Environmental & Social Information • Oct 18, 2010
Environmental & Social Information
Open in ViewerOpens in native device viewer
Tokyo, Japan; Venlo, The Netherlands, 15 October 2010 — During his visit today to the Dutch Municipality of Venlo, Canon Inc. Chairman and CEO Fujio Mitarai presented City Mayor Hubert Bruls with a gift: the Endowed Canon-Océ Chair in Business Services Innovation. The Endowed Canon-Océ Chair will be established at the Venlo campus of Maastricht University.
Canon, under its corporate philosophy of kyosei – living and working together for the common good – seeks to act as a good corporate citizen through contributions to society. By offering the city council the Endowed Canon-Océ Chair in Business Services Innovation, Canon wishes to promote innovation and knowledge development in the vicinity of Venlo, the home city of Océ, the newest member of the global Canon Group. The innovative power of Océ was one of the reasons why Canon made a public offer for the shares of Océ, a transaction completed in March 2010. Canon intends to finance the Endowed Chair jointly with Océ for five years. The name of the professor to be appointed to the Endowed Chair will be announced in due course.
The Endowed Canon-Océ Chair is a seamless fit with Océ's commitment to ongoing innovation. In 2007, Océ announced the launch of Document Services Valley, a knowledge center in Venlo where specialists develop new services related to documents. From its years of experience of working with customers, Océ knows that an organization spends about 10 euro cents on the printing of a document, and invests 90 euro cents in the management, storage, transfer and retrieval of a document. For this reason, Océ wishes to develop new services, whereby control of the overall document flow can be executed more efficiently and at lower cost.
The development of new services related to documents is an interesting growth market for the Canon-Océ combination. Océ is developing the worldwide implementation of these services with Canon.
In recent years, revenues from these services have grown structurally faster than revenue development from the sale of printing systems.
For the Municipality of Venlo, stimulating regional innovation and knowledge development has become a key priority. The Venlo city council is located at the heart of industrial Europe, close to the German Ruhr area, and in the center of a high-tech region with companies like Océ, Philips, DSM and ASML and technical universities such as Eindhoven, Leuven and Aachen.
"The Endowed Canon-Océ Chair is an important contribution to one of the top ambitions of the Municipality of Venlo to stimulate knowledge development in our region," said City Mayor Hubert Bruls. "It will certainly strengthen our top position in the Dutch national ranking of private R&D investments."
Mrs Jacqueline Lenterman Citigate First Financial Tel. +31 20 575 40 22 / Mobile +31 6 46179731 e-mail [email protected]
Mr Nick Gale Manager Media Relations Tel. +31 77 359 5628 e-mail [email protected]
Canon Inc., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leader in the fields of professional and consumer imaging equipment and information systems. Canon's extensive range of products includes copying machines, inkjet and laser printers, cameras, video equipment, medical equipment and semiconductor-manufacturing equipment. Originally established in 1937 as Precision Optical Industry, Co., Ltd., a camera manufacturer, Canon has successfully diversified and globalized to become a worldwide industry leader in professional and consumer imaging systems and solutions. With over 190,000 employees worldwide, Canon has manufacturing and marketing subsidiaries in Japan, the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania; and a global R&D network with companies based in the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia. Canon's consolidated net sales for fiscal 2009 (ended December 31, 2009) totalled \$34.9 billion (at an exchange rate of ¥92 = US\$1). For more information visit www.canon.com/index.html
Océ is one of the leading providers of document management and printing for professionals. The Océ offering includes office printing and copying systems, high speed digital production printers and wide format printing systems for both technical documentation and color display graphics. Océ is also a foremost supplier of document management outsourcing. Many of the Fortune Global 500 companies and leading commercial printers are Océ customers. The company was founded in 1877. With headquarters in The Netherlands Océ is active in over 100 countries and employs some 22,000 people worldwide. Total revenues in 2009 amounted to €2.6 billion. Océ is listed on Euronext in Amsterdam. For more information visit www.oce.com
Building tools?
Free accounts include 100 API calls/year for testing.
Have a question? We'll get back to you promptly.