Printing devices company Konica Minolta SA has opened its innovation centre, as part of a bigger push into new business areas and markets.
Located at its head office in Ormonde, Johannesburg, the new facility is aimed at showcasing Konica Minolta’s industrial print and production print products to existing and new clients.
Marc Pillay, CEO of Konica Minolta SA, told ITWeb the company is happy to open the innovation centre’s doors, following the supply chain constraints brought on by the pandemic.
“It has been a long time coming,” he states. “We are very proud to have a separate centre for our industrial print and production print (IP & PP) business.
“As a business operating through the pandemic, we’ve lost a bit of revenue on what we refer to as the ‘click side’ – where people print and copy in the office. We have now realigned our focus to get that revenue back and part of that is putting a bigger push into an existing division, but now we’ve the products that will allow us to enter new markets.
“The innovation centre is about entering new markets and showing the market that we are an end-to-end service provider and not just an office copier or printer provider.”
Edmund Jacobs, production print manager at Konica Minolta SA, explains the centre will serve as a solutions development facility, bringing people in to experience the products hands-on.
Additionally, the IP & PP products are bundled with software for custom-made solutions.
“We want to find out what are the clients’ pain-points; we want to focus on how we can resolve the day-to-day challenges,” he says.
Among the devices is the AccurioShine 3600, which is an industrial print embellishment unit that provides a tactile experience, according to Jacobs.
“Imagine the value the machine can add to business. For instance, if we take the print and add braille to it, it means that a blind child would be able to touch it and feel the texture, and read it at the same time. That’s the idea behind this unit − to be functional.
“It’s not just an embellishment but it’s also functional for the visually-impaired.”
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