01732 759725 ONE-TO-ONE 20 Michelle Ryder caught up with Phil Jones, Managing Director at Brother UK to find out more about the business’ plans for growth in the coming year One-to-one with Phil Jones Jones said that the pandemic, resultant rise in online shopping and what looks to be permanent changes to buying habits, has created increased demand for Auto-ID solutions. “For Brother, developing our specialist print services (SPS) offering and capitalising on the opportunities that lie in the warehousing, travel and logistics sectors, is a key part of our growth plan,” he explained. Brother has a strong heritage in the office and indeed home office space, and Jones sees now as the perfect time to expand its reach into the back-office. “Our strong offering across hardware, software and services in mobile, labelling and barcode printing technologies, is a key differentiator and we are extremely well placed to support our partners in making an adjacent move,” he said, adding: “Our messaging is very clear and powerful: we can offer innovative new procurement options through our hardware-as-a-service platforms, and we can help customers to rationalise vendors and roll more printing equipment into a fully managed estate from Brother. This is a key focus area for the business this year and we will be looking to build new channel partnerships to help boost our footprint and capability in this market.” Supply chain Another key issue affecting firms in all sectors is the continuing challenges in the global supply chain. Jones admits that whilst Brother’s own operations are very slick, the business has not escaped unscathed, and it’s been a testing time. “I think it’s fair to say that the severity of the impacts very much depends on where you manufacture and where your component suppliers operate. More recently of course, there has been challenges around increased shipping costs. The areas that we control continue to run smoothly, however there are so many factors outside of our control that regardless of our best efforts, challenges persist. There is no doubt that colleagues in this area have really worked hard this year. I firmly believe that regardless of where you sit in the channel, Brother UK has announced a number of new initiatives around its labelling range. Last year saw the launch of a new hardware-as-a-service platform – Managed Label Services (MLS), which allows companies to access new Brother label printers, thirdparty hardware, software, services and supplies, with the option to spread the upfront cost over an affordable monthly payment plan. The company has also forged several partnerships with barcode software providers including NiceLabel, BarTender and Datalogic, and expanded its labelling and mobile print product line-up. supply chain issues will continue to be challenging in the coming year,” he said. “That said,” he continued: “We have had a steady supply of product for the past year, and we are able to be able to accurately forecast future revenue etc. which is key in terms of maintaining business stability. “The word ‘stagility’ – an amalgamation of stability and agility, quite accurately sums up what and where we are as a business. Brother UK is a very stable organisation in terms of financials, reputation etc. but we are also incredibly good at being agile where and when we need to, and that approach has been tested to the max over the past couple of years.” Future focus The pandemic has irrevocably changed the business landscape, it’s been welldocumented that print volumes which were in decline pre-pandemic, are unlikely to fully recover. Moreover, the move to remote working and the new hybrid working model being adopted by firms worldwide, have created a reliance on new, modern technologies that enable digital transformation. “Brother has faced the same challenges our customers are facing, we had to rapidly digitise our own operations in order to conduct business as usual in extraordinary circumstances. We know and understand the pain points and, importantly, we can help customers to resolve them,” Jones said. To that end, Brother’s strategy is to
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