ONE-TO-ONE 51 PRINTITRESELLER.UK 29 Michelle Ryder (MR): Brother is a 100% channel-centric business, and I know you work very closely with your partners. One of the things I’d like to touch on is your channel rewards programme, and how that is structured. Greig Millar (GM): Partners have access to the BrotherZone website, which is full of resources to support them, there’s lots of different collateral such as product information right through to training programmes. We have also just updated our incentive and rewards programme area, which is now called ‘We Are Family’. Partners can earn Love2shop gift vouchers across a whole myriad of things, from selling products, right through to selling contracts and also completing things like training as well. MR: There’s been a number of new product launches from Brother in 2023, can you share any information about the 2024 roadmap? GM: We’ve completely refreshed our SoHo mono and colour laser range, our SMB models and colour ranges as well. The new models support our strategy to retain the number one market share position within the colour laser for SoHo sector, and it’s also brought in some additional compact products that we can put onto our EcoPro subscription model. From an SMB point of view, the new mono laser products are again about retaining our strong market position, but adding in some additional features, things like speed and additional scanning capabilities. Both colour and mono laser ranges also come packed with a number of solutions designed to help businesses improve productivity and efficiency, save costs and boost security. One-to-one with Greig Millar MR: What do you see as the key print challenges or pain points businesses are facing in today’s hybrid working model and how can Brother help address these? GM: There are three main areas – security, sustainability and cost efficiency. People are using devices away from the office, so you have really got to be able to keep them secure and Brother devices include secure print features. The other thing is cost – people are using their own machines at home, that means lots of different brands and different consumables are being purchased. Brother devices are connected to the cloud, and they’ve got print management built in. We also work with partners including Kofax using their products like Printix so we can build a full solution that covers both the home environment and the corporate environment which reins in uncontrolled costs and provides full access to all devices on the network. MR: Can you tell me more about what the Workplace by Brother campaign and how your new MPS offering and indeed solutions offering fits in? Michelle Ryder spoke with Greig Millar, Chief Revenue Officer at Brother UK, about the company’s channel-centric business model, its channel rewards programme, and how it is helping partners develop new MPS sales opportunities GM: We launched the Workplace by Brother campaign during a partner event at Red Bull Racing, alongside a whole new range of SMB products. That was received really well by the channel. The campaign covers lots of different topics including cost efficiency, sustainability, and security. Brother has a strong sustainability message, but we’ve been keeping it very quiet! For example, we have offered consumable collection schemes for a long time, our Ruabon recycling plant is zero landfill and we’ve had that accreditation for some time now. And we recycle a large volume of consumables that we get back, but it doesn’t really actually say it anywhere on the packaging now. What you’ll start to see from us is those messages getting pushed out more, we know that our customers want to know that we’ve got those credentials so we will begin to talk about them more. We have a separate campaign centred around our MPS offering and we are also looking to develop Hybrid and Productivity by Brother campaigns as well. www.brother.co.uk To watch the full interview please scan the QR Code
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