Fuji Xerox Korea best partner for office workers
Office equipment supplier transforming into solutions and services firm
We are seeking to transform our business in order to establish the firm as a systems and services company meeting customer needs.
Fuji Xerox Korea has been the best partner for office workers since its 1974 establishment, providing printers, copiers, scanners and fax machines.
After more than four decades, it seeks to still remain the best companion helping them do their business even more conveniently — although what it offers is different.
“Fuji Xerox Korea had grown a hardware company, but now it has shifted its focus on offering a variety of services to increase customers’ work efficiency,” its Chairman Toru Miyamoto said in a recent interview with The Korea Times.
“We are seeking to transform our business in order to establish the firm as a solutions and services company meeting customer needs.”
According to the Korea affiliate, Fuji Xerox, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, made a “drastic” decision in 2007 to walk away from its past success as an office equipment supplier and turn into a company dealing with consulting.
Fuji Xerox Korea’s businesses are divided into three: Industry Business Solutions and Services (IBSS), Graphic Communication Service (GCS) and Enterprise Document Solutions (EDS).
“As for IBSS, we help our customers re-engineer their document management processes, ensure seamless integration into their current information technology infrastructure, transform document intensive processes and customer communications to achieve operational excellence, costs efficacy and sustainable growth,” Toru said.
GCS is aimed at helping companies connect with their customers through one-on-one marketing and improving their document workflow by print on demand and publishing, while EDS offers a complete range of office services and products, the chairman added.
“Fuji Xerox Korea has a balanced revenue structure from hardware and service divisions — 50-50,” Toru said.
However, the chairman forecast sales of its service and solutions busi- ness to outgrow those of its hardware products in the near future.
“Considering the printing business’ outlook of using less paper, I believe the services and solutions division will turn the tables in terms of sales within three years,” he said.
Toru said his company is transforming into a services firm, but its competitiveness comes from the relationship with customers using Fuji Xerox office equipment.
“We maintain a close working relationship with customers using our hardware products, so we can quite understand their business needs and offer optimized solutions. That is our biggest competitive advantage,” he said.
According to him, his company is a direct sales organization, as the process of offering products directly to customers away from fixed retail locations accounted for 71 percent of sales in fiscal year 2016.
The chairman, who joined the Japanese company in 1978, took office in July 2017 after serving various posts, including corporate vice president for global products business and executive general manager for global products sales and marketing.
The head has set his sights on offering services and solutions to local customers in a timely manner as office environments have been rapidly changing due to the upcoming digital transformation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
“In order to promptly respond to customer needs, the headquarters went through reorganization in April and so did we in October,” he said, expecting that his work experience at the head office will help the two sides stay in close communication.
When it comes to Fuji Xerox’s services and solutions, the Korea branch imports them from Japan and customizes them and vise versa.
Chairman with sales background
Toru spent the first 13 years of his career in the sales division — from 1978 to 1991 — at Fuji Xerox. He was also involved in sales duties from 2009 to 2012.
“It was not common in the past that those who were in the sales division became executives. It is now though,” he said, adding that Hiroshi Kurihara, Fuji Xerox president and representative director, also has experience in sales.
The sales job is not an elite course to taking executive roles, but it greatly helps those who assume a leading position, he said.
“When a company releases a new product to the market, those who are in sales are the first to stand in line and meet consumers — the same role that a company representative does when a bad thing happens to business operations,” Toru said.
“In that respect, they are in the position to gauge customers’ evaluation of a company, which helps me leading Fuji Xerox Korea.”