Canon South Africa’s Managing Director David Preston is a strong believer that empowering those around you will lead to a sustainable operation
Canon South Africa has been in existence as a full subsidiary of Canon Europe and Canon Inc. for just over two decades.
It is Canon’s only full sales, marketing, and service operation in Africa, with representative offices dotted around the continent.
Canon South Africa, which is home to over 180 employees, covers most of the SADC region with the sale of photo, video, and office equipment products.
The full sales, servicing, logistics, and warehousing operation is based in South Africa and the entity services business-to-business and business-to-consumer channels.
At the helm of Canon South Africa is Managing Director David Preston, an experienced sales, marketing, and operations director with an excellent track record across emerging and developing markets in–Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
After a tough start to the financial year—which runs from January to December at Canon South Africa—Preston is buoyant about what is to come as we enter Q4 of 2024, as the post-election optimism continues to produce wins within the South African economy.
“There’s a bit of momentum starting to build and as long as nothing goes wrong, and nothing on an international level impacts South Africa specifically, then I think by the time we get to the end of 2024, the region will be in a much healthier place than it was at the beginning of the year,” Preston, who joined Canon South Africa in 2020, explains.
“In the retail part of our business, the traditional sales period of the Festive Season, preceded by the Black Friday sales period will provide a further boost. I think that together with some of the products launched by Canon earlier this year on the business-to-business side, particularly in the production print area, I am optimistic for the rest of the year. I sense that optimism when talking to colleagues outside of Canon’s business, too.”
From a strategic point of view, we asked Preston how Canon South Africa ensures that it stays top of mind with South African consumers and businesses. While he admits that the market remains congested and very competitive in all aspects, key to the Canon South Africa approach is using digital channels to ensure they remain within the conversation of consumers, while promotions, educational videos, and online training sessions keep the Canon name topical.
“We also do a lot of promotional work with our retail partners and events. There’s an event currently being hosted in Sandton called, ‘Women in Print’, where we have a number of staff speaking on behalf of Canon about the role of women in the print industry, which is something which we support avidly in terms of our diversity and inclusion agenda,” Preston continues.
“We will also be hosting a Golf Day, (under the umbrella title ‘Driving forward’) later this year, where we will invite our partners to not only collaborate with us, but to collaborate with each other. We will take the opportunity to promote Canon and in the case of this Golf Day, it is all about our sustainability and showcasing the initiatives we’re putting in place to drive that agenda.”
Success, challenges, and AI
The economy in South Africa has not been in the greatest shape for the past 12 to 18 months, so, as an organisation, Canon South Africa has had to take steps to mitigate the effects of the economic downturn, as well as its effects on employees.
Preston explains: “We’ve had to ensure that we look after the mental health of our employees with the challenges that they face, and then when they get here, and they face the business challenges, we also need to make sure that we run the operation efficiently and profitably so we can continue to employ those individuals.
“We want to grow our business in a sustainable way to create more and more opportunities for South Africans from whichever community they come from, in order to develop their own lives and their own families.”
While there have been tough times of late, Canon–has been able to produce some success stories. One such success story came from the drupa event held in Germany. Drupa is the world’s largest print fair and usually runs every four years. This year’s show was a phenomenal success for Canon and has driven the professional print business in South Africa to new heights. In the first half of this year, Canon South Africa achieved number one market share in terms of professional print products and Preston is confident that’s going to continue into the latter stages of 2024.
On the photographic side, Canon South Africa has continued to develop and launch new products. The EOS R1 and the EOS R5 Mark II have been well received by the market.
“Whilst we see lots of challenges (not just in South Africa) at the end of the day our responsibility here in South Africa is to ensure that we run our business as efficiently and productively as we can to meet the needs of our customers, and fundamentally provide a business that is profitable and sustainable so that we can employee, as I said earlier, more people,” Preston adds.
Another challenge which is evolving in the last few years is the advent of Artificial Intelligence and its ease of access.
As Preston observes,–‘The growth of AI has been rapid and looks to continue this way, meaning its potential is still an opportunity for the creative sector to unveil and discover. We are committed to supporting the creative community in their exploration of the possibilities of this new evolving technology, while still providing the world with leading technology to continue to capture those special moments on camera. From enhanced focus software in our consumer cameras to providing unrivalled subject accuracy, we definitely see the opportunity to improve image recognition in the future.
Preston, who is an English national with a soft spot for rugby, avers.
“Just like everything in life, there’s two sides to the story, but technology undoubtedly provides huge opportunities, and it just depends on what you do with it. We’re always pushing the boundaries to see what is possible and I think it will only add to the functionality that our products already bring to customers.”
Empowering people
When asked about what Canon South Africa does to empower people through its operations, Preston was very excited to share two programmes which have made huge strides in uplifting those who would otherwise not have the chance to experience the power of photography.
‘Wild Shots’, www.wildshotsoutreach.org in conjunction with renowned photographer Mike Kendrick, brings photography to disadvantaged youngsters who live outside of the Kruger National Park.
Alongside Kendrick, Canon South Africa has trained over a thousand youngsters to take photographs, to understand how photography works and how to capture images, and, importantly, took them into the Kruger to be able to capture wildlife, as well as take photographs of their community.
As a result, a number of the participants have gone on to secure photojournalist jobs, with one participant going on to become a fully-fledged game warden and another graduating as a pilot who is able to utilise their newfound photographic skills to capture wildlife across the Kruger.
On a wider scale across Africa, Canon runs a programme called, Miraisha, www.canon.co.za/view/miraisha-ten-years which also teaches youngsters to understand how to capture photographic and video images, as well as how to tell stories using their visuals.
“Africa is a fantastic continent for storytelling and the rich tapestry here for storytelling is something which through capturing it in photographs and through video is a great medium to tell that story. Throughout many countries in Africa, including South Africa, we train people under the Miraisha brand,” Preston explains.
“It’s very much about empowering young people to take that technology and utilise it to make a living. Some of the youngsters that have come through the programme have gone on to earn international commissions; they’ve actually got international recognition for their work in photographic magazines and galleries across the world. So that’s been a fantastic success for Canon overall.”
Leadership, mentorship, and the future
“You can afford to be disappointed, but don’t be surprised.”
That quote has stuck with Preston for many years.
It speaks to the reality that the human condition is unpredictable, and a leader must be prepared for anything.
“I am a very trusting person by nature, but what I learnt a long while back is that you need to always have at the back of your mind, not to take anything at face value. I take more time and take more input from the people I am surrounded by that I do trust to make sure that we make the right decisions for the business, because, ultimately, for the 180 plus people that work here for Canon South Africa, I am responsible and accountable for them and their journey,” he insists.
“That is something I care passionately about and I need to make sure that there are no elements or individuals who don’t want to play the game that we think is important.”
To get to this point in his career, Preston says that he has a number of mentors to thank for their invaluable guidance and input.
Constructive criticism and challenging conversations have helped to shape the leader he is today, so much so that he believes in mentoring himself, in order to bring the best out of people.
His belief in mentorship has seen the creation of the ‘Valour’ Group. Consisting of eight individuals from across the business, the group meets once a month to talk about topics and challenges facing the organisation, with Preston using his leadership skills to help guide and coach members of the group to make the best possible decisions.
“Anything that we learn within the room stays within the room. It means we can have an open and trusting conversation about how the business runs, how they feel the business runs, about what the challenges are that the business has, and they can then help inform the decision making that we as the senior executives make,” Preston, who spent 23 years at Canon Europe in various positions, reveals.
“It gives me the opportunity to see from those individuals the ones that are really thinking the topic through and who are showing potential leadership qualities that we can use in different parts of the business. I have benefited from a very similar forum and I think it’s a great opportunity for junior members of staff to have a conversation with me about their own Canon journey.”
As the business is ultimately judged by its results, meaning successful financial results indicate a healthy financial organisation, Preston is determined to use his time at Canon South Africa to create a sustainable entity, and whoever succeeds him in the future can continue to develop that going forward.
More than that, though, especially in terms of a legacy for Preston, is creating opportunities for people to excel.
“I want people to feel there is nothing stopping them from excelling at what they want to achieve; the only thing that will stop them is themselves. I really want to encourage people to have the confidence to take whatever skills they’ve got, develop them, and be the best person they possibly can for themselves, for the company, and for the families that they support,” Preston concludes.
“If I can achieve 10% of that ambition, I think I will be happy.”
