In an ever-changing world, Konica Minolta is pivoting to new revenue streams while keeping one eye on its sustainability credentials
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When the pandemic ripped the heart out of the printing business, Konica Minolta knew it had to find new revenue streams but it didn’t give up on its dreams of adopting ever more ambitious targets for sustainability. We caught up with Cameron Mitchell, Konica Minolta’s business unit leader, to find out how his firm survived the pandemic, and what’s on the horizon for future developments.
“It goes without saying that the last year – in fact, the last two years – has seen some of the most significant disruption this market has ever seen in terms of the consequences of supply chain issues. That’s affected everybody, the whole market – it’s not unique to Konica Minolta. So the last year has really been around staying as close to our resellers as we can, trying to support everybody as best we can through the disruption. In a strange way, despite it being a tough year, it’s probably brought us closer to a lot of our customers.
“Now that we’re out the other side, it’s absolutely full steam ahead. We’ve got plenty of stock in our lines. We’re now, dare I say, ‘business as usual’. I’m always a bit nervous to say that because you never know what’s right around the corner, in this in this world, but we’re very much foot on the gas, looking for growth.
“We’re ambitious. We’ve got growth targets. We’re not sitting back; we absolutely know what to do to challenge the market with and get back to more than where we were before. We’ve actually got some fairly significant targets that we want to achieve.”
Finding a place in the ‘new normal’ hasn’t been easy. For a company that relied so heavily on print, having more people working from home, or hybrid working, has meant the company has been seeking additional streams of revenue and this has seen a move towards more IT services and closer partnership working.
“We’ve launched a new partner programme that we’re very proud of,” explains Cameron. “We’ve built this from listening to feedback from our partners as to what they need and how we can support them, and it’s built on foundations like accreditation, for example.
“This means we can help our resellers prove their competence in certain areas, whether it be in professional print, office printing or in IT services. This makes sure that it’s not just about product, and that we actually continue to listen to our resellers, making sure that relationship results in constant feedback so that we can adapt and change.”
Being a greener supplier
Like all businesses, sustainability is a key focus for Konica Minolta, going forward. “Actually, it’s front and centre of our brand, of our company,” says Cameron. That ‘front and centre’ approach has won the firm plenty of accolades over the years, including being listed in the FTSE4Good Index since 2003.
More recently, the company has been awarded the gold level recognition medal in the EcoVadis 2023 sustainability ratings – a listing of the 100 most sustainable corporations in the world produced by Corporate Knights for the fifth consecutive year – and a ranking in the top 5% of companies for sustainability by S&P Global.
While the company has been raking in the awards for its efforts to date, it’s not done with greening its business yet. Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe has implemented an environment management system which was awarded ISO 140001 certification in 2017 and again in 2020. The company continues to push forward with new initiatives, not just in its own business but in its supply chain and customer base too.
For many dealers finding a reason to be green hasn’t always come easily and, given the current cost-conscious environment, finding budget to invest in sustainable solutions can be challenging – but Cameron points out that there is a sound business basis to such investments.
“Recently, in a lot of requests for information, tenders and quotations, sustainability seems to have moved front and centre, so, I think it would be foolish to ignore it; it’s clearly got customer demand. I think everybody’s very socially conscious now, and the environment has never been so critical in terms of the focus that’s on it. I think it needs to be part of everybody’s strategy and cannot be ignored.”
A key area of sustainability calls for fewer new replacement products and more reuse and recycling of the old. For a brand like Konica Minolta, this is unchartered territory; customers with aging or unsuitable machines almost always got a nice shiny new one, but Cameron says that doesn’t always have to be the case.
“One of the things we realised through lockdown, when new machines weren’t available, was that a lot of contracts got renewed; machines got moved around and reused with minimal disruption. Don’t always assume that a new machine is the only answer; it can be a mix of devices.It can be a bit of redeployment; it can be extending contracts. It’s all about making sure that you listen to your customer and understand what their sustainability objective is, because everybody’s got one.”
Demanding more from the supply chain
As well as getting their own house in order, and offering more sustainable solutions to their customers, the team at Konica Minolta also strives to encourage its suppliers to be as green as they can be. The firm doesn’t run its own vehicles – it uses independent carriers, and chooses carefully which ones to work with. Its long-term delivery partner (and sub-contractor) introduced a new fleet, exclusively for Konica Minolta consignments, which runs on hydrogenated vegetable oil. This eco-friendly synthetic paraffinic fuel is of very high quality, stable, and composed of 100% sustainable raw materials. As an alternative to diesel, it offers a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of up to 90%.
Alongside this, the firm’s toner delivery partner – DPD – currently has a number of green initiatives that complement Konica Minolta’s efforts towards carbon reduction. DPD’s ‘driving change’ CSR programme has been reducing carbon emissions, and offsetting the remaining emissions through clean energy initiatives, in order to be able to offer carbon neutral delivery to customers – at no extra cost.
An important part of the business benefits of carbon reduction is communicating achievements to stakeholders. Konica Minolta’s customers are able to view carbon reductions achieved through carbon neutral deliveries via information be displayed on all delivery notes.
A commitment to a brighter future
This month Konica Minolta confirmed its intentions to become a net zero business by 2050, including emissions from scopes 1, 2 and 3. Scopes 1 and 2 relate to direct or purchased emissions (heating, electricity, waste); scope 3, emissions from the supply chain, is much more difficult to tackle, given that it’s outside of their direct control. Alongside this announcement, the firm stated its intentions to make all its products from more than 90% ‘circulated resources’ – recycled materials and biomaterials – by 2050.
“When Konica Minolta published its EcoVision 2050 in 2009, the targets were in line with what were strict standards for the time,” explained. “However, as the climate crisis exacerbates, these are no longer appropriate. We have, therefore, committed to setting stricter climate protection targets to fulfil our responsibility as a global company. We also support our customers and suppliers in achieving their environmental goals.”
The sustainability efforts of Konica Minolta are laudable indeed, and just go to show the successes that can come when ‘good enough’ just won’t do.
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