According to Canon's corporate website, on September 17, they launched a new initiative, Managed Document Services (MDS). This will aim to help customers manage both their document input-output environments as well as their documents. This is in some ways a paradigm shift from the current structure which had Canon's Managed Print Services (MPS) in the hands of their regional sales organizations. MPS was delivered in both regional and national markets with focus on the optimization of output environments in offices in combination with Centralized Reprographic Departments (CRD). This new MDS service will be band these two services together in an effort to help businesses to streamline their processes even more.
While Canon's latest line of imageRUNNER ADVANCE Series of office multifunction devices are ideally suited to this type of setup, MDS can be set up on equipment from other manufacturers. The new image RUNNER machines have improved remote-management abilities which will can further increase the productivity of a business both internally and at the end-user level.
To meet the requirements of such a project, Canon will be expanding the MDS support and sales staff at all of the regional locations and investing somewhere around 20 billion yen (roughly 219 million USD) per year over the next three years. Initially MDS will be rolled out in North America and Europe, eventually expanding into Asia, Oceania, and Japan by 2012. Canon would like to be able to meet or exceed 100 billion yen (roughly 1.1 billion USD) in sales over that span.
Major Goals (as stated by Canon)
High-quality and consistent service delivery based on consistent global services menu
Improved service efficiency through enhanced infrastructure and tools
Use of Canon's extensive selection of input-output devices, including the imageRUNNER ADVANCE Series
