PRINTITRESELLER.UK 39 BIG ISSUE Print vendors are accelerating their transformation from sellers of print devices into providers of fully integrated IT solutions. At Tech Live 2022, directors from three leading OEMs discussed what this means for the reseller community. Here’s some edited highlights Panel discussion at Tech Live 2022 it is that they want to be able to do to expand the dialogue that they’re having with the customer. Because the customer is spending that money every day, they’re just not spending it necessarily with the print vendor. So, it’s a question of really homing in to where you want to go and identify opportunities.” Francis Thornhill, Head of Customer & Solutions Marketing, Konica Minolta: “Clearly there’s a great opportunity for resellers to expand their service lines to add IT as an add-on to existing sales for new revenue streams, new recurring margins, and a greater share of wallet. There’s a great market out there – the total IT market is £60 billion in the UK and it’s resilient, even in these times. It’s growing about four per cent a year and beyond the niches that we’re all doing right now. “Customers are looking to partners to outsource their non-core but critical tasks. They want to focus on their customers, not the IT and back-office tasks that are holding them back and they’re looking to partners to take that burden on for them. “70 per cent of UK SMEs are already testing outsourcing. 30 per cent this year are looking to increase their use of outsourcing and 59 per cent of them are doing it because they want to remove costs. They want to get access to innovation and agility that their internal teams can’t do. And then around 30 per cent of them are doing it because they simply can’t access the skills that they need in-house. So, there’s a great opportunity for partners to grow and to capture this market opportunity. How can resellers build on existing relationships to develop additional sources of revenue? Rod Tonna-Barthet, President & CEO, KYOCERA Document Solutions (UK): “The print market does an incredibly good job of keeping really close relationships with its customers. I think the opportunity is for resellers to expand the services they’re providing and develop the relationships they have. “But the critical thing is to be really clear about what that expansion looks like. I see a lot of vendors just saying we want to talk to you about your IT strategy or about IT, and the first thing that the customer tends to say is: ‘that’s great, but what are your accreditations and what are your skills?’ And it’s knowing what those particular skills are that the print vendor really needs to be clear about. That quite often means either working with vendors like us, that can provide them with the services outside of their traditional core print capabilities or partnering with organisations that can talk about IT in specific aspects. “It’s about focusing on the customer and then really thinking hard about what “There are great opportunities here and people shouldn’t stay in their niche. But there are risks: number one – if vendors don’t go on the journey, they’ll leave the door open. Because the worlds of IT, information and print, they’re all converging. You can’t keep them separate anymore. And number two, for those that do go on the journey, delivering a great customer experience for these new business lines every single step – from initial inquiry, through to design, build, and support, is tough. So, partner with someone you trust and use them to fill the gaps. You don’t have to do all the initial investments upfront and partnering is really common in the IT world.” Phil Jones, Managing Director, Brother UK: “We’re all in this game because fundamentally we are trying to earn money. A coin has two sides, right? The question is whether you see currency or whether you see value. Fundamentally, what we should have, is value. One side of that coin should be the lifetime value we deliver to our customer. That’s what we should be delivering, and services allows us to do that. We build value baking ourselves into an organisation, becoming part of them fundamentally in some of the things that we do. And the other side of that is the way your business is going to increase in terms of its own value if you do it. “You will earn far more money on exit if you’ve got more recurring revenue in your overall business model than you will if you’re just a box mover. To put that in some context, if you’re just a box continued... Rod Tonna-Barthet Phil Jones I see a lot of vendors just saying we want to talk to you about your IT strategy or about IT, and the first thing that the customer tends to say is: ‘that’s great, but what are your accreditations and what are your skills?’ 13 September 2022 Business Design Centre · London 22 In partnership with
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