In addressing the new market it has consulted over 1,000 printers and their customers to find out the needs of the market.

It has also reorganised its internal structure at country, European and worldwide level to provide a better focus on professional printing, distinct from its office imaging division.

This is a new philosophy for Canon, said Ian Caveny, manager marketing communications, Canon Europe. The people who led this were not from Canon; it came from our customers.

The firm is taking a solutions based approach including consultancy, software, service and equipment. It is employing Professional Services Business Consultants (PSBC) to work with customers. Providing sales and marketing assistance to customers will be a key part of the offering as pioneered in the UK with the Essential Business Builder pack (PrintWeek, 13 November 2003).

There are 50 PSBCs across Europe currently, but this will expand this year. The positions have been filled by a mix of Canon staff and experts recruited from outside the industry.

Print Job Manager, a web-based job submission ASP service will be launched in February.

We spoke to customers to find out what their pain points were, said solution business development manager Tonis Haamer. They told us it was customer interaction: job submission. A key aspect is we have developed sales and marketing materials for printers to promote it to their customers.

The firm is also beefing up its production workflow and colour management with EFIs Velocity products and a pan-European agreement on colour management hardware and software from GretagMacbeth.

Story by Barney Cox