Konica Minolta recently opened a strategic business base in France to facilitate the growth of its industrial printing business. Established as part of a global management strategy, this is Konica Minolta’s first overseas business base in its core business area, where the company will formulate medium- and long-term strategies to strengthen its industrial printing business by evaluating customer value propositions.

Konica Minolta aims to deliver new value to the industrial printing industry and expand its digital printing business by leveraging its digital technologies to meet the need for high-mix small-lot production and shorter lead time, and also by offering solutions to enhance efficiency of printing operations. Konica Minolta will seek opportunities to accelerate open innovation in this field through its existing alliance with MGI Digital Technology (MGI), a leading high value-added digital printing equipment* manufacturer based in France, and also by strengthening partnerships with a number of post-press equipment manufacturers in Europe.

Under its Mid-term Business Strategy, Konica Minolta plans to expand its business by offering new solutions in industrial printing as well as value-added services in commercial printing to achieve its target to increase the total revenue in the production print business to 360 billion yen in fiscal 2020. Especially in the label and packaging markets, various and small-lot production has become available at an accelerated pace. Placing importance on the label and packaging markets that are likely to continue to steadily grow in the future, Konica Minolta has already prepared itself to cater to the needs of this promising market with the official launch of the bizhub PRESS C71cf on-demand label printer and the AccurioJet KM-1 B2 digital inkjet press, as well as by entering into a financial and strategic alliance with MGI.