with existing production workflow for a more sophisticated printing solution, reducing printing costs and maximizing enterprises’ flexibility and operational efficiency.
About Canon Hongkong Company Limited
Canon Inc. (TSE:7751 / NYSE:CAJ) was founded in 1937 in Japan. Its predecessor, Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory, produced Japan's first 35 mm focal-plane-shutter camera “Kwanon” in 1934. Canon Inc. eventually expanded into the photocopying and printing industries, launching Japan's first plain-paper copier NP-1100 in 1970 and the world's first inkjet printer BJ-80 in 1985. Through the years, Canon Inc. has acquired in-depth experience in digital imaging product manufacturing, and research and development. It is a leader in the development of innovative products and holds the most technology patents in the imaging industry. Canon Inc. also makes a significant contribution to the promotion of photography. Today, Canon Inc. has a strong global presence and is one of the most important market players in the imaging, office and industrial product categories. As of 31 December 2017, Canon's global revenue was US$36.1 billion.
One of the company’s first offices in Asia, Canon Hongkong Co., Ltd. (CHK) was established in 1971. It is responsible for the sales, marketing and after-sales services for all Canon product lines in Hong Kong and Macau. CHK adheres to Canon’s corporate philosophy of “kyosei”, which encourages the company and its staff to participate in social, charitable and environmental activities in the community. CHK implements internationally recognized management systems and has achieved ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 27001 (Canon Digital Production Center) and OHSAS 18001 certification. For more information about Canon Hongkong, please visit our website: https://hk.canon.
Mr. Shunichi Morinaga, President and CEO of Canon Hongkong and Canon Business Solutions (Guangdong) Co., Ltd. delivered the opening speech.
Mr. Philip Chan, Director and General Manager of Canon Business Solutions (Guangdong) Co., Ltd. illustrated the utilization of intelligent and automated technology on Canon solutions and production products, so as to assist future development of GBA enterprises.
(From left) Mr. Philip Chan, Director and General Manager of Canon Business Solutions (Guangdong) Co., Ltd.; Mr. Shunichi Morinaga, President and CEO of Canon Hongkong and Canon Business Solutions (Guangdong) Co., Ltd.; Mr. Takashi Okuyama, Senior Vice President of Canon (China) Co., Ltd.; Mr. Koji Nakashima, Chief Regional Officer, Hua Nan Regional of Canon (China) Co., Ltd. officiated the ceremony.
The Opening Event showcased Canon UBP and professional production printing systems, and explained how they can maximize operational efficiency and business capabilities.
