30
Q&A
01732 759725
PITR
:
Canon had a difficult 2016
globally. How did it do in the UK?
James Pittick (JP)
:
Given the current
conditions, our performance in the UK
was good. Our market share is stable and,
in the office space, we still see a lot of
opportunity in consolidation and managed
print, despite the fact that we are in second
and third generation relationships. In the
commercial print space, we are seeing a lot
of interest and opportunity in publishing,
book printing, those sorts of markets.
PITR
:
Are you seeing growing
demand for MPS amongst SMEs?
JP:
Yes, more and more. There is an
appetite to have greater control of print,
so we are seeing much more interest
in output management, in reporting, in
secure release printing and in mobile
interaction as the workforce demographic
and the technology available to the
workforce evolve. In the mid-market and
corporate sector, there is still opportunity
for consolidation and management of
information. That market is more mature,
but we still see opportunity there.
PITR
:
Canon sales are currently split
evenly between direct and indirect.
Do you plan to grow the channel side
of the business in the future?
JP
:
Yes, our strategy is to see how
we can grow channel sales. We have
a very successful and long-standing
channel business today, which is formed
predominantly of copier and print resellers,
managed print specialists.
Some of those businesses are evolving
quite rapidly, in terms of the technology
they offer, and we are looking at how we
can work with them to open up more of
our portfolio to them and to their customer
base.
We are also looking at where we
can gain growth in newer and different
channel markets, for example by working
with systems integrators on IT projects in
enterprise and global customers and by
increasing our relevance to IT resellers
that focus on the SME market. Print is a
mature market, as we all know, but the
opportunity for us to grow our business
still exists, and the channel is a very
exciting proposition for us. There’s a lot of
focus and a lot of investment in growing
our channel business.
PITR
:
What are some of the
additional technologies that you
want copier and printer resellers to
take on?
JP
:
There’s still room to develop and
grow some of our output management
proposition, to help customers print
securely. That fits very naturally with
our information management portfolio,
which allows resellers to extend their
capabilities in workflow design, document
management, the digitisation of
documents. Those are very complementary
technologies.
PITR
:
It seems strange that resellers
are not already offering printer and
output management solutions?
JP
:
They are. That technology is being used
today, but our focus is to expand it further
within the reseller community. We think
uniflow could be a very important part of
that growth. It’s a single platform message
and the product has been developed
recently with the SME market in mind. The
move to cloud-developed propositions
within uniflow supports our aspirations in
the SME market.
PITR
:
Is the strategy to get these
products into more of your existing
resellers or do you plan to take on
new ones?
JP
:
A combination of both. There’s an
opportunity for us to sell more of our
technologies and capabilities through our
existing resellers. Where there is a fit that
delivers synergy with a complementary
technology, there’s a growth opportunity.
Then, there are partner types and
partner businesses that we are not
currently working with that we think
are a good fit with our organisation and
our technology. As the market diversifies
and as the technology stack diversifies,
partnerships enable us to deliver a whole
product, in which managed print is just
one element. Working with a partner –
sometimes more than one partner – lets us
articulate a ‘stronger together’ message to
the customer.
PITR
:
How is what you are offering
to the channel any different to what
other manufacturers are providing?
JP
:
We have a renewed growth ambition
to reach more customers, and regard
an expanded presence in supporting
Canon UK and Ireland has a new Director of B2B Indirect Sales.
James Pittick joined Canon in 2008 and previously worked
on the company’s direct side as Head of Sales, Strategic and
Enterprise Business.
PITR
met up with him to discuss Canon’s
evolving channel strategy
Q&A:
With James Pittick
Continued...
There’s still
room to
develop and
grow some
of our output
management
proposition,
to help
customers
print securely.
