Paperless office is yet to be attained; and though lot has been said about digitization, paper volumes haven’t really decreased that significantly. Scanning solutions retain their importance and penetration in enterprises and homes alike.
“We provide lots of functionalities straight out of the box like our image enhancement, capture solutions, check reading capabilities and lots of bundled software from leading providers, hence really making it a solution in a box”
MIKE NELSON, VICE PRESIDENT, EMEA, PFU IMAGING SOLUTIONS EUROPE LTD
Could you shed some light on the name change to PFU?
PFU has always been a Fujitsu company. In Fujitsu organization, there are many companies; PFU is dedicated to the design, manufacture and global marketing of the Fujitsu branded scanners. So, we are Fujitsu.
What are the new solutions from PFU?
We launched the brand new ScanSnap iX100 mobile scanner- the first truly mobile scanner; it’s very small, light, fast in operation and has built in battery and WiFi. So, it truly brings professional document scanning abilities for the first time to mobile workers.
With the growing trends of digitization, cloud and virtualization, do you think imaging solutions are being affected?
Cloud is yet another opportunity for us, not a treat. We make paper and other documents useful, integrating them in a business process. Scanning is the first step of the chain.
How has been the business growth over the years?
The business has been growing pretty consistently for over a decade. Since last few years, the growth has been very good and we are very optimistic about the opportunities ahead.
The market has been witnessing lots of built in apps with products from your competitors; how are you positioned?
It’s all about adding value; as I said, our mission is to make papers and other documents useful; the scanner itself is just an enabler for that. We have a lot of software available to make them more useful. We provide lots of functionalities straight out of the box like our image enhancement, capture solutions, check reading capabilities and lots of bundled software from leading providers, hence really making it a solution in a box. Beyond that, there is a huge range of specialist software available in the market and one of our missions is to reach out to the vendors of that software for product integration, so that users can get the best out of our scanners.
Geographically speaking, which regions seem to be showing the maximum growth?
The markets are all different and they all go through different phases. The biggest market globally of course is the North American market and the EMEA market is a close second. There has been tremendous growth in the Middle East market, for which we have been also investing a lot here. There are big opportunities in this market for us and for our channel partners.
What are your market strategies for this region?
We are not new to the ME; we have been working in this market for several years. We are well-integrated with the large corporate organizations and Government departments, who know and trust our scanner products. We want to build on that and extend our reach out to more resellers and partners, and hence more end-users.
What are your next plans?
We are growing in this market and shall continue to invest here. We plan to invest in more people, and in our interactions with channel partners. Our partner conferences and interactions help partners to do better business and grow with us.
