Brother International Philippines believes competition makes business more exciting. And the company thinks there is still a space for one more player in the document-printing market in the country that can provide an alternative.

Toshiaki Isayama, general manager of Brother International Philippines, says in an interview with BusinessMirror that the company is employing a brotherly approach in handling customers through its motto, “At your side.”

Isayama points out that Brother needs to build better brand awareness because their competitors have been in the country for more than 10 years. This will be complemented by introducing innovative products such as the multifunction copiers.

Why does Brother think there is still room for a new printer vendor in the Philippines?

Philippine printing and imaging market is a growing market. As the economy is getting better, the demand for professional document printing and imaging increases. It is always beneficial to the consumers to have alternative choices, and so much better for them because Brother represents value for money.

Companies always say the customer is the king. What makes Brother’s “Customer First” approach unique or different from the other programs chanting the same mantra?

At Brother, we live our motto, “At your side.” This is the core of our business culture. Fundamental to this way of life is putting our customers first in all aspects of our business. To provide superior value to all our customers quickly has been our mission, and we will continue to fulfill this as we utilize our unique, self-developed technologies and state-of-the-art, global product manufacturing.

What are the reasons Brother decided to enter the Philippine market?

The Philippine market is a significant market for Brother. We are here to provide Filipino consumers and businesses a better choice to address their printing and imaging requirements.

Please expound on the benefits of Brother Philippines’ proprietary print technology to consumers.

Brother believes that in order to make our solutions affordable and within the reach of our target market, we need to develop our own proprietary technology. Just like our new single-pass color laser-print engine, we were able to design printers and multifunctions with better print quality and faster speed while still making the product price competitive.

How can the use of electrophotographic technology benefit users? What advantages does it offer?

This technology provides faster print speed and relatively better print quality.

What are the company’s plans in terms of marketing and advertising to develop awareness?

Brother Philippines has been investing in the promotion of our brand and products throughout the country through our strategic road shows and exhibits, especially in different malls nationwide. We are also focusing our efforts to introduce more new products in the country intended for different market segments to expand our market reach.

Brother Philippines said the small to medium business is an important market.

Our products are very suited for SOHO [small office, home office], workgroup and small enterprise markets. Majority of our customers belong to this segment. We believe that this market could take advantage of the solutions that Brother could offer to boost their business. Take, for example, our MFC [multifunction copiers]. Customers could avail themselves of various functions such as fax, scan, print and copy with only investing on one machine.

How does Brother Philippines plan to push its products in the enterprise or corporate level?

Brother’s corporate activities are anchored on our “balanced deployment” strategy where we provide our customers the methodology to take a closer look at their total printing and imaging needs and provide the solution to lower their TCO [total cost of ownership] and increase productivity and efficiency. Balanced deployment is simply putting print technology within the reach of their employees.

What makes you confident that Brother can climb to the No. 1 spot in the Philippines?

We are challenging ourselves to be the best we could be. In just a span of five years, Brother has made a significant impact on the retail market. With our new and innovative products and solutions, we are confident that we could be competitive in the market. We are even now considered as the main challenger to the market leaders of the MFC category.

What challenges do you see in pushing the Brother brand?

Brand awareness is one of the biggest challenges that we consider. Most of our competitors have been doing business in this country for more than 10 years and have invested considerably to promote their brands. Our marketing efforts were heavily concentrated in the Metro Manila area and we are just starting to promote in the provinces.

What security measures are installed in the products of Brother?

If we talk about printing, we have developed the “secure print function” that allows a user to print confidential documents securely in a network-shared Brother printer. The user provides a PIN number from his PC and needs to input this PIN in the printer before it will start the printing of the confidential documents.

How do you find your assignment in the Philippines?

I consider myself fortunate for having come into the Philippines. I enjoy the business and life. I feel comfortable with the lifestyle and easily get along with the culture and people.

Brotherly love

Brother International Philippines believes competition makes business more exciting. And the company thinks there is still a space for one more player in the document-printing market in the country that can provide an alternative.

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