Canon UK has held a series of open days at its new customer-centric experience called Horizons. The experience has been designed to take customers on a forward-thinking journey that addresses each of their individual business challenges, while at the same identifying future opportunities for growth and expansion into new markets.
Supported by independent market research commissioned by Canon, Horizons is a proof of concept facility that has been carefully designed to provide customers with fresh perspective and insight into their business, benchmarking where it currently stands against where it could potentially be in the future. Canon aims to help Print Service Providers enhance and market their current service offerings, in addition to helping them to identify new revenue streams that they may not have previously considered.
Nigel Harvey, Operations Manager, Document Solutions at Sodexo, comments, “It was a very different experience to your usual customer days. Every visitor was accommodated for. The seminars – whilst very organised and thorough - were very flexible and interactive and we could jump in with questions at any point. This made it more personal and productive, and enabled us to extract from the day exactly what we wanted. Canon raised lines of discussion and new ways of thinking that was outside the box, and demonstrated how - as a partner - it could help grow our business through new revenues streams.”
The customer days gave UK-based PSP’s access to Canon and Océ’s combined portfolio of industry leading professional print products and solutions, with further inspiration provided through customer success stories and the extensive marketing opportunities that are available to customers through Canon’s Essential Business Builder Programme (EBBP). As part of the experience, customers also saw live demonstrations of key digital products from across the Canon and Océ ranges and the innovative applications that they can produce.
Graphic Arts customer Gary Livermore, Director at Print Warehouse, reflects, “Customer experiences like Horizons are vital in keeping up with the latest technologies, equipment and techniques of this fast-evolving and varied industry. I enjoyed the seminars, which covered a wide range of subjects from digital photo production to web-to-print. The potential of the former was a real eye-opener, while the W2P session cemented some of beliefs I already had, inspiring me to improve on our current service offering. It was absolutely worthwhile attending and I am looking forward to any Canon events in the future.”
John Price, Print Manager, Document Solutions at Wigan Council, adds, “I found the day very useful. Beyond the impressive breadth of the company’s portfolio of technologies and solutions, Canon really illustrated the value of print and its integral role within the communications mix. There is still great value in the touch and feel of a printed document - it just needs to be utilised in the right way alongside other channels of communication. We discussed the most effective ways to do this, including integrating print with online via cross media. I left the experience with plenty of food for thought.”
Mark Lawn, European and UK Marketing Director, Canon Europe, comments, “Horizons is a distinctive move away from the traditional, more ‘vanilla’ showroom experience. Canon has developed Horizons to provide customers with an experience that is progressive and that is tailor-made to the specific needs of PSPs – to serve the fast-evolving demands of their customers across the communications landscape. Horizons exists to inspire customers and to help them realise the vast potential that exists for them to grow their business.”
Lawn concludes, “The response from customers has been very encouraging. They have clearly seen how Canon is perfectly positioned to help them grow their business over the long-term.”