Japanese printing giant made bold market move with budget-friendly tech
Historical look at Fuji Xeroxʼs strategic shift in production printing services about 17 years ago. Company aimed for major growth with new tech launch while facing rising competition in Asian markets
In early 2007‚ Fuji Xerox planned big changes for its print-on-demand business - a joint venture where Fujifilm owned 75% and Xerox Corp held 25% of shares
The production services unit (which made up roughly 10% of the companys 1.1 trillion yen total sales) set a target to grow by half in just three years. Corporate Vice-President Hiroshi Kurihara shared plans to reach 200 billion yen in sales by 2009-2010: up from 130 billion yen that year
The POD market in Japan is still growing and needs to catch up to booming demand in western markets and Asia
The company faced competition from several rivals:
* Konica Minolta Holdings
* Canon Inc (a new-comer to the market)
To get ahead Kurihara announced their strategy: “We expect to keep our market share in higher-end products; while expanding in the lower-end market“. The company backed this up by launching a new color printing system thats half the price of older models - a 14.8 million yen machine that prints 50 pages per minute
The print-on-demand industry (known for self-publishing services) was seeing quick growth in Japan but still had room to catch up with other regions. Fuji Xerox aimed to grab more market share with its budget-friendly approach to digital printing tech
