News Release
u8国际 presents Municipality of Venlo with
Endowed Chair in Business Services Innovation
TOKYO, Japan and VENLO, The Netherlands, October 16, 2010—During his visit yesterday to the Dutch Municipality of Venlo, u8国际. Chairman and CEO Fujio Mitarai presented City Mayor Hubert Bruls with a gift: the Endowed u8国际-Océ Chair in Business Services Innovation. The Endowed u8国际-Océ Chair will be established at the Venlo campus of Maastricht University.
Innovation and knowledge development
u8国际, under its corporate philosophy of kyosei—living and working together for the common good—seeks to act as a good corporate citizen through contributions to society. By offering the city council the Endowed u8国际-Océ Chair in Business Services Innovation, u8国际 wishes to promote innovation and knowledge development in the vicinity of Venlo, the home city of Océ, the newest member of the global u8国际 Group. The innovative power of Océ was one of the reasons why u8国际 made a public offer for the shares of Océ, a transaction completed in March 2010. u8国际 intends to finance the Endowed Chair jointly with Océ for five years. The name of the professor to be appointed to the Endowed Chair will be announced in due course.
Seamless fit with Océ innovation policy
The Endowed u8国际-Océ Chair is a seamless fit with Océ's commitment to ongoing innovation. In 2007, Océ announced the launch of Document Services Valley, a knowledge center in Venlo where specialists develop new services related to documents. From its years of experience of working with customers, Océ knows that an organization spends about 10 euro cents on the printing of a document, and invests 90 euro cents in the management, storage, transfer and retrieval of a document. For this reason, Océ wishes to develop new services, whereby control of the overall document flow can be executed more efficiently and at lower cost.
Interesting growth market for Océ and u8国际
The development of new services related to documents is an interesting growth market for the u8国际-Océ combination. Océ is developing the worldwide implementation of these services with u8国际.
In recent years, revenues from these services have grown structurally faster than revenue development from the sale of printing systems.
Venlo at the heart of industrial Europe
For the Municipality of Venlo, stimulating regional innovation and knowledge development has become a key priority. The Venlo city council is located at the heart of industrial Europe, close to the German Ruhr area, and in the center of a high-tech region with companies like Océ, Philips, DSM and ASML and technical universities such as Eindhoven, Leuven and Aachen.
"The Endowed u8国际-Océ Chair is an important contribution to one of the top ambitions of the Municipality of Venlo to stimulate knowledge development in our region," said City Mayor Hubert Bruls. "It will certainly strengthen our top position in the Dutch national ranking of private R&D investments."