01732 759725 48 Q&A View from the channel Q: What do you see as the biggest challenges facing channel businesses today? A: Being one step ahead. Knowledge is key and in an industry with so much competition, being able to offer a USP or the latest technology available to us, really is powerful. We are regularly engaging with internal IT departments and so understanding their world is important. Essentially, we are supplying glorified PCs onto their network as well as software solutions to support. This means that security needs to be considered. Additionally, whilst many organisations are rightfully taking sustainability far more seriously than they were, making sure we offer the right secure and sustainable solution to our end-users is the challenge. Q: Which OEMs do you partner with and why? A: We partnered with Toshiba from day one and in truth if it weren’t for their support, we wouldn’t have had the confidence to go it alone, as a result we continue to have a fantastic relationship with them. In 2021 we were really taken by Epson’s message and joined them in ‘disrupting the market’ whilst later taking on Kyocera’s product portfolio. In the last couple of months, we are delighted to have become a Ricoh partner and added a Tier 1 manufacturer to our armoury. Q: What are your customers most interested in currently? A: Future proofing their setup so that they can be adaptable to any sudden changes in their working practices. Cloud-based solutions are also gathering pace and we are regularly having conversations about this, which is where security is becoming so important. There seems to be a real shift to subscriptionbased offerings, which helps us to offer flexible solutions. Q: How have you changed/are you changing business operations to exploit new opportunities? A: We are starting to practice what we preach and have started to adopt some of the solutions we offer into our own working practices. As an example, we have recently invested in Foldr, which has been a game changer in the way we not only share information, both internally and externally, but also the speed at which we can search for and retrieve documents has been incredible. The more we use it, the more conversations we are having about Foldr, allowing us to explore more Jack Ranson, Director, Certa MPS Limited opportunities. We are gaining a real understanding into a customer’s existing processes which enhances the working relationship. Q: When selling MFPs, what are the most popular software solutions you provide and why? A: It’s difficult to identify one because there are many which essentially do the same thing, but one offering may be better for a client because of their size or how they operate, i.e. do they have remote workers or are staff regularly moving between sites? Secure print release is definitely something we are finding popular but whether this is PaperCut, Toshiba’s Cloud Print or Epson’s EPA really does depend on the setup. Q: If you could change one aspect of your job what would it be and why? A: It’s a double-edged sword really as I would love to focus purely on engaging with clients, but you are of course drawn to every operation of the business, so if I did that, I’d probably fret. I love being in front of people and so if I could do that all day every day, I would be in my element! Q: How do you spend your week – time on phone, face to face meetings with customers etc.? A: Whilst I try and plan my weeks as best I can, it can be very reactive, which has a certain buzz about it, but at the same time, can put you behind on the tasks you had set out to achieve that week. A typical week would be a day or two out of the office seeing clients, the rest being in the office with the team. Q: What would make your job easier? A: How realistic do I have to be with this question! Elon Musk can’t be that far off from inventing some sort of time travel machine, can he? https://certamps.co.uk Jack Ranson
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