PUNE, INDIA: It's easy to ask a ten per cent discount from vendors, but how much does it really help? And are you sure that the vendor won't cover that difference the next time he sells?

This was the question raised by Puneet Dutta, senior manager-marketing, Business Imaging Solutions, Canon, when quizzed about his view of a CIO's cost dilemma in the current economic distrait.

There are two set of challenges that CIOs are facing and these are two contradictory directions coming from the top, he explains.

"One is to cut costs. Second is to scale up. Now you can only chop some cost items, and that too to a limited extent. It's better to think well and go for more sustainable ways that really optimize your IT."

Ask him how to exactly approach that, and how would he, from the vendor side, make sure he helps a CIO and he replies, "We can make him move to smart solutions that put more area under his control. Giving him the space for a flexible infrastructure is the answer."

He cites efforts and solutions like customer site survey, balancing options and utilization checks as some ways that Canon is addressing enterprise customers.

"We offer to monitor the print environment of an enterprise and then analyze the degree of over- or under-utilization so that we can subsequently suggest a balanced deployment of devices."

In addition, there can be reshuffling and rationalizing between MFDs (multi-functional devices) and laser or standalone print machines, whenever the customer opts for the former for lesser running costs and more realizations.

"The first question that today almost every customer asks me, is how can I reduce my costs, but I answer that, I can do more, I can help him reduce his costs and that too in a way that is beyond short-cut measures like discounts. These are exactly the ways that one can smartly handle costs," he confidently stresses.

Dutta was talking on the sidelines of a road show here that marks the seventh pit stop for a city-wise series that Canon has been doing since May. This is for new segments that include CAD (Computer Aided Design) and GIS, photo industry and graphics industry, of which he tags the first two relatively virgin to other imaging market segments. "Last year, we re-looked at our market strategy and identified new segments of focus according to our relatively low market shares, in context to huge market potential, there."

In 2010, Canon is planning to come up with new breakthrough flavor of technologies for the Indian subcontinent, and not just new products, he said when asked about the next generation of Canon's portfolio for India.