Keeping Consumer at the Centre of Innovations

The Covid-19 pandemic has pinned the imaging industry down for more than a year, eroding revenues, and affecting livelihoods. With firm foundations in imaging and healthcare, Fujifilm has tactfully weathered many crises in the past. Here is Haruto Iwata, Managing Director, Fujifilm India, sharing the company’s strategies with the readers of Smart Photography.

- Sujith Gopinath

The world is dealing with a pandemic without an ending in sight and businesses have been seriously affected. How has Fujifilm consumer imaging division dealt with this situation so far?

At Fujifilm, we have always believed in offering a holistic customer experience strategy. However, due to the onset of the Covid-19 situation, the consumer behaviour has drastically changed from what they value, how and where they shop, and how they live and work. In response to the pandemic, we have been continuously adapting our business practices in order to safeguard our people, as well as continue to serve our customers, many of which are powering critical operations in the fields of healthcare and technology.

With the world staying connected digitally, we at Fujifilm have also been leveraging the digital platforms to stay connected with our consumers, by organising online workshops on our social media channels, Q&A sessions like ‘Rendezvous’ with professional photographers on Instagram and ‘Pathshala’ and ‘Roobaru’ on YouTube, to help our consumers learn key insights and train with professionals. With a commitment to offer an immersive experience, we have launched various imaging innovations like X-T4, GFX100S and X-E4 virtually since last year and became the first brand in the industry to modify its product launch strategy during these times. This year, we also associated with India Film Project and organised a multicity campaign called ‘X Stories of India’ which aimed at encouraging young millennial vloggers to unleash their video-making skills through innovative content which were exclusively promoted on our social media platforms. Additionally, we have been running online oneon-one demo sessions for our customers to offer them a retail experience virtually.