In the midst of the global pandemic, there have been bright spots; with people and organisations defying the odds, reinventing themselves and emerging from tough times stronger and better than ever.
Despite Covid-19, lockdowns and the difficulties inherent in the local trading environment and global supply chain, Epson South Africa has forged ahead with its plans to relocate its offices, open a new showroom and invest into logistics operations.
Timothy Thomas, country manager at Epson South Africa, tells Channelwise that business is getting back into something approaching a pre-Covid rhythm and Epson is benefiting from the increased demand and investment into the business during 2020.
With companies in varying degrees of lockdown for the past approximately 18 months, business printing sales declined year on year, although these are slowly picking up again as more people return to working from the office.
However, as the world’s leading provider of ink tank printers, Epson found itself well-placed to help the emerging cohort of people working and schooling from home.
During 2020, global supply chain issues saw an overall shortage of components and so the supply of many computers and computer-related products has been under pressure.
These challenges are beginning to ease, says Thomas, and with the increased demand in 2021, the pressure has been on to meet the supply stock in the short term. “In the first six months of the year we’ve been battling to meet the extra demand resulting from changed working environments.
“We’ve been fortunate that we are able to supply both office and work-from-home customers, but the pandemic has nonetheless resulted in a number of challenges. For instance, there isn’t as much inventory in the channel as we would normally expect at this time of year, with the market preparing for the key retail trading period. But there is a lot of rebuilding going on now.”
Epson is conscious of the effect of the lockdowns on its retailers, and especially the smaller players. The company’s products are available through well-known partners like Makro, Game, Incredible Connection, HiFi Corporation, Takealot as well as via a host of smaller, independent traders, and the traditional IT channel.
“Over the last few weeks we have brought additional stock into the country, which is helping our retailers and partners quickly get back on track,” Thomas says. “And, because of pent-up demand, stock is going out almost as quickly as it comes in.”
New investments in SA
The pandemic has demonstrated how a strong supply chain marks the difference between winners and losers, and now Epson South Africa has secured its supply chain by setting up its own local warehousing facility in South Africa.
Thomas explains that, in the past, Epson distributors were supplied out of Europe or the Middle East. “This could lead to challenges in terms of lead times,” he explains – a situation that has been exacerbated by Covid-19.
The local warehouse facility is set to cut delivery times from more than a month to a week, with a commensurate reduction in costs as well.
“This is a milestone achievement for Epson and a huge leap forward in improving our logistics infrastructure,” says Thomas. “We were previously only able to deliver stock in six to seven weeks, but now we can do so in just six to seven days.
The new Epson warehouse facility is located at Ashworth Logistics Park in Longlake, so it’s central for all of Epson’s distributors, who can now have product delivered straight to their warehouses.
“We are now in a position to receive stock directly from the factory,” Thomas explains. “It also provides us with the opportunity to support our distribution partners on short term unplanned sales opportunities and therefore also supporting our end customers.
He adds that the local warehouse represents a significant investment from Epson and is testament to the company’s commitment to the market both in the short term as well as longer term.
“This is a big step for us. For a long time we have been looking at prospective opportunities in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa and this warehouse will help us to achieve our goals. We will supply the whole country as well as the SADC (Southern African Development Community) from this facility.”
The warehouse currently houses 80% of Epson’s hardware, ink and supplies SKUs, and the team aims to have it fully stocked with a complete selection of products by early 2022.
Thomas explains that stock is generally on the water for around 30 days, and so the warehouse holds around 45 days’ worth of inventory to avoid any stock-out situations.
“Our distribution partners continue to play a key role in the supply chain, and our local warehousing helps them to be more efficient with their stockholding.”
So far, the response from partners has been overwhelmingly positive, Thomas says. “Partners recognise that we are improving our supply chain and committing to the local market.”
The new warehouse is just one part of the investment Epson has made over the last few months. The company has also enhanced its customer service offering by opening a dedicated large format printer showroom in Linbro Park.
The showroom features existing and upcoming commercial LFP ranges, including photo, signage, technical design, textile, sublimation, and direct-to-garment printers.
Thomas points out that LFP is a highly technical and specialist industry, so the new showroom emulates industrial environments, allowing channel partners and customers to experience Epson’s products first-hand.
The showroom can also be used for active demonstrations and to host training sessions for end-users, dealers, and distributors.
“We envision our new warehouse and LFP showroom to be welcoming environments where customers and distributors can interact with our products, and our partners can optimise their and our growth stories,” adds Thomas.
But, as they say in the classics, that’s not all: Epson has also moved into new offices in Fourways.
“In between all the challenges last year, we moved into new offices that encapsulate and promote the Japanese cultural traditions of kaizen,” says Thomas.
Kaizen is a Japanese term meaning “change for the better” or “continuous improvement”.
It informs a business philosophy regarding processes that continuously improve operations and involve all employees. Kaizen sees improvement in productivity as a gradual and methodical process.
At Epson, all employees are involved in reviewing and improving business processes from a customer satisfaction (CS) and quality standpoint.
“A lot of what we are doing in our new offices, and with the LFP showcase facility in Linbro Park, is building up to our Environmental Vision 2025,” Thomas says.
Epson’s vision is to become an indispensable company that uses its efficient, compact and precision technologies to achieve sustainability in a circular economy.
Its Environmental Vision 2050 is a framework put in place to address climate change. The company aims to do this, not only by focusing on climate protection and biodiversity, but by also looking at sustainability and the circular economy as a more comprehensive approach.
Growth in Africa
All of these signs of a growing company committed to the market demonstrate Epson’s confidence in the opportunities South Africa and southern Africa hold.
“We see tremendous growth opportunities for ourselves and our partners in South Africa and the SADC region,” Thomas says. “We are anticipating significant growth in SADC as we invest more with our local partners in those countries, and additional growth coming from the South African market as well. There are growth opportunities in both the corporate and consumer markets which Epson is well positioned to take advantage of.”
Beyond SADC, Epson is seeing pleasing growth in the East Africa region. “We are being successful in driving and delivering our Eco Tank messaging in East Africa and in other African markets.
“The technology is still fairly new to much of the continent, so we are expecting relatively fast percentage growth,” Thomas adds.
As the pioneer and leader in Eco Tank technology, Epson is prominent in promoting the growth of inkjet printing beyond the consumer space and into the commercial market.
“The Epson approach has been to bring in the new technology that challenges the status quo, and ink tank is now widely accepted across the board,” Thomas says.
“We’ve done a lot to help our partners recover from the upsets of 2020, we’ve got a lot of new products coming down the line in the second part of 2021, and we are well set up with our new offices, warehousing and LFP showcase facility,” Thomas says. “We have a lot to talk about and a lot of opportunities for partners and customers.
“These are very exciting times for Epson.”
For more information, visit Epson at www.epson.co.za