KYOCERA DOCUMENT SOLUTIONS UK
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first time in my career that I’ve seen price not be number one,” he says. “It’s a real shift from IT buyers in the marketplace. “We were always told there’s nothing greener than the dollar; while the green agenda was important, the power of price was stronger. But now that messaging has completely changed. At Kyocera we have always taken the environment very seriously, for example, through the ceramic drums within our machine, the packaging around our devices now is paper based, we hardly use any plastics, and everything is recyclable within our supply chain as well.” When a customer purchases a carbon neutral product through one of Kyocera’s partners, they get certificate to show that it is carbon neutral through the life of the device, Martin adds. This means they can show its sustainability credentials to others – something that is increasingly important for customers. Going neutral Kyocera has achieved carbon neutrality in the UK through various initiatives, Martin says. This includes changing electricity suppliers to those that generate it from renewable sources, such as wind and solar. In addition, Kyocera engineers now use hybrid or fully electric vehicles, rather than petrol or diesel cars. Kyocera is also signed up to the United Nations Sustainability Initiative, which has several stringent projects to reduce emissions and Kyocera is focusing on these. “In addition, Kyocera invests in sustainable industries and is a part of tree planting schemes as well,” Martin says. “There are lots of initiatives Kyocera are involved in to make the company carbon neutral.” Working closely together This is indicative of how the market’s changing and it means that Kyocera is working ever more closely with the vendor and reseller markets. “Close working relationships with resellers has always been part of our industry and we do have this with our partners, and many are loyal to Kyocera,” says Martin. “The market has changed so fundamentally, and vendors and partners need to stay close together because we’re all finding our feet in this new world. There is greater collaboration and sharing of information to ensure we have all the insights we need from the marketplace.” Part of the evolution of the market is the move to cloud-based services. To that end, Kyocera is launching its own cloud native
When a customer purchases a carbon neutral “
product through one of Kyocera’s partners, they get certificate to show that it is carbon neutral through the life of the device.
solutions. “These have been built specifically with the cloud in mind, which is in response to what we’re seeing in the marketplace,” says Martin. “There’s lots of server-based products in the market that are being morphed into the cloud, but we’ve launched specific cloud- based solutions, including a cloud print managed system called KCPS – Kyocera Cloud Print Manager. “We’ve also got content services that we’re launching to our channel partners. As the market moves more to being cloud-based, we are giving our partners new avenues to generate revenue streams, but also to help migrate those customers from server-based to a cloud-based solutions. We are seeing that migration increase in pace.” Inkjet innovation Another evolution of the market is towards inkjet printing, which Kyocera provides solutions for. “A couple of years ago we launched a high-speed colour inkjet production print device,” Martin says. “We’re just about to add a monochrome only production printer to the range. This is a technology that we’ve had in our portfolio for many years, but it was sold under OEM licence. This is now our second voyage into launching our own production print. Hopefully there’ll be more to come. That’s driven from the fact that businesses are now moving more to hard copy printing for things like direct mailing rather than e-shots as they have a better response rate from customers. “So, while we are witnessing a decline in the office environment for print, we’re seeing an increase in the number of pages printed. We need to help our partners migrate into inkjet technology and help them find new revenue
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KYOCERA Group UK Carbon Reduction Plan 2023
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