Guest Speak of this Month : Andrew Koh, Senior Director, Imaging Communication Products Group, Canon India Pvt. Ltd

Andrew Koh, Senior Director, Imaging Communication Products Group, Canon India Pvt. Ltd

I have worked with Canon for 16 years – the first 15 years have been in Singapore and the last one year in India. During my stint at Canon, I have had the opportunity to handle many different products. I started with microfilms, scanners, before moving on to inkjet printers and digital cameras. It has been a very interesting journey with Canon and had worked on exciting projects.

As a Senior Director of the Imaging Communication Products Group, how do you promote the DSLR segment in the country?

Canon’s DSLR business in India is growing at a very fast pace. It witnessed about 30-per cent growth in 2013. As the world’s No. 1 DSLR manufacturer, Canon is playing an integral part in promoting photography and photo culture. To further solidify the DSLR category, we, at Canon, have devised extensive growth plans and strategy of realigning the brand imagery of moving it from a niche to a mass market category to achieve stronger sustained annual growth to double the size of this market in the next three years.

To reach out to Tier-II and Tier-III cities, we are expanding our Canon Image Squares where we showcase our Canon digital imaging technologies. Currently, we have about 107 stores in India, but we have set a target of 150 stores by the end of year 2014 with majority of the upcoming stores planned in the Tier-II and Tier-III cities.

What kind of an association do you enjoy with the Channel?

Channel partners are very important for our business and we do not treat them as customers but rather as our partners. It is a hand-in-hand relationship because for them to do well, we will have to do well. They are key people to us in driving business and my association with the Channel has been a very cordial one.

Besides IT, what are your other areas of interest?

In his leisure time, Andrew enjoys reading and playing golf. He follows many sports like NBA basketball, football, tennis and rugby and is also a keen collector of stamps. If I had not been working with Canon, I would have loved to become a golf player. I would have even loved to go into academics and become a teacher. I have an admiration for this profession, but somehow it did not click with me.