01732 759725 ONE-TO-ONE 46 Karen Aldred, Managing Director, Mayday Office Equipment Industry insight marketplace, we want to stand out for providing choice, and excellent service. I would also like to see more women in the industry, as IT technicians or printer and connectivity engineers. Our experience is that women don’t apply for the roles! Q: How do you stay ahead of the curve and ensure that your company remains at the forefront of innovation? A: We have diversified our offering beyond print. With print volumes decreasing, we had to pivot to create new opportunities and stay ahead. We identified an opportunity in IT and created a separate IT division which is really successful. In fact, we have become a trusted partner to many of our biggest customers across both copiers and IT. 12 months ago, we also added telephony and broadband to our portfolio, which gives us another opportunity to cross-sell to our existing customer base. Plus, with the recent acquisition of Norfolk Copiers, we can offer their customers a whole range of new solutions and services too. 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: Security is the biggest challenge, especially when people are working from home, when a secure and reliable connection is essential. In the IT realm, we’re seeing increased demand for Q: What’s currently having the greatest impact on your business? A: It would have to be rising costs. On the one hand we have suppliers wanting to charge more, while customers want to save money, so we’re bring squeezed in the middle. Our focus is on offering the best level of service and providing our customers with a value-add. We are a local business, (although we can and do offer a national service). Being based in Norfolk puts us in rather a unique position, people like to buy local, both our businesses (Mayday and Norfolk Copiers) are in the centre of the community, our joint offering is extensive, and our staff know our customers. So, in a cost-focused secure solutions for user authentication and cost control. So multi-factor authentication and PaperCut software deployments are increasing. In addition, we’re using digital signatures more and more. We offer hard copy and digital contract options to our customers, as many are moving towards paper free status and looking for scanning and digital-first solutions to support this. People are printing less but they need an alternative to bridge the gap, which is where document workflow solutions come in. Our IT team do regular check-ins with customers to help them securely navigate changes in working practices. 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: That’s a difficult one to answer. As I mentioned earlier, we are based in Norfolk, and our geographical location is rather unique. You don’t drive through Norfolk; you drive to it! We do want to be known as a cutting-edge tech company, but in the same vein, we serve the needs of a local market and right now, I don’t think the next big breakthrough or game-changer in the industry will have a massive impact on it. Q: What advice would you give a young person starting a career in the industry? A: Treat every day as a learning opportunity. Karen Aldred https://www.mayday-online.co.uk
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