Worldwide Penta-Polar Structure with five regional centres to develop services and products focused on local markets and customers

Singapore - Konica Minolta, Inc. launched its new Asia Pacific Business Innovation Centre (BIC) in Singapore today. 

The centre in Singapore is one of the five BICs the Company plans to establish around the world to facilitate and accelerate the growth of its Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services business.  The function of the BIC is to initiate, support and manage new business and technology development, as well as to incubate new ICT service businesses for Konica Minolta. The BIC will manage the entire lifecycle of service development and incubation activities, from ideation, proof-of-concepts and pilot programs to business development and actual business deployment activities. 

Using the open service innovation concept, the BIC in Singapore will be working with customers and collaboration partners ranging from solution providers, start-ups, research institutions, as well as crowdsourcing channels to develop and incubate new services for the Asia Pacific region. The centre is currently in close discussions with Singapore's Institute for Infocomm Research (I²R), a member of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) family on collaboration opportunities.

The BIC's activities will complement Konica Minolta's Research and Development (R&D) in the creation of new service businesses.  Konica Minolta currently has R&D centres in Japan and USA, focusing on fields of imaging, optics, materials and nano-fabrication to create new values to the existing business fields of business technologies, healthcare, measuring instruments, and industrial materials.

"The decision to locate the Asia Pacific BIC in Singapore underscores Konica Minolta's confidence in Singapore as an attractive hub for Asia Pacific regional innovation activities.  Singapore's central location in one of the world's most dynamic, high-growth regions, combined with its vibrant innovation community, strong infrastructure and support network, make it an ideal choice to locate our Asia Pacific innovation centre," said Mr Yuji Ichimura, General Manager, ICT Service Business Operations, Konica Minolta, Inc.  

Applauding the move, Mr Terence Gan, Director of Electronics at the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) said, "We are glad that Konica Minolta has chosen Singapore to locate its Asia Pacific BIC, the company's first in the world. This is a good example of how global companies like Konica Minolta find value in our ICT capabilities to co-innovate and develop cloud-based solutions that can be scaled and exported globally. Through collaborations with our local research institutions and solution providers, we are confident that Konica Minolta will benefit from the multi-disciplinary R&D capabilities Singapore has to offer."

"In the initial phase, the Asia Pacific BIC will be focusing on development of cloud-based service offerings such as software-as-a-service (SaaS) and business process-as-a-service (BPaaS) to add to Konica Minolta's Intelligent Office service offering.  The centre will also be working closely with customers to develop industry-specific cloud-based solutions. By providing the services through the Konica Minolta cloud infrastructure, Konica Minolta will deliver the economies of scale, savings and agility to the customers," said Ms Rachel Goh, Director, Business Innovation Centre, Asia Pacific, Konica Minolta, Inc.

To mark the announcement of Konica Minolta Asia Pacific BIC, the company is initiating an Ideation Challenge to crowdsource ideas. Interested parties can refer to the following website for details:

https://www.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/9933521