Lim Kok Hin spoke to ZDNet Asia

After talking about Jeremy Lee yesterday, I thought of Lim Kok Hin, now in Canon Singapore Pte Ltd of course.

Now, this is late. The report done by ZDNet Asia was in mid January this year. I don't remember seeing this in our local media. So, maybe you haven't read this.

Goodbye 2008, onward 2009

By Victoria Ho, ZDNet Asia

Thursday, January 15, 2009 06:12 PM

Lim Kok Hin, senior director and general manager, business imaging solutions and business solutions division, domestic, Canon Singapore

Q: What was the biggest thing that affected your company in 2008?

The financial crisis aside, 2008 was an extremely fruitful year for us.

For example, Canon's marketing department freed up 46 sq meters of workspace by employing its own technology to automating workflow and digitize documents. The number of filing cabinets in the office were reduced from 150 to 40. This space has been converted to a meeting space helping to improve staff interaction.

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Apart from cost savings of storage space, it also allowed for faster retrieval of digital documents thus increasing staff productivity. Small measures can go a long way and the potential for innovative thinking is limitless, especially in these times.

What are your plans in light of the recession?

The rapidly-unfolding global financial meltdown is a wake-up call for enterprises to take a relook at its business strategy. While there has been no direct consequence of the recession so far, it has definitely brought us even closer to understanding our customer's needs, since the price for not doing so can be quite high in these turbulent times.

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We will continue to look for and train our people to meet the needs of our customers and helping them to be more productive, as a tactical measure to ride over the crisis.

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What printing innovation are you looking forward to next year?

The way we see it, technology is beginning to have a strong impact on the traditional print industry. The dynamics of the business climate has resulted in significant growth of the digital print industry. I believe that it is the wave of the future as digital production offers a number of tangible benefits like shorter turnaround time and print runs, high color quality, flexibility and precise editing, which is what the market needs.

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Digital print technology is improving in line with the changing market landscape, which is getting increasingly crowded. The need to stand out from the clutter is greater than ever leading to frequent last minute changes on print materials. This is where digital print technology can step in and bring about a huge difference with its ability to accommodate last minute changes to suit market demands. The potential is huge and presents a world of opportunities to print service providers and that is what we look forward to in 2009.

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The biggest challenge facing IT departments is...?

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...the alignment of technology and business objectives. The competitive and now uncertain business landscape demands technology investments to be justified by business returns, and not just by what has been automated or how much has been saved. Properly understood, technology alignment is the optimum use of technology resources to build business value strategically. IT departments still grapple with this issue, and better alignment of technology to business direction will see companies making it through the tumultuous times.

Hollywood actress Christina Applegate has ignited rumors that she may marry beau Martyn Lenoble soon, after confessing her dreams of marrying again.

"You go into relationships hoping they'll last forever, so that's the hope. I was always looking for what my perfect type was, and I never really found it until now. He's an angel,”

Awh ..

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You may remember this 30 something actress on the sitcom Samantha Who? ..