Speed.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that word.
First, there’s the obvious connection. Our partner Wayne Taylor Racing kicked off their 2017 season at the 55th Rolex 24 at Daytona, introducing the brand new No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R. In its first official race appearance, their speed and technology resulted in victory!
In fact, the WTR team of Ricky and Jordan Taylor, Max “The Ax” Angelelli and four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon won a wild sprint to the finish, grabbing an emotional Rolex 24 victory at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. Ricky Taylor made a thrilling pass for the lead with just five laps to go and 6 minutes left in the 24-hour marathon. He took the checkered flag by a .671-of-a-second margin of victory.
Speed is obviously critical to motorsports. Without it, you’ll never capture the checkered flag. To be the leader of the pack so to speak, you have to be faster than the competition. You also have to make split-second decisions, take measured risks to pass the field. You can’t hold back and expect to win. It’s literally pedal to the metal.
Speed is also critical in business. In order to not only survive but thrive, a company must be agile. The decision-making process must be quick. Being first to market is imperative.
I look to Konica Minolta’s history of innovation as the perfect example of this. Our technology helped make both Apollo lunar missions and Mir space station missions possible. Our technology helped the world listen to music on CD players.
Today, our print production and industrial print technology are the first in class to operate at high speeds and graphic art quality, thus opening new revenue streams for our customers. Today, our innovative technology helps our customers work remotely, efficiently and collaboratively. Today, we are shaping The Workplace of the Future.™
I am particularly proud of this portfolio because it expands our expertise and thought leadership into new areas. While our core competencies remain information management, technology services and cloud services, we are creating disruption in the traditional office environment.
We are redefining what it means to “work.” We are developing the tools essential for employees to work smarter, more productively and more collaboratively from anywhere, at any time.
We are industry leaders; we are redefining technology because we are fearless. We are the first to innovate. We are the first to look outside our core competencies and draw parallels across industries and across innovation. We can connect the dots from our beginnings more than 100 years ago to our future 100 years from now with the certainty that we will continue to make bold breakthroughs and bold decisions.
Being bold means having the speed to market. But, it doesn’t mean that we take unnecessary risks. It doesn’t mean that we are irresponsible. On the contrary. Our business decisions are predicated on calculable risk paired with return on investment. Just as a race car driver makes the split-second decision to slingshot past an opponent and take the lead, we pass the competition through our decisions to invest, incubate and improve our portfolio. We are determined to harness our speed to be the best in everything that we do. I believe we accomplish that.
Our confidence and speed have reshaped what’s possible.
(PHOTO: 24 Hours of Daytona, Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, FL. , January 2017. Brian Cleary/bcpix.com)
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