Founded in 1937 and headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Canon has grown into one of the world’s most recognized brands, primarily known for its contributions to the consumer electronics and imaging technology industries. Canon Inc. is a global leader in imaging and optical products, renowned for its cameras, camcorders, printers, scanners, medical imaging equipment, and industrial equipment.
Canon’s supplier roster had exploded to more than 1000 active vendors across five regions, but collaboration was stuck in the inbox and Canon needed a smarter way to work with its global suppliers—and we got it. With the new portals, client wanted to cut onboarding time by over 70%, and reduced email clutter by nearly half.
Client Vision Statement:
“As our supplier network grew, we realized our existing processes couldn’t scale. We envisioned a single, global platform where all suppliers could connect, collaborate, and self-serve. This project was about enabling speed, transparency, and resilience across our supply chain—and it’s delivered on every front.”
Client: Canon USA Inc.
Industry: Imaging and Electronics
Size: 15000+ employees
Location: Long Island, New York
| Pain Point | Everyday Friction |
| No single supplier portal | 80 % of purchase-order acknowledgments and shipping notices came in as ad-hoc emails or spreadsheets—easy to miss, hard to track. |
| Manual onboarding | Finance spent 12 hours per new vendor collecting tax forms, bank details, and compliance docs. |
| Limited visibility for contract manufacturers (CMs) | A late spec change could take 3–4 days to reach offshore CMs, triggering expedited freight that cost $150 K last year. |
| Fragmented reporting | Leadership couldn’t see real-time supplier KPIs; building a quarterly scorecard took two analysts five days of data wrangling. |
Over a six-month sprint Canon and the consulting team rolled out a fully integrated supplier-collaboration ecosystem:
| KPI | Before | After | Benefit |
| Suppliers onboarded (first 6 mo) | 15 | 100+ | 7× faster ramp-up |
| Finance team effort | Baseline | -25 % time/cost | Equivalent to 2 FTEs freed |
| PO acknowledgment time | 48 hrs avg | 4 hrs | -90 % turnaround |
| Invoice discrepancies | 1 in 20 | 1 in 50 | 60 % fewer issues |
| Email volume with suppliers | 8,000 / qtr | 4,400 / qtr | -45 % clutter |
“We have had pleasure of working with Mr. Virbahu for a period of over 5 months where, Mr. Virbahu helped Canon USA, Inc. to implement Supplier Collaboration Best Practices . I recommend Mr. Virbahu very highly of his in-depth subject knowledge and the services & support that he has provided to meet the aggressive business deadlines. We would like to Thank, Mr. Virbahu for his impeccable guidance and leadership on Supplier Collaboration Project. With this project, we are seeing 25% time and cost reductions from Financial Services Group and truly believe it was worth the investment.”
— Senior Manager, Technology
“Everything from spec changes to payment status is now one click away for our partners. The portal paid for itself within a quarter and lets our team focus on strategic sourcing instead of chasing emails.”
— Senior Director, Finance and Supply Chain Operations
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