Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2009 in the subject Business economics - Operations Research, grade: 1,3, Munich University of Applied Sciences, course: Strategice Management, language: English, abstract: In 1965 Canon Inc. started out as a company with a handful of employees and a great vision. Now it is a global multimedia corporation with the revenue of about 50 billion USD and 167 thousand employees. Although the company had a very strong financial performance and broad brand recognition over the last years, Canon is now facing an immense competition in all business unit segments. The current financial crisis and the forecasted decrease in demand for the office electronics market and for the photography market put additional strong pressure on the Japanese electronics giant. Falling prices in the camera segment and strong global competitors capable to operate at low costs make the operating environment very challenging and leads to price wars. New evolving trends such as tendency to the paperless status in offices and the capability of mobile phones to take pictures represent considerable threats for the company’s revenue. In order to outperform the competition the company should re-allocate its resources concentrating on the business units which are more attractive and less competitive. Canons business is spread up into two cash cows (Business Machines and Cameras) and one cash hog (Optical and other products) in the moment. With regard to the segment Optical and other products Canon can boost its performance when focusing its investment on the growing market of multimedia projectors. With regard to the segments which were very profitable over the last year, in light of the very intense competition, the company should take into account evolving trends and slowly move its resources from printers and copiers to full business solutions for offices which will become more profitable in long run.
