In an interview with The Packman, Kuldeep Malhotra, director and vice president sales, and office marketing and planning, Konica Minolta Business Solutions India speaks about the company’s Global Rethink campaign, and how the pandemic has created opportunities for the company.

Mahan Hazarika: How is Konica Minolta affected by the current situation?

Kuldeep Malhotra: While the pandemic has presented challenges, it has also created opportunities to innovate the existing business models. COVID-19 has underlined the need for going digital in every sense. The continuous lockdowns have shown us the significance of contactless and easy-to-use printing solutions that can streamline and manage workflows in a digital setting until the current situation comes back to normal. However, It is too early to predict the business model changes because of the COVID-19 but we are confident that it would lead to a positive trend for digital printing as a whole.

Mahan Hazarika: How has your production been affected?

Kuldeep Malhotra: In the wake of subsequent lockdowns, most offices are operating remotely. This has impacted the overall business in Q1. However, as things normalize, our operations will pick pace once again and things will be better from July onward.

Mahan Hazarika: How is your company adapting throughout this crisis?

Kuldeep Malhotra: The current business landscape is surrounded by uncertainties. To sail through this crisis, we are adopting cutting-edge technologies to optimize our processes and functions. As more and more businesses realize the differentiation that digital print technology is bringing to the table, we are expecting more demand from high-growth markets such as labels and packaging and commercial printing. Due to increase in short run requirement, we will meet this demand through our existing industrial production devices and production printing devices to deliver more innovative solutions to our customers in the coming months.

Mahan Hazarika: What action is Konica Minolta taking during this time to manage the crisis situation for employees and the organization?

Kuldeep Malhotra: To begin with, we have created a dedicated team in response to COVID-19, which is closely monitoring updates regarding the pandemic and ensuring that all our employees and stakeholders are adhering to government guidelines. In a bid to limit exposure to the virus, we have put strict restrictions on travel, postponed large-scale events, limited the size of office attendance and are driving safety at every step of our operations.

Moreover, we are spreading awareness around the importance of good hygiene during this critical juncture through various communication channels and also making the entire process of communication smart and transparent across teams and various leadership levels. Thanks to digital technologies that are enabling us to deliver most of the services through online means and thus ensure business continuity during a crisis like this.

Mahan Hazarika: Please tell us about the Global Rethink campaign

Kuldeep Malhotra: Rethink is our latest in-house global campaign that aimed to show how we as a brand continue to transform through innovation across our product portfolio and thereby creating longstanding relationships with existing customers.

It is Konica Minolta ‘s USP – an articulation of how we do business and how we create new value for our customers. It highlights how proactively we seek out challenges, uncover real problems, and solve them with new technologies and new ideas. In turn, this empowers our customers, and society, to “Rethink what’s possible”. Together, we Rethink today to redefine tomorrow.”