Fuji Xerox Korea transforming into document management consulting firm
By Baek Byung-yeul
With more companies going paperless and digital to save time and money, printers are losing their place in the office equipment market. However, the Fuji Xerox Korea president said printers won't disappear and they will continue to evolve, adopting new technologies.
"Communication using paper documents is still prevalent but it is true that paper use is decreasing and industry data show the shipment of printers is also declining," Fuji Xerox President Takashi Otani told The Korea Times at the firm's headquarters in Seoul, Monday.
"However, manufacturers are evolving their printers by adopting information and communication technologies such as cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence (AI). I am sure that printers will keep evolving to stay abreast of the technology changes."
At a time when more companies are moving toward digital transformation, Fuji Xerox Korea is also witnessing a decrease in demand for printers. This being the case, Otani said the company has been focusing more on transforming itself into a consulting firm, specialized in document management services since the mid-2000s.
"Though Fuji Xerox is famously known as a printer manufacturer, the firm has been diversifying its business portfolio by offering document management, security services and cloud computing," Otani said.
He added the firm is now aiming to help its customers use less paper with its document management services, and provide ways to digitize their paper documents, not sell more printers.
"Many people are suggesting that Fuji Xerox may face hardship, but our business is to make customers use less paper, improve security when printing paper and accelerate the digitization of paper documents," he said.
Thanks to this, Fuji Xerox Korea now has a 50/50 sales split between its hardware and services divisions. "Even in the distant future when multifunction printers continue to disappear, we will keep providing services that can enhance in-company communications to our customer companies," he said.
Giving an example of how effective its document management system is, the president pointed to Mirae Asset Life Insurance.
"Mirae Asset Life Insurance has been operating a document management center since December 2018. There, the insurance firm can manage all sorts of documents ranging from promotional brochures to business proposals. By providing an analysis of the workflow of documents that its employees use in their work, the firm can also improve the work process," he said.
With this management service, Otani expects the firm can save about 19.8 percent of its annual expenditure on printing documents.
The president said the country's adoption of a 52-hour workweek has also helped the firm meet more customer companies that want to streamline their working procedures.
"Our customer companies need to adopt a more efficient working environments with their employees to comply with the 52-hour workweek policy. As our business is to take the workload off our customer companies by providing efficient document management services, the 52-hour workweek can be an opportunity for us," he said.
"To adapt to the change, Fuji Xerox Korea is also trying to reduce the time our employees spend on document writing. For instance, employees are encouraged to write their reports on a single A4."
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