EXECUTIVE Q&A ─ Canon Solutions America
EXECUTIVE Q&A:
CANON'S FRANCIS A. MCMAHON Talking about this year's virtual thINK and Canon's plan for the future. By Richard Romano & Adam Dewitz
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e caught up with that printers need to understand the customer Francis A. McMahon, experience that Amazon is creating and how Executive Vice it’s going to affect us. President at Canon FM: Think of book printing. I don’t know Solutions America, about you, but I’m reading a lot more now. in the wake of the virtual thINK And there are a lot Ahead 2020 Conference to talk more books being about how Canon’s customers are produced for homefaring in the crisis, how Canon itself schooling. Book has responded, and how the crisis printers are thrivhas demonstrated the wisdom of the ing today, and that’s Grateful Dead lyric, “Once in a while a trend that’s going you get shown the light/In the strangto continue. It’s est of places If you look at it right.” on-demand, it’s WhatTheyThink: At the start of the shorter-run, and Francis A. year, everybody was looking toward a it’s done digitally. McMahon positive 2020, printing shipments were The transactional up—and then March happened. How have side is suffering Canon’s customers been reacting to the crisis? a bit. Projections Francis McMahon: I talk to a minimum from Keypoint of two customers a day, and probably a max Intelligence and I.T. Strategies, based on of five a day, and people are really looking at what we are seeing, are a little pessimisprinting differently. They want shorter runs— tic. We’re not seeing declines of 20% and and they don’t just want print-on-demand, 30% page volume, but just under 10%, and they want super-fast print-on-demand. And a majority of that is transactional. People they’re not as quality-sensitive anymore. aren’t going to doctors as much. There aren’t It’s changing the value of what print is to the as many automobile accidents because people that are buying it. For the marketer people aren’t driving as much. So there and the advertising agency, they’re saying, aren’t as many insurance claims and claim “Wow. If I can get a higher return, and I can printing is much lower. On the transactional turn it around very fast, and I can do shorter side, we also have to be thinking about paper runs, that’s a good thing.” prices going up, what’s happening with the WTT: That’s really the Amazon effect U.S. Postal Service and postal rates and the coming to the printing industry. We want a impact that will have on our industry. If the really fast, streamlined order system so we total cost continues to go up, more corpocan even make purchases from our phones. rations are going to start demanding more This is the year where it’s becoming clearer e-communications. We have to help people
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WhatTheyThink - Printing News | October 2020
