01732 759725 48 Q&A View from the channel Q: What do you see as the biggest challenges facing channel businesses today? A: Keeping up to date with new technology. We like to keep on top of and remain current across the board from security enhancements to pull-printing solutions, or scanning and digitisation solutions, so that we continue to keep our customers informed and ensure they benefit from best practice. Q: Which OEMs do you partner with and why? A: We work with two OEM partners – Epson and Develop, which gives us an inkjet and laser option. However, the majority of business we do now is with Epson. The heat-free sustainable print option is really attractive to our customers, as increasingly they’re looking to lower their environmental impact and meet their CSR goals. Epson also provides us with incredible support here in Ireland, the team are always contactable and really easy to work with. We also benefit from marketing support, and we get advance notice of new technologies and product developments, so we can in turn promote that to our customers. Q: What are your customers most interested in currently? A: As mentioned earlier they are really interested in the sustainability piece. CSR is really high on the agenda for everyone now, even within smaller businesses. We can go into a customer and they’re typically using a laser device, so we show them the print quality of an inkjet and a laser so they can compare. The real game-changer is when we provide them with the sustainability report, they can then see the energy-savings and associated environmental benefits of switching to business inkjet. I’d say 99% of our customers are now making the greener choice. Q: How have you changed/are you changing business operations to exploit new opportunities? A: We’re constantly looking to the future, evaluating what’s on the market and making sure we’re ahead of the latest technology developments. We also work closely with our partners, in particular our IT partners, we share best practice and keep up to date with advancements to ensure we offer our customers the latest and greatest solutions available, especially around security, digitisation and document management. Digital transformation continues to be front and centre for our customers, and using an MFP to scan large volumes isn’t ideal, so we’re having new conversations with them around best practice and how to improve document management. As a result, we’re now including standalone scanners in our offering and supplying these to customers who need dedicated capture solutions to support their move to digital-first workflows. Q: When selling MFPs, what are the most popular software solutions you provide and why? A: We’ve seen a lot of demand for secure pull-printing from customers across the board, so we offer Declan Keogh, Director, Dectek Epson Print Admin which provides secure printing, scanning and copying through user-authentication with card readers, logins/passwords and PIN codes. It also offers additional features such as ‘scan and send to me’, user education notifications and enhanced administrative tools that provide productivity and efficiency benefits. We also provide PaperCut software. Q: If you could change one aspect of your job what would it be and why? A: I love my job, I really do. But there is one thing I’d love to change and that would be to train more engineers from scratch. So, in an ideal world, I’d set up a training school and encourage more people to join this industry and learn how to service and maintain the devices from the ground up. Q: How do you spend your week – time on phone, face to face meetings with customers etc.? A: It’s a mix. I spent a lot of time on the phone arranging on-site visits with customers and the partners we support with service across the country. But I also spend a lot of time face to face with customers, whether it’s a scheduled meeting or a catch up when I’m on-site fixing an issue or conducting a proactive maintenance visit. My team and I also get together a couple of times a week, for a coffee or lunch – we are a small team, and we cover the entire country so it’s important for us to take time out and meet up regularly. Q: What would make your job easier? A: A helicopter! That would save a ton of time I spent on the road. And if OEMs invented error codes that made sense! www.dectek.ie Declan Keogh
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