Langenhagen, Germany, 6 September 2018
Leading office & IT solutions provider Konica Minolta, Inc. (Konica Minolta) and innovation service provider Zühlke have announced their partnership to support the development of new products for Konica Minolta’s Workplace of the Future™ vision. As part of the technology giant’s corporate strategy to become a platform-led, data-centric business, Konica Minolta will look to Zühlke to play a key part in advising how to utilise digital technologies to provide sustainable customer solutions across the workplace.
With an R&D strategy focused on providing holistic solutions to the challenges that come with digitalisation, Konica Minolta are actively partnering with leading pioneers. Such collaborations ensure that Konica Minolta continues to create concepts that reflect the Japanese company’s strong heritage of innovation, alongside accurately fulfilling customer’s future needs and wants. Gerald Brose, Director of Business Development at Zühlke, comments, “For us, Konica Minolta is a very exciting business as its driving innovation. The speed with which they initiate and realise development is hugely impressive. It’s a perfect fit with our philosophy and our way of doing things.”
Ranging from the generation and evaluation of new product ideas and business models, to consultation on technical implementation and operations, the partnership with Zühlke is a natural progression of a close working relationship between the two companies. “We have drawn on Zühlke’s expertise on many occasions, not only through supporting our innovation team in the technical development of prototypes, but also receiving valuable input regarding business models and feasibility concepts,” explains Jérôme-Etienne Zastrow, Portfolio Extension Manager, Digital Workplace R&D at Konica Minolta.
One project Zühlke has already supported Konica Minolta with is the collaboration around a proposed multi-functional workplace tool currently referred to as ‘Spoke’, as part of the disruptive Workplace Hub portfolio. Zastrow explains: “With the ‘Spoke’ concept we are looking at creating an all-in-one IT platform for the business traveller, exploring and blurring the traditional boundaries for those working outside the traditional physical office. Thus, we required a visionary partner for the technical implementation of this product and Zühlke were invaluable with their support”. Looking to the future, Konica Minolta and Zühlke are already working on new ideas for untouched areas.
About Konica Minolta, Inc.
Konica Minolta, Inc. is a global technology company which provides innovative solutions to support the development of businesses and society. With its strengths in the combination of its core technologies in advanced imaging, optics, sensing, materials and nano-processing, Konica Minolta is committed to creating new values that help customers address challenges in their business operations and work processes. With advanced expertise in digital technologies, the company has transformed itself into a provider of end-to-end digital solutions: One Konica Minolta in the era of the Internet of Things (IoT). Konica Minolta is also active in open innovation through various partnerships and alliances with academic, industrial and business partners.
Headquartered in Tokyo, Konica Minolta Group employs more than 43,000 people in 50 countries and offers products and services in more than 150 countries around the world.
About Zühlke
Zühlke is a service provider for innovation projects. By combining both business and technology expertise, the company creates solutions that satisfy its’ customers. Zühlke develops financially successful products, services and business models for today’s digital world – from coming up with the initial idea through to the implementation and operation. This is achieved by drawing on the experience of over 1000 in-house experts and of more than 10,000 successful projects.
The Zühlke Group has local teams in Austria, Germany, Hongkong, Serbia, Switzerland, Singapore and the United Kingdom. In 2017, Zühlke generated CHF 154 million (DE: EUR 138 million UK: £121 million) in revenue.
About Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe
Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH, based in Langenhagen, Germany, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Konica Minolta Inc., Tokyo, Japan. Konica Minolta enables its clients to champion the digital era: with its unique imaging expertise and data processing capabilities, Konica Minolta creates relevant solutions for its customers and solves issues faced by society. As a provider of comprehensive IT services, Konica Minolta delivers consultancy and services to optimise business processes with workflow automation and implements solutions in the field of IT infrastructure and IT security as well as cloud environments. According to IDC, Konica Minolta is a “Major Player in Workflow Services Hardcopy in the Western European market” (2016). Being a strong partner for the production and industrial printing market, Konica Minolta offers business consulting, state-of-the-art technology and software and, in 2016, was the production printing market leader for the ninth consecutive year (InfoSource). The hardware portfolio covers light and mid production as well as industrial printing machines. Konica Minolta Marketing Services provides value added services that intelligently link print and digital marketing in an effective and efficient way. In the healthcare sector, Konica Minolta drives digitalisation of clinical workflows and offers a broad range of next-level diagnostic solutions. Through its Business Innovation Centre in London and four R&D laboratories in Europe, Konica Minolta brings innovation forward by collaborating with its customers as well as academic, industrial and entrepreneurial partners. Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe is represented by subsidiaries and distributors in more than 80 countries in Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. With over 9,880 employees (as of March 2017), Konica Minolta Europe earned net sales of over EUR 2.4 billion in financial year 2016/17.
For more information, please visit http://newsroom.konicaminolta.eu/ and follow Konica Minolta on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter @KonicaMinoltaEU.
For further information about the company, please visit: www.konicaminolta.eu.
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