01732 759725 ONE-TO-ONE 46 Richard Wells, Head of Sales, Epson UK Industry insight They reacted by choosing us time after time and delivering a good first-time market share in an otherwise flat (or slightly declining) market. Q: With artificial intelligence fast becoming mainstream, how do you see this impacting your go-to-market strategy, product roadmap, and indeed the wider channel? A: AI is very much part of all of our current and future world. We are already integrating AI where appropriate and have exciting plans for its use in our roadmap across both consumer and business products. Keep an eye out for news in the coming months! Q: What do you see as the key challenges or pain points businesses are facing in today’s hybrid working model and how can you help your partners/customers to address these? A: There are many new challenges that have been created by a changing working environment and many of the immediate plans following COVID lockdowns have proven to have been taken in haste and have been reversed, changed or are under review. Print is one of these as many offices now need to be able to adapt to changing requirements that seems to centre around: bigger workgroups; a higher percentage of print being A4 following the adoption of home printing for business during lockdown/hybrid; concentrated print volumes across two or three days per week typically; and hot desk working driving need for pullprinting (often cloud-based). We have just launched our own cloudbased Q: What’s currently having the greatest impact on your business? A: Increasing awareness and urgency to address climate change from our partners and their customers, as well as within our own organisation. Q: How do you stay ahead of the curve and ensure that your company remains at the forefront of innovation? A: By always having connection to our core principles of making a positive impact in what we do and introducing technology and solutions that meet the changing needs of our customers. For instance, the successful launch of our new WorkForce Enterprise AM-C series last year allowed sustainabilityfocused buyers to consider Epson for their mid-range MFP and copier requirements for the first time. EPA (Epson Print Admin) solution and our open architecture and relationship with all main print software ISVs gives us a robust range of cloud options and the aforementioned WorkForce Enterprise AM-C range with its small footprint (but large volume capabilities) is proving popular with organisations who are addressing changed working practices and environments. We also have some new products due to be launched very soon that will allow resellers and their customers to do things very differently and provide heatfree balanced deployment solutions not previously available. Q: Looking towards the future, what do you envision as the next big breakthrough or game-changer in the industry, and how is your company preparing for it? A: The next big breakthrough is difficult to predict in print and in many ways rather than a ‘thing’ I think it will be an attitude switch, aligned to sustainability as at present there is a confusing picture for the conscientious print buyer as many want to buy more sustainable solutions but are confused by the various versions of sustainability they are presented with many of which are just ‘offsetting’ or ‘greenwashing’. Choosing suppliers who are making real changes and can offer measurable savings on key areas such as energy use will become more relevant and important. All proactive initiatives are positive, but we need to gradually limit offsetting and move to a positive ‘insetting’ position as the damage has already been done and reversal steps are needed. So for instance, while it’s good to plant trees to offset emissions of buying copiers. it’s more important to utilise solutions that have low environmental impact during the usage phase. Q: What advice would you give a young person starting a career in the industry? A: Embrace, speak up and enjoy the ride. www.epson.co.uk Richard Wells
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