In alignment with the company’s core pillar of empowering talent and partners, Canon (www.Canon-CNA.com) brought together its channel partners and associates to unveil its support strategy and solutions targeted at accelerating business growth across African markets for the upcoming year, 2022; Canon is the Official Printing and Imaging Provider of Expo 2020 Dubai taking place from 1st October 2021 until 31st March 2022.

Canon Central and North Africa (CCNA) revealed its growth plans and strategy to strengthen its support towards business growth for partners amidst the disruption caused by the pandemic, in its annual partner conference program held at Expo 2020 Dubai. The event theme ‘Reshaping Goals Together’ invited the company’s valued partners to not only participate but also to be active advocates and key stakeholders for accomplishing business goals in the year 2022 whilst also celebrating partner achievements for the year 2021.

RESHAPING GOALS TOGETHER

“CCNA was established in the year 2016 with the sole purpose of understanding and thereby fulfilling customer needs specifically for the African market. In the past seven years we have managed to grow leaps and bounds and been consistent in maintaining a CAGR of double digits for the last 6 years. Not to forget, this would not be possible without the trust and support of our channel partners, to whom we remain forever grateful. Given our swift pace of progress in Africa, our vision towards the business growth and revenue at this point is to surpass our previous numbers and perform in double digits for the next 4 years as well. However, we are now looking at a hyper-targeted approach to emerge as the absolute top player in optical solutions industry in our entire product range as well as in all of the 40 countries of our operations in Africa. In order to do so, it is essential for us to work together with our partners in understanding the business challenges they face as well as the challenges faced by the consumer to determine the most impact generating strategy for the upcoming year. This event offers us a great opportunity to collaborate with our partners, gain valuable feedback, insights and suggestions while engaging in thought-provoking discussions and relationship-building exercises.” said Somesh Adukia, Managing Director for Canon Central and North Africa.

IN THE MIDDLE OF EVERY DIFFICULTY, LIES AN OPPORTUNITY

Undeniably, the COVID-19 pandemic upended lives upside down in an instant, thus plunging many businesses into the dark alleys of revenue cuts, employee termination to extremes such as a complete business shutdown. However, Canon did not let the pandemic dampen its spirts and navigated these troubled waters with caution, care and communication. The company adopted an approach of strengthening its communication strategy for employees and partners alike, thereby ensuring that everyone had access to a strong support system during these testing times. The company MD also pointed out the significance of finding opportunities in challenging times, thereby reflecting the company’s core values. Given the rise of remote and hybrid work culture during this time, CCNA pivoted its product strategy to tap into new opportunities by promoting its mirrorless camera series that’s apt for livestreaming services and its inkjet printer series for home-office solutions.

“What we have been able to achieve during the pandemic is nothing short of commendable and I would once again like to thank my team and our partners for enabling us to do so. 2020 was indeed a hard year for all, including us, there were several challenges and obstacles in our path like facing the non-availability of semiconductors and chipsets. However, we are continuously working to provide newer solutions to our partners like working on an alternate strategy to meet the supply shortage. On the other hand, I would also like to highlight that amidst this period of massive disruption when most companies were looking at scaling down, we went ahead and employed 26 people in our CCNA team in the year 2021 to augment, strengthen and sustain our partner and consumer support,” remarked Somesh in his presentation speech during the conference.

RESHAPHE, REENGINEER, REPHASE  

One of the goals for 2022 highlighted in the conference was to build strong business resiliency not just for Canon but also for all of its channel partners. Emphasizing on driving business value and growth through a three-pronged approach of ‘Reshape, Reengineer and Rephase’ for 2022, the company shared its plans of boosting its current B2B space across Africa by more than 20%. Commenting further, the company MD added, “This is a time for us to focus on growth and not to get carried away or disheartened by all the challenges that lay ahead in our path. As complex and dynamic as the African market is, it is also full of growth opportunities. We are looking to enhance our focus on certain product groups such as Professional Print, DIMS and Large Format Printing whereas when it comes to increasing our brand presence and boosting new business development opportunities, we plan to augment our efforts in East, West & Central Africa region. That said, we have equally aggressive growth plans for the next 4 years for all regions alike and would continue to invest in African markets in the areas of human resources and marketing to provide the best support to our partners in meeting their needs for growing their businesses. This is evident in the fact that CCNA manages a geography as large as 40 countries, thus it is critical for us to build a secure and valuable distribution pipeline to ensure business continuity and growth. In the past, we have been able to tactically deploy our approach of ‘Closer to Market and Closer to Customer’ thereby opening 6 local offices in African countries with locally based country distribution managers who were further able to identify the right partners with the necessary experience and financial strength to support Canon’s business. Needless to say, our partners have done an exceptional job in scaling up our business across Africa.”

The Canon Partner Conference was held on a Tuesday morning of 14^th December 2021 in Dubai and included key company speakers such as the Managing Director, Director of Sales & Marketing, Director of Communications and more. The event also recognized and celebrated the efforts of CCNA’s noteworthy valued partners and their achievements from the year 2021. Awards comprise of 4 categories: Best Performance award, Special Recognition, DRBG Special Recognition and last but not the least, the President’s award. The most coveted President’s award for 2021 was presented to Silicon 21 for being committed, passionate & dedicated Canon partner& performing consistently this year across both B2C and B2B business units. B2C Best Performance awards for Mirrorless, Pro-Video, G-Series were presented to Unomat International, Broadcast & Studio Solutions (BSS), Disty Technologies respectively and for Special Recognition Award Raya Distribution. For the B2B Best Performance & Special Recognition Awards for Document solution (DS), Large Format Printing (LFP), Professional Print (PP) respectively were awarded to Japan Motors, Carol Buro, Sabi Systems, Anisuma Trading. The Developing Regional Business Group (DRBG) Special Recognition the winners were JTC International, Silicon 21 & Mitsumi Training.