PRINTITRESELLER.UK 39 ONE-TO-ONE JG: I started out by asking you what your highlights were for 2024 and I’m going to end by asking, what are you looking forward to in 2025 and where do you think Brother can make a real difference to resellers and end‑user customers? GM: As I mentioned during the interview, we’re 100% channel focused, but I think we’ve not resourced that area of our business particularly well over the last couple of years. People have left the business or moved to change jobs internally at Brother. So subsequently, our channel team was quite low resourced. What we’ve done is we’ve tripled the size of that team over the last six months, and I’m really excited to see how we start to support the channel even better again. I’m really looking forward to seeing what kind of results we can drive from the channel by working on those relationships again and providing that ‘At your side’ that we’ve been known for in the years gone by. I want to get back to the channel understanding that that’s what they get from Brother. It’s a trusted advisor. It’s a partner, looking at opportunities and supporting them with their day to day business. So that’s kind of the most exciting thing that I’m looking forward to this year. www.brother.co.uk JG: What plans do you have to get that message across? GM: We’re still working with our Japanese headquarters, Brother Industries, and our European head office to ensure that the message works across Europe. and the globe really. It’s not just a UK concern. But we do come across opportunities now where sustainability is a real key point, so it forms parts of bids and tenders that come into the business. So, I think businesses now have to have the credentials and the credibility to speak about what they can offer in that space, because it’s a requirement. We’re going to see every bid and tender that comes through the doors is always going to have that element to it. marketplace. We’re still working on how we communicate our sustainability credentials more effectively, but we’ve always, like you pointed out, we’ve always had a really good sustainability message. I think we’ve been talking about it longer than a lot of other manufacturers, whether they’re in print or in other areas, and that’s helped us, because people think of us as being sustainable because of work we’ve done years ago. But I think we’ve still got a way to go now. Other people have now joined that conversation, and I think have developed a message that’s a bit stronger, so we’ve got a bit of catching up to do to make sure people understand that we were there at the start, and we’re very much developing our offering. Like you said we’ve got our recycling plant in Ruabon, and we are now the only print manufacturer to be recycling ink cartridges. So that’s a different and another great thing. When we’re recycling toners, we’re saving 33% carbon emissions by recycling those toners. So, there are some really good, strong messages, but we’ve got so many messages, it’s getting that out in a clear and concise manner, and we don’t want to be looking like we’re just the ‘me too’ type of scenario. We’ve got something really good here to talk about, so we just want to make sure that we do a good job of that. …continued To watch the interview in full, please click or scan the QR code.
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