01732 759725
VOX POP
32
their customers. These partners have
adopted a less product-focused culture by
offering MPS and even in a multi-brand
fleet environment. A professional MPS
provider behind the channel partner, in
our view, must offer an accreditation and
certification programme that ensures
partners are upskilled to the required
level.”
Paul Young:
“While some resellers have
taken the decision to acquire skills and
infrastructure through acquisition, UTAX
has witnessed many more tapping into
the support provided by partners. Smart
resellers are taking the no-risk option
of working closely with vendor partners
who can assist at every step of the sales
and implementation process. This is
growing in importance as cloud-based
services become highly tailored, supremely
technical and, crucially, increasingly fast-
paced. Two and even three heads can
definitely be better than one!
“The lines between sales and customer
service continue to blur and we’re enjoying
phenomenal success via our solutions team
which assists partners deliver managed
solutions from the start of the sales process
and right through the ongoing relationship.
In addition to providing specialist
installation service and assistance, we
support our partners with market insight,
in-depth product knowledge and an
understanding of the needs of specific
verticals. Selling is therefore much more
collaborative and all parties work closely
to bring together solutions that deliver real
results to the end user… on an ongoing
basis.
“As first and even second generation
MPS contracts mature, organisations are
looking to build on what they’ve got and
take it further. Cloud print and storage, the
ability to access, edit and share documents
on multiple devices anywhere at any time
and security-controlled access bring huge
benefits across just about every vertical
market you can think of.”
Chris Hale
: “We see a mixture of
approaches but I cannot say any one is
particularly dominating. Certainly, some
of our business partners are skilling-up
to better support customers from within
their own operations. Bringing these skills
in-house will benefit the channel in the
longer term as their offering will be more
meaningful and relevant, allowing them to
maintain a competitive edge.
“This ‘one-stop-shop’ approach
provides customers with the operational
benefits of a more complete service
and the channel with the ability to reap
rewards from the revenues generated.”
Jeremy Spencer:
“We have seen both
up-skilling and outsourcing within our
partner channel. Those who have adopted
cloud solutions early on and those with
an IT integration background have been
taking steps to provide support for
integration to the cloud.”
Outsourcing to a third-party
potentially has associated risks. What
advice would you give to partners?
Pete Munday:
“We find customers
are already deciding to move essential
business systems or services to the cloud.
Our partners need to be aware that the
transition is happening and have a great
opportunity to better understand their
customers’ business requirements and
offer ways to connect their MFPs to these
services. At the same time, they could look
for, or introduce, new service opportunities
that customers may not be aware of that
make MFPs even more valuable to their
business.
“Our advice would be to reach out
to each customer and ask the question
about the cloud. We have a number of
unique offerings that already help to
differentiate partners from the competition
by offering true value-add, with customised
solutions that meet their customers’ needs
better than off-the-shelf solutions. Xerox
ConnectKey-enabled devices also come
with a host of security features, including
built-in McAfee ‘White-listing’ technology,
that help to protect customers’ data
when connecting to systems beyond their
business firewall. All of these offerings
should give our partners the confidence to
work with their customers and help them
with their transition to the cloud.”
Paul Gaiser:
“For Xerox’s cloud managed
print services, the key to our partners’
success has been our extensive training
programme that trains partners’ MPS
specialists in a consultative approach,
starting with an assessment of a customer’s
business requirements and the extent to
which the current fleet and services meet
those objectives, before coming to a redesign
and implementation of the outsourced
situation. In this way the cloud offering has
enabled the channel partner to be more
customer-focused rather than less!”
Paul Young:
“Resellers need to think very
carefully before they outsource anything
and consider the long-term benefits ahead
of any short-term gain. In our opinion,
there’s a real issue surrounding resellers
losing their customers to service providers
and all too often we see resellers leading a
customer to a service provider, receiving a
finder’s fee, but then losing that customer
and the future revenue that goes with
them. There’s also a problem with certain
providers subsequently targeting reseller
customers via their direct sales teams.
“That wouldn’t be the case with UTAX
as we would never let that happen. We’re
a partner in the truest sense and let dealers
do what they’re good at, which is talking
and selling to their customers, while we
take care of the technical support behind
the scenes. The solutions team works for
our partners, adding strings to their bow.
By satisfying the needs of our partners’
customers, our partners achieve customer
retention from which we all benefit. It’s a
perfect circle. There’s no need for resellers to
outsource as such, and certainly no need for
resellers to lose control of their customers.”
Jeremy Spencer:
“Working with
providers to migrate to the cloud requires
open discussion and clear communication
of targets and intended use to ensure that
any solution meets the requirements of
your business. You should never forget that
you are the customer.”
Chris Hale,
Solutions Product
Marketing
Manager,
Sharp UK
Paul Young,
Head of Technical
Services,
UTAX
continued...
...continued
Partners
need to be
aware that
the transition
is happening
and have
a great
opportunity
to better
understand
their
customers’
business
requirements
