Professor Jos Lemmink highlights rising returns on services innovation during installation to Canon-Océ Endowed Chair

Venlo, The Netherlands, - "Services innovation is essential for advanced economies as more than 70% of their GDP is generated by services." This was the thrust of the keynote speech given by Professor Jos Lemmink during his installation in Venlo today as the first incumbent of the Canon-Océ Endowed Chair for Business Services Innovation.

Opening of Document Services Valley Open Innovation Center
Professor Lemmink, Dean of the School of Business and Economics at Maastricht University, was installed at a symposium marking the opening of the Open Innovation Center of Document Services Valley (DSV). The event was attended by Ryoichi Bamba, President & CEO Canon Europe, Middle East & Africa, representing Canon Inc. Chairman and CEO Fujio Mitarai.

Promoting innovation and knowledge development
On 15 October 2010, the Canon Chairman presented the Canon-Océ Endowed Chair for Business Services Innovation to the Municipality of Venlo, during his visit to Mayor Hubert Bruls. The Endowed Chair underlines the wish of Canon to promote innovation and knowledge development in the vicinity of Venlo, the home city of Océ.

'Services innovation drives stakeholder value'
The importance of business services innovation was emphasized by various speakers at today's event, attended by approximately 200 invitees. "The innovation of business services creates value for customers, employees, business owners, alliance partners and communities," said Professor Lemmink in his speech.

By 2015, revenues of € 100 million anticipated
The installation of the first professor to the Chair was part of a symposium that opened the Open Innovation Center of DSV, a joint initiative powered by Océ, Maastricht University and Exser, the Dutch center for service innovation. DSV provides an open innovation environment, leveraging an elaborate network of companies, centers and educational institutions. The objective is to host 600 knowledge workers and generate € 100 million in revenues by 2015. DSV will also develop master classes, courses and education tracks. Hundreds of students will be trained each year.

Dutch government subsidy for new Business Services School
On behalf of the Dutch government, Secretary General Chris Buijink of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation today granted a special subsidy of € 269,181 for the new Business Services School, part of the DSV initiative. More subsidies for this project from co-funding partners are expected. A new postgraduate Executive Master of Science in Business Services program focusing on client services is part of the educational offering of the school. The course design for this new initiative is being developed in consultation with the initiating companies of Canon, Océ, ASML, Philips, Vanderlande and two cooperating business schools: the Rotterdam School of Management Erasmus University and Maastricht University School of Business and Economics, jointly developing a new degree for professionals in business services. The program is expected to start in September 2012.

Only 10% of printing industry is currently digital
Today, at the opening of DSV in Venlo, Anton Schaaf, member of the Océ Board of Executive Directors and Chief Technology and Operations Officer, commented in his speech on the outlook for the digital printing industry. Taking into account the significant emergence of mobile digital devices, he noted that only 10% of the printing industry is currently digital, the remainder analogue. He anticipates acceleration of digitalization of the printing industry in years to come. Furthermore, only 10% of document cost is in printing, while the remainder is in managing documents through their entire life cycle in an organization.

Océ expects to strongly increase current services revenues
Therefore, when adding document management services to their portfolio, companies like Océ are opening up additional customer revenue potential that is approximately four times that of the original printing revenues. Schaaf anticipates that Océ will strongly increase services revenues, both through organic growth and acquisitions.