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PARTNER PROGRAMME
KYOCERA Document Solutions has
officially launched its new Reseller
Channel Partner Programme for the
IT channel, as it seeks to increase
market share and develop closer
relationships with resellers in the UK
& Ireland.
To support the programme, it has also
expanded its channel support team by two
thirds, increasing staffing levels from six to
10 employees, its largest ever headcount.
The new programme
KYOCERA has replaced its existing
Business Partner and Major Partner levels
with Enterprise Parter and Enterprise
Partner Plus accreditation and introduced
a third tier, Alliance Partner, to provide the
smallest IT resellers with a named account
manager and technical, marketing, sales
and training support.
KYOCERA is looking to recruit 200
Alliance Partners. There is no minimum
commitment and the relationship is based
on a thorough understanding of the
partner’s needs.
“The important point is that every
single one of those partners that we have
recruited/will recruit to the programme
we've profiled first. We’ve gone into the
detail of trying to understand them as a
business and therefore how we can help
support, develop and grow that business,”
explained Moya Kelleher, SI and IT Channel
Sales Manager at KYOCERA Document
Solutions UK.
“We have two people who will get
on the phone and engage with the
vendor manager or business development
manager to understand that account,
their current portfolio, their go-to-market
strategy; their key strengths; where they
want to go with print; and where print fits
in with other services. From that we will
talk to them about becoming an Alliance
partner,” she said.
KYOCERA started rolling out the
programme at the beginning of July and
has so far signed up more than 120
Alliance Partners, 30 Enterprise Partners
and 10 Enterprise Plus Partners.
Best kept secret
The IT channel is responsible for
approximately one third of KYOCERA
revenue in the UK & Ireland, through sales
of ECOSYS devices, consumables, software
and basic print services. Servicing dealers
selling TaskAlfa MFPs account for two
thirds of the company’s revenue.
Kelleher told
PrintIT Reseller
that
historically KYOCERA has not been as
active in this market as it could have been.
“We were only working with a very
small number of resellers and were relying
heavily on our two distribution partners to
manage the rest of the business for us. This
meant a) we had that 80:20 rule in terms
of business opportunity and development;
and b) we have an awful lot more we can
take to the market. We are like a best kept
secret,” she said.
In the past, KYOCERA divided its
managed accounts into Majors, half a
dozen direct marketing resellers e.g. Misco
Insight, Printerbase, Printerland; and
Business Partners, 20-30 larger resellers
managed through KYOCERA’s distribution
funded heads (“so we really didn’t know a
lot about them”).
There were also a large number of
Touchstone unmanaged partner accounts
– typically 500 active accounts from a base
of 2,000 that had at some point sold a
KYOCERA device.
Kelleher said that KYOCERA now wants
to build deeper relationships with the
broader reseller community to increase its
market share and to help partners develop
new opportunities.
“The plan is to increase revenue and
market share. We currently have a relatively
small market share – 6%, according to
IDC, which we have maintained for several
years – so even in a declining market,
which transactional print is, we have an
opportunity to grow,” she said.
KYOCERA introduces new Partner Programme
Reaching
out
Managed print
Kelleher added that one of the purposes
of the new programme is to help resellers
identify and target growth areas, including
colour MFPs and managed print. MPS grew
by 50% in the first half of the year, but still
accounts for just one fifth to one sixth of
business in the IT channel.
“Managed print is a big growth area,
but within the IT channel it is still relatively
new and not a major go-to-market solution
for most partners,” she said. “Even a
Basic Print Service, which should be a
transactional managed print sale, is quite
complicated because you are signing a
contract, which is a change of process for a
traditional IT hardware reseller.”
Two of KYOCERA’s new support team
are managed print specialists who will be
able to help IT resellers develop basic print
service opportunities and/or existing services
providers add print to their portfolio.
Great feedback
According to Kelleher, the new programme
has already been well received by IT
resellers and the company’s two UK
distributors.
“We have converted everyone who
wanted across to the new programme and
our distributors have been very supportive
and have committed business knowing we
are doing this, increasing our dealer base
so they have a bigger target area to go
for,” she said.
She added: “We won the Vendor of
the Year Award at the Misco Star awards
last week. It's the first time one of the big
players hasn’t won that award. It’s a real
testament to the team that are there and
how we engage with that account.”
To find out more about KYOCERA’s
Partner Programme, please contact
Managed
print is a big
growth area,
but within the
IT channel it is
still relatively
new and
not a major
go-to-market
solution for
most partners.
Moya Kelleher,
SI and IT Channel
Sales Manager,
KYOCERA
Document
Solutions UK
KYOCERA :
Channel Partner
Programme
