PRINTITRESELLER.UK 39 VOX POP continued... As yet another year draws to a close, key industry players share their thoughts on what 2024 will hold for the print and IT sectors Print predictions: part two Stuart Miller, Partner Channel Director, Canon UK & Ireland: At the centre of our brand, Canon’s partner sales channel is as valuable to our business as our direct sales channel. As we look forward to 2024, providing our partner network with premium customer service and cutting-edge equipment is our top priority, and helps us achieve a more beneficial route to market. It is through these relationships that Canon can achieve a hand in hand, personalised approach; of a local company with a loyal customer base. Our primary focus for the upcoming year is to continue to empower our network of accredited partners, resellers, and distributors. At Canon, we place great importance on fostering strong relationships with our partners, providing them with unwavering support to help them realise their business potential and facilitate success, in the constantly evolving industry landscape of print. In 2023, we’ve seen customer expectations continue to rise, with an increasing demand for faster turnaround times and higher quality products. While we expect this upward trajectory to stabilise as we start to revert to preCOVID times in 2024, opportunities to break into new markets will continue to drive growth for the print industry. We expect to see MFPs continue to be at the heart of any business’ printing ecosystem and will remain a priority for us at Canon. In 2024, a key focus for businesses will be maintaining secure document lifecycles in an ever-evolving hybrid working world. Document-centric software will be fundamental here and can enable suppliers to break into the software-as-a-service (SaaS) space. For example, Canon’s uniFLOW Online software integrates with existing devices – including non-Canon equipment – to support multi-vendor, mixed fleet environments, while maximising security for dispersed workforces through its powerful user authentication and zerotrust architecture. Traditional production print will remain high on our agenda in 2024, as production devices are constantly improving to accommodate changing needs across markets. At Canon’s showpiece MakeIT event in Munich in October, Canon presented its full range of production print devices across cutsheet and wide-format. We believe high productivity and application flexibility will continue to be important for print service providers and in-house print departments as they look to streamline their production workflows and respond with greater speed and agility to the diverse needs of their customers. As we look to 2024, it’ll be more important than ever for us to work in true collaboration with our partners, which means continuing to understand what is important to them and their customers. We’re planning to increase the presence of our Canon Business Centre’s (CBCs) across the UK&I next year, which will allow us to combine the expertise of a local and trusted reseller with the strength of Canon’s award-winning portfolio of products and solutions. We’re excited to see what 2024 has in store for us! www.canon.co.uk Terry Caulfield, Chief Commercial Officer, Brother UK: Many firms are moving to the ‘hub-and-spoke’ model of introducing satellite offices in commuter towns while downsizing their city centre HQ. This comes as more office leases signed before the ballooning of flexible work come to an end, prompting firms to re-evaluate their footprint. This is fertile ground for resellers to have conversations about a fresh connected network of devices and solutions that fit to their customers’ new estates. Vendors are already responding to evolving office needs to support resellers with these conversations. For example, we’ve recently refreshed our entire colour laser range, comprising 43 devices. It’s a new category-defining range for partners to offer to customers, with faster, more connected, quiet and compact machines. Another major shift we’ll see next year is a greater focus on security. The government is due to introduce the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure legislation, which will force firms and their print partners into action. IT managers need to ensure their hardware is compliant with the new password encryption laws, and we’re already working alongside resellers to As we look to 2024, it’ll be more important than ever for us to work in true collaboration with our partners, which means continuing to understand what is important to them and their customers Stuart Miller
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