Technology Reseller - v08

technolog y reseller.co.uk INTERVIEW 35 The new programme offers partners greater opportunities to earn rebates across all key products in our portfolio with some additional incentives built in around sales of our MPS solutions channel partners, and we’re looking to traditional office equipment resellers and retailers, as well as our SI and VAR channel, to achieve that. We’ve expanded the Basic MPS model, which we introduced a few years back, so that we now offer a comprehensive, simple, flexible service that encompasses basic and advanced offers and caters to a broad range of markets, spanning SMB, public sector and corporate. We’ve deliberately ensured our new programme is tailored to support partners of all shapes and sizes focusing on different markets. While we see big MPS growth opportunities for partners in retail, healthcare, education and SMB, in particular, our solutions are designed to meet the specific needs of individual businesses, meaning we can support partners working in all kinds of sectors. We have established and trusted relationships with many firms in the channel, and this will always be key to us. However, it’s important that we continue to diversify. For example, we’ve been developing new relationships with specialists in retail IT support, which falls outside of what’s known as the traditional channel. TR : What has the take-up of Brother MPS been like to date and what targets do you have for 2018?  GM: Since we launched our solutions offering just a few years ago, we’ve had strong year-on-year growth every year. We’ve outperformed all our targets and expect to continue to do so in the coming years, with the help of our revised partner programme. We’ve been particularly strong in certain key markets – for example, we now provide MPS solutions to over 50% of the UK grocery sector. Our ambition is to continue to grow in these areas, as well as increase our foothold across other vertical markets. Channel Vision Craig Joseph, COO, intY 1 What was your greatest challenge in 2017? I think there is still a fundamental misunderstanding of what reselling cloud services actually means. One of our greatest challenges continues to be educating the market, including resellers and partners, on the difference between simply selling a licensed version of Office365 and selling the full cloud-based solution. We still need to get across to the market the value that a reseller can bring to the cloud ecosystem, and I think this will continue through 2018. 2 What was your greatest achievement in 2017? We’re proud to have gained some great industry recognition (e.g. Cloud Distributor of the Year at the CRN Awards), which we feel is a strong testament to the success we have experienced over the last 12 months. We have seen fantastic growth across our whole business and have managed to significantly improve customer satisfaction, which is hugely important to us, as our partners and resellers are the lifeblood of our business. We have also added several exciting new vendors to our solution portfolio, most recently Highlight, so we can continue to offer our resellers the full range of cloud services. 3 What were the key growth areas for you in 2017? We set ourselves very ambitious targets at the end of 2016 in every area of the business, including sales, customer satisfaction, partner growth, even employee satisfaction. We were aiming to grow the entire business across a wide range of metrics, and we’re really pleased that we’ve achieved them. 4 Any lessons learned in 2017? It’s never easy to improve a business across as many areas as we wanted to. Wasn’t it Jose Mourinho who said ‘no eggs – no omelettes’? You can grow sales, but this may come at the expense of margin, if it means having to offer incentives and discounts. That said, we’re incredibly proud of everything we’ve achieved and wouldn’t do anything differently, despite the challenges we’ve faced. 5 What is your main focus for 2018? To continue to grow our partner network. We are signing hundreds of new partners every month, and we want to increase this activity in 2018. We also want to enable all our partners, existing and new, to move towards cloud-focused business models by working with them on go-to- market strategies and technical support. 6 Reasons to be optimistic about 2018? Adoption of cloud services is growing rapidly, and we’re really excited about how the subscription-based business model is changing the way cloud services are delivered. Typical 30-day terms mean that we, and our partners, must constantly offer the very best customer service or end users will vote with their feet and find another provider. This is a challenge, but with our focus on delivering the best customer service, we are confident we can achieve it. 7 Reasons to be fearful about 2018? Price erosion. Service comes at a cost and partners need to make margin, but it may come to the point where less service-focused resellers can sell on price alone and not deliver what the end customer needs, for example by neglecting after-sales assistance and technical support. Customers are price- conscious, so if resellers that sell cheap and don’t add the value of dedicated customer service enter the market, it could become increasingly challenging for those that prioritise top-quality customer support to compete.