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Q&A
32
...continued
and helping channel partners grow and
develop their business as an important
part of that – for us and, hopefully, for our
partners as well.
PITR
:
The breadth of your product
range aside, how else do you plan to
help resellers grow?
JP
:
Through the skills, attitude and
knowledge that we have developed in our
business over many years. We have some
strong marketing and professional services
capabilities in our business that we can use
to enhance our proposition, not only to the
channel but also to their customers. Part
of our strategy is to unlock the capability
we have within the organisation to support
multiple, different routes to market.
PITR
:
Helping them with their
e-marketing, that sort of thing?
JP
:
That’s one example. We have done
work with partners around things like
social media, looking at how we can
help them to develop their presence
in the social media space and use
social media as a tool to network and
ultimately promote their business and
identify opportunities. We’ve held
workshops and we’ve also utilised
industry partnerships, working with
companies like Scredible, which
helps businesses develop social
media strategies, and Jellyfish, a
digital marketing agency. We will
talk to our partners about the
things we are doing and we will
also use businesses that we feel
are industry experts to help our
partners develop.
Also, we have huge
knowledge of, and insight into,
vertical markets, which we draw
on to help partners evolve their
marketing activities and demand
generation campaigns. When
they address specific vertical
propositions or markets where
they are already gaining traction,
we can add to their credibility and
credentials by providing vertical insight in
addition to the value proposition of the
technology we offer.
PITR
:
I know on the production print
side you offer insight guides and a
range of business support services...
JP
:
Yes, we have the Essential Business
Builder programme. It’s a slightly different
market; they are using our technology to
generate an income. If they are buying
into the Canon portfolio, with us directly
or with a partner, we feel there’s a great
opportunity to invest in that organisation
and help them reinvest in Canon
technology by educating them in market
insight and market trends.
PITR
:
Some big competitors,
like Xerox, HP and Samsung, are
promoting the use of MFPs as app
platforms. Canon was once a pioneer
in this area, with MEAP technology,
but it seems to have fallen behind
as others have created more open
systems based on Android.
JP
:
A number of manufacturers are going
down the Android route. We are on the
fourth generation of MEAP, which is our
own technology, our own platform and
Java-based. Whilst it is our platform,
there are a number of complementary
technologies and third party applications
that you can access via our platform. For
SMEs, things like direct scan to Dropbox
and Google Drive are all available on our
MEAP platform.
PITR
:
What products will you be
focusing on as you seek to recruit
more IT resellers?
JP
:
We already have some presence in
the IT market, with scanners and some
of our smaller MFPs and print solutions.
What we are now looking to do is
open up more of our portfolio to
the IT reseller channel – to develop
our imageRUNNER technology
to work within the IT reseller
managed print environment,
enabling more MFP and
associated software sales and
more cloud-based propositions
across our technology set.
There will be selected products,
with a servicing infrastructure
supporting that.
PITR
:
Some other vendors
are trying to create an
integrated portfolio of
solutions, linking up their
MFPs to displays, for
example, but it seems to
me that Canon’s B2B proposition
is focused very much on the
document.
JP
:
Our proposition around B2B and office
is, in hardware terms, scan, print, MFP
up to production and large format and
wide format technologies. Then, you have
document management, workflow and
output management software.
Document, yes. But in this age, that
also means image. Whether a document
is physical or electronic, it is all about
our knowledge and understanding and
expertise around the management of
images. This ties very nicely with the
other part of our business, which is the
capture of the image with camera and lens
technology.
PITR
:
Can you give me details of
any initiatives you have planned to
attract IT resellers?
JP
:
Individual elements of our strategy will
emerge in time. We have just undergone
a business transformation programme
and realigned all of our B2B offerings to
be focused around customer, customer-
type and the Canon proposition. We
have identified areas where we think we
can grow and we are now advertising
our desire to grow within the channel.
Following this, there will be a series of
releases and discussion points, where we
will talk in more detail about our ambition
and the attraction of our programme.
PITR
:
A lot of your competitors are
buying resellers. Is that a strategy
that Canon aims to pursue?
JP
:
In the UK, there is no specific strategy
for that. It is not something that I am
aware of.
PITR
:
What do you think are the
particular challenges facing resellers
today and how can Canon help
overcome them?
JP
:
For me, it is about the maturity of the
market and the evolution of technology.
The market dynamic and the technology
dynamic are evolving at a rate that is faster
than we have ever seen, and it only seems
to be increasing. Trying to stay relevant and
trying to develop the services and customer
offerings you have is a key challenge.
We are also seeing different businesses,
sometimes IT businesses, acquiring print
and managed print businesses as a
complementary technology to their overall
proposition. There is a lot of change and
consolidation happening.
Canon’s ability to develop partners’
capabilities, to supply complementary
technologies, to provide market insight
and to offer additional support around
marketing activities and professional
services is a real attraction. An organisation
like Canon is in a prime position to support
partners’ growth and development and
stay relevant to those businesses.
Part of our
strategy is to
unlock the
capability
we have
within the
organisation
We have huge
knowledge
of, and
insight into,
vertical
markets
