In an email to partners, Panasonic has announced a strategic business decision to shut down the Business Communications arm of their enterprise. The Japanese conglomerate notes the rapid shift to cloud-based collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams and a lack of innovation as major reasons for their decision to exit the telecoms market over the next two years.
For current Panasonic customers, it's time to start thinking about which vendor might be next for you. The future of the communications market looks like it will be dominated by cloud-based collaboration platforms. These systems take business communication to the next level, beyond traditional telephony, with features like videoconferencing, team chat, document sharing, and of course calling and dial plans, all from one platform.
You can read the company's announcement in full below:
Dear Partner,
I am writing to inform you of a strategic decision Panasonic headquarter has made, which is to regrettably close the Panasonic Business Communication business (PBX, SIP, and Scanner categories) in a time frame of two years from today’s announcement.
In recent years Panasonic has worked hard to find a way to continue the business by making our organization and its relationships with partners as sustainable as possible. However, it has become apparent that this is not possible to continue given the current business environment based on the limited capability of factory resources as described below.
- A sharp decline of the market and rapid shift to cloud-based solutions.
- Technological mismatch between factory resources/assets and future market needs and trends.
- Lagging behind our competitor’s R&D activities.
- A constant financial deficit due to the reasons above.
- Shift to new types of demand (Teams, Zoom, etc.) significantly accelerated by Covid-19 which makes the future of our business untenable and unpredictable.
It is with great sorrow that we close our business, especially one that has decades of history and trust.
Panasonic team will be in touch with your distributors to discuss and study supply scheme going forward and we will be at your disposal to clarify any of the aspect of this decision.
Sincerely yours,
Carlos Osuna
Head of Business Communication Business Unit
If you have any questions about this announcement or concerns about your communication system, please contact us by phone at 800.833.8000 or by email at hello@twinstate.com.