Konica Minolta 2013 Annual Report Download - page 5

With the eurozone economy entering into negative
growth due to the impact of the European debt issue and
the emerging nation economies that have driven
international economic growth behaving sluggishly,
challenging conditions persisted in the manufacturing
industry in FY March 2013. The Konica Minolta Group
achieved increased revenue and operating income by
aggressively pursuing M&As in growth fi elds and
increasing sales of core products in each business in
accordance with the strategy of the Medium Term
Business Plan GPLAN 2013, which launched in FY
March 2012 with the keyword of “Growth.” Nevertheless,
the operating income for the Business Technologies
Business saw a year-on-year decrease and we were
unable to achieve the income target we initially set forth.
One factor was that our scenario of balancing increased
costs due to investment in the transformation of business
operations with production cost reductions and
increased income from expanded sales of core products
did not develop as expected.
Meanwhile, initiatives for mid-to-long-term growth
developed smoothly. Specifi cally, we promoted strategies
aimed at expanding the scope of our business such as
M&As and strategic partnerships in growth areas.
In the Business Technologies Business, customer
needs are progressively diversifying and becoming more
sophisticated and the provision of document and IT-
related value-added services is becoming a requirement
in addition to hardware and maintenance support.
Accordingly, in the offi ce fi eld, we proceeded with the
M&As of U.S. and European IT service providers and
strengthened our capability to propose business process
improvements to the customer. As a result, we are
steadily expanding sales of multifunctional peripherals
(MFPs) as we transform our existing business model in
ways such as increasing sales of IT services packaged
with MFPs.
In the production print fi eld, in Japan and Korea we
acquired prominent service providers with strong track
records in on-demand output services, and in Europe we
acquired companies with solid performance in print
management services. These acquisitions will strengthen
our sales, service, and solution proposal capabilities in
the in-house printing market and capture the mass-
quantity printing needs of businesses.
As a result, the effects of the M&As are steadily
becoming apparent. For example, we have received an
order for a large project from a major Japanese
corporation that recognized the originality of our package
proposals including output services.
In the Industrial Business, we carried out an M&A in
Europe and bolstered our competitive strengths in the light
source color measurement domain in the measurement
instrument fi eld, with the aim of shifting our focus to
business that can maintain stable and high profi tability,
such as in the industrial and professional fi elds.
The transformation from an analogue to a digital
business structure proceeded in the Healthcare
Business, and we achieved substantially increased
year-on-year income. In order to further expand the scale
of this business, we are actively promoting measures
such as strengthening strategic partnerships with sales
partners that have extensive international sales networks.
Furthermore, we saw steady progress in the
cultivation of new business that will create future sources
of revenue. Initiatives progressed in growth fi elds such as
the industrial inkjet business, with the launch of a high-
end inkjet printer for textile print on demand applications
in which we lead the market.
With regards to the functional fi lm business, we
achieved several technical breakthroughs in the ongoing
development in organic light emitting diode (OLED)
lighting and advanced with preparations for mass
production in order to build on the TAC fi lm and create
new business fi elds.
In order to respond promptly to a constantly
changing business climate and generate strong growth
while beating global competition, the Konica Minolta
Group reorganized its administrative structure. Konica
Minolta Holdings, Inc., which was previously the non-
operating holding company of the Group, merged with
seven affi liated Group companies and changed its trade
name to Konica Minolta, Inc.
In FY March 2014, which marks the fi nal year of
“GPLAN 2013,” we will steadily promote the three basic
policies of “Achieving strong growth, expanding business
scale,” “Changing into a ‘Global Company’” and
“Increasing the recognition of the Konica Minolta brand,”
with the goal of soundly achieving increased revenues.
I would once again like to ask for the ongoing
support of our stockholders and investors as the Konica
Minolta Group aims for continuous strong growth
through the creation of new value.
August 2013
Masatoshi Matsuzaki
President and CEO
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