From imaging innovation to healthcare facilities: Fujifilm's journey to success

Fujifilm has been a pioneer in providing imaging solutions across the globe. With over 85 years of rich experience, it has not just been a key player of the global imaging business, but has also helped shape the industry through its timely and relevant innovations.

Laying the foundation
In the early 2000s, Fujifilm, led by its Chairman Shigetaka Komori, reacted quickly to the steep decrease in demand for colour-film business and brought some fundamental reforms with the vision to thrive as a leading enterprise. Driven by the simple but profound goal of creating meaningful advancements, Fujifilm reinvented itself as a one-stop solution provider in the imaging specialty. The company revamped itself by reimagining the six businesses — digital imaging, optical devices, highly functional material, graphic systems, document solutions and healthcare.


Over the years, India has emerged amongst the best performing regions for Fujifilm, with its primary focus in offering healthcare solutions through AI and IoT. The medical imaging technology business forms the company’s core growth driver in India, contributing more than 50 per cent to its business. The brand has re-imagined its imaging offerings and businesses in the country by striving to provide Indian consumers with the best products and services in the imaging space. It is known to be a leading player in the medical imaging and diagnostics equipment industry.

Experiential stores
The company’s range of Instax products and printing solutions brings back the culture of printing and sharing moments in innovative format. The Wonder Photo Shop and Fujifilm print services are doing well as consumers today are always looking for something new. The Instax segment, with Bollywood actor Alia Bhatt as its brand ambassador since June, has seen healthy growth in sales.

Improving user experience was also a core aspect of Fujifilm’s innovation, which led to the launch of its experiential stores called ‘Wonder Photo Shops’, in Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad, that allow customers to rediscover the joys of old-fashioned photography by browsing through its high-end cameras, instant cameras, and print photos in different shapes, sizes and formats.

Never stop theme

Speaking about the curve, Fujifilm’s Managing Director, Haruto Iwata said, “India is one of the fastest growing markets for us and we are eyeing a double-digit growth every year from now. We have marked the growth steadily to make our presence felt across the nation. We have recently launched the Never Stop campaign in India. We wanted to shed light on the brand’s imaging expertise, unwavering innovation drive and the urge to solve social challenges in India, that makes it different in this competitive landscape. Given the interesting concept of ‘Never Stop’, we thought of creating a film that builds a strong emotional connect with the audience and resonates with the brand. The film captures Fujifilm’s legacy and commitment of introducing innovative products and services and further highlights its belief that one should never stop believing, innovating, changing and challenging.”

The innovators of healthcare
Fujifilm has established a rich legacy of innovation and has shaped the healthcare experience for hundreds and millions of patients around the world. The brand has been continuously innovating best-in-class diagnostic imaging and information systems for healthcare facilities. Fujifilm has innovated a vast portfolio of products to choose from, which includes mammography machines, endoscopy systems, digital radiography systems, retrofit detectors, mobile X-ray machines, local X-ray machines, IVD and healthcare IT synapse.

Chander Shekhar Sibal, Head of Medical Business, Fujifilm India, adds, “Fujifilm India sees healthcare as the biggest opportunity in India and it is not just selling products but solutions as well. The offerings range from hospital information systems to its medical imaging and information system. This also comprises how the company’s new Artificial Intelligencepowered diagnostic solution Reilli can really help radiologists in India with their imaging work flow. Our strength lies in the fact that we have always been an imaging technology company.”

Photo imaging
Fujifilm is capitalising on getting photo albums back into the lives of its consumers. It is recognised as one of the world’s best photo printing brands, especially wedding photos, which are a big bet in India. Currently, smaller photo studios are meeting this demand. In India, the photographic imaging core is still part of the company’s narrative. When Fujifilm made its first foray in India in 2007, the wedding album business had tremendous scope at the time.

Centhil Nathan, Head - Photo Imaging Business, Fujifilm India, said, “At Fujifilm, we are constantly committed towards expanding the world of printing in India due to the growth of the smartphone and photo enthusiastic younger generation. Also, sharing printed photographs has been gaining a lot of interest among consumers. The important thing is experience and we want the customer to experience the ‘wow’ factor from Fujifilm Photo Imaging products.”

Growing mirrorless

The imaging major Fujifilm is also looking at seizing opportunities in the fast-growing mirrorless camera segment. Over the years, the X series has continued to break new ground, improving and expanding the photography experience with each new camera. Fujifilm’s range of X and GFX series cameras not only cater to wedding photography but also to street, lifestyle, travel photography amongst other genres. The GFX range of cameras is best for commercial and fashion photography.

Arun Babu, Head Digital Camera & Optical Lens Business, Fujifilm India, said, “As one of the leading imaging brands in the country, it is our constant endeavour to nurture the emerging photography culture in the country. This landmark innovation opened up a world of possibilities for professionals everywhere and signalled the start of industry-firsts and trailblazing technologies that continue to empower photographers. We at Fujifilm believe in ‘Akiramenai’ — that means to never give up and always give our best in achieving goals.”

Art of graphic arts
Print and packaging are the first things that attract consumers. Fujifilm maintains direct contact with consumers through its already established sales network in India, which is open to working with new partners to reach out to various consumer segments, such as digital and wide format presses. The company has already crossed 100 units of Acuity installations in India. The Acuity range of printers has been a success with their speed, quality and precision in work. Moreover, they are energy efficient and much kinder to the environment.

SM Ramprasad, Head- Graphic Arts Business, Fujifilm India, said, “We are looking at capitalising the advantage India offers for the printing sector. We manufacture environmental friendly products and solutions for various printing applications for both conventional as well as digital printers across commercial/packaging/ newspaper/graphic sign markets. The Indian market sees the expansion, especially in the packaging segment, retail merchandising space and print on demand segments, which are not only growing the fastest in the print market but also adopting the latest technologies.”

Recording media and industrial products
Fujifilm has set the benchmarks for computer data storage, professional video production and TV broadcasting. Whether recording dramatic footage or safeguarding corporate data, our products assure reliability backed by continuous innovation.

Solomon Sukumar, Head – RM & IP Business Fujifilm India, said, “The demand for data storage has been increasing exponentially with a year-on-year growth of 50 per cent and is further expected to reach 163ZB by 2025 globally. Being a leader in tape technology, we are far ahead in producing multiterabyte data storage capacity LTO’s tape with the patent ‘BaFe’ technology. Fujifilm’s imaging expertise goes far beyond photography. It ranges from the testing equipment using digital X-ray technology to find defects, pre-scale to enable visual confirmation of physical pressure, microfilm solutions for long-term archiving, to micro filters ensuring precise filtering with our proprietary microporous membranes.”

The company aims to combine its original technology with human resources, expertise and technology from around the world both internally and externally to create innovation.

Navneet Ahluwalia, Head Human Resource and Administration, Fujifilm India, said, “It is significant to create an environment where diverse human resources can maximise their abilities. To achieve this, we follow a particular approach — the ‘Fujifilm Way’— creating new values to strengthen the mind of our resources. Our approach constitutes of two main aspects — the Fujifilm Mind and the Fujifilm Method. The Fujifilm Mind defines our employee’s basic code of being and the Fujifilm Method is the foundation of the work method. This core work cycle concept is defined as the ‘See-Think-Plan-Do’, which means collecting information and analysing data before starting with the action plan.”

Taking the company’s ‘Never Stop evolving’ belief, Fujifilm has recently launched a new office in Bengaluru. The vision has always been to provide an open, fair and clear workplace culture that allows individuals to ascertain their objectives sincerely, make rational decisions, and continuously take on challenges with courage. With this new set-up, the company is offering a collaborative and efficient workspace that reflects its style of business and boosts productivity, helping the firm grow.

The next chapter of the innovation story will continue. But one thing is for sure — Fujifilm will continue to develop meaningful breakthroughs to ascertain the needs of its consumers. Its strategy is to be a company that creates a change.