01732 759725
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SAMSUNG PRINT BUSINESS BRIEFING
PrintIT Reseller (PITR):
How are your
customers’ print and document needs
changing and how does partnering
with Samsung help you stand out
from other suppliers?
Wes Mulligan
(WM):
Danwood operates
in three different sales verticals: Public
Sector; Corporate, for businesses that
turnover more than £75 million; and
Commercial for everything beneath that.
We see different trends in each of these
markets.
In Corporate, there is an increasing
desire among customers to connect print
with the rest of their technology; there is
a desire to have common platforms and to
homogenise so that all of an organisation’s
offices are broadly similar and run in the
same way. We find that in this market,
Samsung is a really good partner for us
because it is able to bring in technologies
from outside print, which tend to be of
interest to other people in the target
market – not just those who deal with
print. Today, more and more customers
want to talk to us about visual displays
and tablets in a way that they wouldn’t
have done 18 months ago.
This is also true of the public sector,
particularly education, which rates the
Samsung offering very highly. They like
Samsung’s tablets and they like being able
to connect to their printers through those
devices. They find that students warm
to that technology. It sounds a little bit
contradictory, but the public sector likes
shiny new stuff; they like new ideas; they
like innovation.
In schools and universities, we are
seeing more and more decisions being
made by a combination of IT teams
and student union bodies. Student
representatives now have a much bigger
say; we have even had instances of
students coming to tender meetings. I
really welcome that because it focuses
us on the value-add – if I am a student,
what is it I am trying to get out of this
technology and how can I use it in the best
fashion?
In the Commercial marketplace,
customers are still driven by two things:
1) knowing that they have got a good
price; and 2) the assurance of good
service. The public sector and bigger
corporates expect to get good service – it’s
almost taken for granted. But in the SME
marketplace, the quality of service varies
depending on who you go to.
PITR
:
So, as well as helping you
to engage with customers, the
breadth of Samsung’s range has
enabled you to exploit new business
opportunities?
WM
:
Yes, very much so. Visual displays is a
relatively new area for us, but because we
have such a good customer base we are
already one of Samsung’s biggest sellers of
audio-visual equipment in the UK. Being
PrintIT Reseller
talks to Wes Mulligan, CEO of Danwood, about the company’s
working relationship with Samsung and how it has evolved over the last two years.
Working with Samsung
able to provide customers with printers
and visual displays is really good for us. It
makes us more important to the customer,
which improves retention rates. We have
sold some tablets – if someone comes to
us and is looking for a Samsung deal we
will filter it through us – but I wouldn’t
classify ourselves as a tablet seller at
this stage. But I definitely see that as an
opportunity for the future.
PITR
:
How many years have you been
partnering with Samsung and how
has the relationship evolved in that
period?
WM
:
We started with Samsung about 10
years ago, and we have accelerated our
partnership significantly in the last two
years by sharing information and holding
quarterly business reviews, what we call
our QBRs. These address a combination of
day-to-day tactical issues and objectives
that we have jointly set for the following
12 months. Sharing common objectives
means that we are both pointing in the
same direction. That simple framework
has enabled us to grow our Samsung base
significantly and develop relationships at
every level of the organisation.
We also visit the Samsung headquarters
in Korea on an annual basis to embed
our relationship, to help make sure we
are working to common goals and to
ensure the Samsung supply chain and the
Danwood supply chain work effectively
together.
That’s at the managerial level. In
the last two years there has also been a
step-change in the type and quality of
product developed by Samsung, especially
in relation to serviceability. At the end of
We visit the
Samsung
headquarters
in Korea on
an annual
basis to
embed our
relationship,
to help make
sure we are
working to
common
goals
Wes Mulligan,
CEO, Danwood
The Danwood
showroom
