Panasonic interview: “We place emphasis on expanding customer value by expanding our circle of partners”

Toshiyuki Tsumura Executive Vice President Director, Imaging Business Unit Photo: Richard Butler

“Our basic stance is to become a manufacturer that can provide a wider range of value to our customers as a system with an open platform,” says Toshiyuki Tsumura. “We would like to respond to our customers by providing superior value than other systems.”

Mr. Tsumura, Executive Vice President and Director of Panasonic’s Imaging Business Unit, shares this insight while discussing the role of partnerships in Panasonic’s camera business. In a broad-ranging interview earlier this year at the CP+ Expo in Japan, Mr. Tsumura also shared his thoughts on topics ranging from the state of the camera market to the importance of workflows in the creative process.

State of the market

“Demand for cameras, which fell sharply due to the pandemic, has recovered steadily to pre-pandemic levels, and stable demand has been maintained, continuously driven by mirrorless,” Mr. Tsumura explains.

It’s not a complete surprise; we’ve heard similar analyses from other industry executives, but it’s reassuring to hear this from several companies. However, Mr. Tsumura calls out one market that he feels is particularly important.

“With the expansion of social media and live streaming, which has expanded significantly in the wake of the pandemic, I believe the demand for shooting both videos and photos with a single camera and sharing them as works of art is underpinning the overall demand.”

Mr. Tsumura says Panasonic has seen a lot of success with cameras like the S5II and G9 II because they work to eliminate barriers between video and still photography.

Bringing the conversation back to Panasonic, he says the company has seen a lot of success with products like the full-frame S5II and S5IIX, as well as the G9II, largely because those products work to eliminate barriers between video and still photography. He also points to a specific feature he believes has had an impact.

“In particular, Real Time LUT, which has expanded the LUT function to stills, has received high praise for its ability to enjoy colors in both video and still images and is driving sales,” he says.

“I believe the demand for shooting both videos and photos with a single camera and sharing them as works of art is underpinning the overall demand.”

When we ask what types of customers he expects to drive the camera industry over the next five years, Mr. Tsumura doubles down on hybrid users. “I believe that the imaging market in the future will transcend the boundaries between video and still images and will be led by individual producers who create works alone, from shooting to editing, as well as by professional creators who create works with a small number of people to
improve production efficiency.”

Alliances and partnerships

More than most other camera manufacturers, Panasonic has embraced the concept of collaboration and shared technology platforms. In fact, both of its mirrorless camera systems are built around shared lens mounts (Micro Four Thirds and L-mount). According to Mr. Tsumura, this is a core part of the company’s strategy.

“We place emphasis on expanding customer value by expanding our circle of partners.”

“We place emphasis on expanding customer value by expanding our circle of partners. Comprehensive collaboration with Leica is one of them, and we are also making effective use of Leica’s expanding relationships with L-mount partners.”

“Our collaboration with Leica brings two valuable things,” he continues. “One is our L2 technology, which is developed jointly between Panasonic and Leica. We can create new technology that a single company can’t. The second thing is that we can expand the level of contact across various types of customers. For example, we don’t have as much customer contact with high-end still photographers [as Leica], so we benefit from that contact. However, in the video industry, we have a lot of contact with videographers and cinematographers. So, we can multiply the number of customer contacts and expand the customer base. This is the value of the collaboration with Leica.”

According to Mr. Tsumura, the L2 alliance with Leica allows the two companies to innovate technologies that a single company can’t and expands Panasonic’s customer reach.

He explains that access to an expanded customer base is also vital to the L-mount alliance.

“The same is true of the L-mount alliance. As we add more partners, we have access to the partner’s customer base, and we can connect with more customers and understand their needs. So increasing the number of partners increases the number of customers we have contact with.”

Mr. Tsumura returns to this theme later in our interview: “Our basic stance is to become a manufacturer that can provide a wider range of value to our customers as a system with an open platform,” he says.

A focus on workflows

As with other executives we’ve talked to, we ask Mr. Tsumura whether he thinks there are customer segments that the camera industry is currently underserving. “I think that there is still a lack of support for each user’s workflow, rather than a lack of support for specific user segments,” he replies.

He offers one timely example: “The latest trend is creators who want to simplify the workflow as much as possible, especially young creators; they will shoot a video by smartphone, then instantly share the video. Those kinds of creators require a camera that incorporates a workflow like a smartphone. They want to shoot videos like they do on a smartphone.”

“We recognize that camera smartphone apps are becoming one of the most important workflows, especially for young creators,” he tells us. “Smartphones are excellent when it comes to the workflow of taking pictures and sharing them immediately, but cameras are superior when it comes to the quality of the work.”

Mr. Tsumura spoke at length about the importance of workflows to support different user segments. We can’t help but think he was channeling the soon-to-be-announced Lumix S9 and its tight integration with the new Lumix Lab app.

But, as Mr. Tsumura explains, there are challenges to integrating these different tools.

“Smartphones have limited memory, so all the content from a camera can’t be transferred to the smartphone. There are a couple of ways to address this problem. For example, you could almost finalize the workflow on the camera and then transfer the final content to a smartphone. Or, you could transfer directly to a cloud-based system, like Frame.io, where you can collaborate in the cloud.”

Although our interview took place a couple of months before Panasonic announced the Lumix S9, a camera aimed at content creators, we can’t help but think that Mr. Tsumura was channeling this soon-to-be-released product. Thanks to tight integration with the new Lumix Lab smartphone app, it provides a streamlined workflow for content creators to embed custom looks in-camera and to move photos and videos from the camera to social media without additional editing.

“Smartphones are excellent when it comes to the workflow of taking pictures and sharing them immediately, but cameras are superior when it comes to the quality of the work.”

Mr. Tsumura emphasizes that Panasonic is not just focused on creator workflows. “Since the workflow is different for those who are already professionals in photography and videography, compared to young and ambitious hobby users, we will develop products that are close to each person’s desire for expression and workflow.”

The video landscape

Any time we talk to Panasonic, it’s natural for video to enter the discussion. After all, the company has been at the forefront of mirrorless video for years. One challenge for companies today, Mr. Tsumura explains, is that consumers are developing ever-higher expectations for video cameras.

“The number of opportunities to watch video content has increased dramatically, and users are becoming more and more discerning in their view of content. There has been an enormous increase in the number of discerning customers who want to express themselves in a more sophisticated way,” he says.

Despite these changing consumer expectations, many camera users still turn to smartphones for many video applications. How, we wonder, can Panasonic lower the barrier to using mirrorless cameras instead?

Mr. Tsumura says seamlessly integrating smartphones and cameras can lower the barrier for smartphone users who want to use a mirrorless camera for video applications.

“We believe that it is important to simplify the workflow and usability in addition to rich quality,” he tells us. “For example, there are many cases where people who are distributing rich content, such as live commerce, use mirrorless cameras, but it is still quite difficult, so their use is limited. In order to widely spread mirrorless cameras for streaming, I believe it is important to innovate UX from seamless connection to smartphones, high-speed WiFi, and up to editing and streaming.”

However, unique hardware features continue to be part of Panasonic’s formula. “We are actively providing video formats that use the entire sensor range, such as 3:2 and 4:3 video formats, without being bound by traditional video formats,” he reminds us. “And we have received high praise for providing more freedom in video creation.”

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This article was based on an interview conducted by Dale Baskin and Richard Butler at the CP+ show in Yokohama, Japan. Some responses have been lightly edited for clarity.