Clear Focus on the digital office
The global merger of Konica Corporation and Minolta Company Ltd in 2003 formed a dynamic new company, Konica Minolta – offering a new era in digital imaging and innovation.
Konica traces its history back to 1873 when it began selling photographic materials in Tokyo, while Minolta was founded in 1928 to initially manufacture cameras and then going on to pioneer technologies including a latent image transfer system, the world’s first magnification and reduction photocopier.
With the Australian operations headquartered in Sydney, Konica Minolta delivers expert professional services and experienced, responsive client support, in addition to the world-class service provided through its extensive branch network, and Adelaide Branch office.
Konica Minolta, State Manager - South Australia, Michael Adair, said that it was a clear advantage to be part of an internationally recognised company.
“By combining world-leading research and development resources, Konica Minolta offers the highest level of technology and service in the digital office industry today,” Michael said.
“It is an advantage being able to utilise factors of production and technology from a number of countries.
Michael added that sharing global marketing materials strengthened brand awareness.
“This also means being able to produce products high on quality which are low on price,” he said.
Konica Minolta Business Solutions Australia offers a broad range of multifunctional digital imaging solutions that serve as the central resource for document scanning, in-house printing, copying, faxing and electronic archiving and distribution.
Complementing its bizhub solutions, Konica Minolta also offers workflow software to improve business processes.
Konica Minolta has noticed a dramatic shift in demand in recent years from monochrome (black and white) multi function products to colour multi function devices.
The company has found that close to 60% of the devices it ships is colour enabled where as four years ago it was approximately 70% monochrome.
“I attribute this change to the ability of manufacturers, such as Konica Minolta, to now offer these colour multi function devices at very competitive prices, and in higher speed formats exceeding 60 pages per minute.
“There has also been a shift in customer demand towards embedded software applications for multi function devices such as searchable PDF files directly from the scan glass, security access control, and scanning capabilities to name a few.
“This demand has been driven by the need of businesses to archive and make available vast amounts of documents both internally and externally while ensuring this data is kept safe and secure.”
With the economy emerging from the economic downturn, Konica Minolta, like all companies is looking forward to the brighter outlook.
“Business conditions are now improving in line with an overall pick-up throughout the economy, however controlling expenses is always an ongoing challenge for any company.”
Konica Minolta Australia’s National Marketing Manager, David Procter, noted that the recent strong performance of the company held it in good stead for the emerging economy.
“Konica Minolta has seen a steady growth over the last six months in digital volumes across both colour and mono of approximately 17 per cent despite the prevailing economic conditions,” David said.
“This can be attributed to a number of factors including offset transfer, shorter print runs, the availability of inline finishing and cost reduction.”
As a leader in advanced imaging and networking technologies from desktop to the print shop, Konica Minolta withdrew from the camera and photo related market in 2006.
Its focus is now well and truly clear.
