Digital Digest: Canon Solutions America's One-Year Anniversary Event

DELRAY BEACH, FL—It's been a year since Canon Business Solutions and Océ North America were consolidated into the newly created subsidiary Canon Solutions America (CSA). To celebrate the anniversary, Canon held a press event here last month. Canon executives offered updates on the company's progress to industry journalists and analysts; a panel of customers discussed the role that Canon technology has played in their success; and visitors got to see Canon technology in action at the company's Customer Experience Center in nearby Boca Raton. (Use Layar app to see video on event.)

CSA President and CEO Toyotsugu Kuwamura lead off by detailing how Canon accomplished the integration and combined the different sales groups successfully. CSA revenues reached $1.7 billion in 2013, he said, and the 2016 target is $2 billion. Other Canon executives also noted sales and market share growth achieved in their respective segments.

Francis McMahon, vice president of marketing for Production Print Solutions, added that U.S. customers printed 69 billion production pages in 2013. He pointed out that more than 800 types of media have now been certified to print on Canon digital printers, with more being tested all the time. "Over the course of 2013," he said, "we've partnered with every single paper mill in the United States of America."

The newest paper addition is a 45-lb. coated sheet for the educational book publishing market. A Crown Van Gelder (CVG) product called LetsGo Silk was formerly only available in Europe. Through its media lab in Poing, Germany, CSA worked closely with CVG to optimize the product for Océ inkjet platforms. The sheet is now available to North American customers through Gould Paper Corp.

On March 1, Canon Solutions America opened its own new media lab in Boca Raton, FL, designed for live testing across inkjet- and toner-based products. It will provide CSA the capacity to work with paper mills to test even more stocks with more inks, and much more quickly.

McMahon also announced that Canon is moving ahead with creating a Canon Solutions America user group, and has established a steering committee comprised of 10 CSA customers to determine the best path forward. The committee will begin meeting in April with the goal of a 2015 launch of a user group and an inaugural event.

In addition, CSA is launching a second advisory council, the Digital Print Advisory Council), which will kick off this month with 13 senior executives representing some of the largest financial services, book printing, direct mail and commercial printing firms. Members will meet annually to discuss current industry trends, business conditions, and to provide feedback to help guide CSA's ongoing solutions and service development.

At the Customer Experience Center, visitors saw demos of several pieces of Canon equipment, such as the 960 sheet/hr. imagePRESS C7011VP, with a long sheet feeder and catch tray, supporting paper sizes up to 13x26˝; the 42˝ Océ ColorWave 900 wide-format color printer, which boasts an impressive 12,000+ square feet/hr. print speed; the JetStream 3000 continuous-feed color inkjet press, which prints at 656 ft./min.; the ColorStream 3900, which prints more than 1,800 letter-size duplex impressions/min.; and several other Canon digital printers. PI