01732 759725 ONE-TO-ONE 46 Mike Anderson, Chief Marketing Officer at Brother UK, spoke to Michelle Ryder about the changes both in terms of technology and customer needs, he’s witnessed over the past ten years Step back in time in the nuts and bolts of the channel and a great opportunity to learn and work alongside highly experienced salespeople. “As I worked my way up,” he continued: “I enjoyed the experience of collaborating with some of our great creative agencies, and helped the business expand its marketing efforts as the way the channel operated – and how we interacted with it – evolved.” A major shift Brother has pivoted its business model and recently launched a new managed print services proposition to support its reseller partners meet demand for print-as-a-service. “There’s been a major shift from being transactionalled to focusing on print-as-a-service,” Anderson explained, adding “We’ve long been vocal about our commitment to MPS, and we expect it to account for half of revenue by 2025. Achieving this will rely on a joined-up approach between our sales and marketing efforts to give resellers everything they need to best support their customers.” It's this that really underlines the change Anderson has seen in the business over the last decade. “Our European regional offices are more closely linked operationally than they were in years gone by. In the UK, we’re constantly sharing ideas and learnings with the teams in France, Germany and Spain, and we’re learning a lot from them on what’s working in their market. Pooling knowledge and resource in this way means we’re spotting trends sooner and staying ahead of the game in helping resellers meet customer needs,” he said. Customer needs are constantly evolving Anderson says that customer needs are constantly evolving - largely down to the rise of the decision-making unit. “There were just one or two people responsible for procuring IT for a business in the Anderson completed a year-long university placement at HP in 2003 before moving on to a marketing agency after he graduated. “What I really wanted was an opportunity to develop a long-term vision for a brand, and that was when a job became available in Brother’s marketing team,” he explained. “The business’s culture is what pulled me in. My dad was in advertising and worked with Brother as a client. He sold me on its people, approach and way of working, which made the job feel like a no-brainer.” He recalls his first job was a Senior Channel Marketing Executive: “A world away from what I was used to agencyside. Everything was sales-led, and I created fliers and product promotions for reseller partners every month. But it gave me a fantastic grounding past. But now we regularly see teams of eight and ten, as firms put greater resource behind managing their IT and print estates,” he noted. He continued: “What this means is reseller customer bases are far more informed and there is a need to engage with decision-makers across the full purchasing journey. It’s no longer just about products and product knowledge – we need to be a trusted, knowledgeable consultant that understands their operations inside and out. “Customers are increasingly focusing on how they can use tech to make their operations more sustainable, secure and cost-efficient, and our job is to arm resellers with the right products, services and insight that will help them to achieve that.” A sustainable future Anderson says there are two things that excite him about the future. “The first is sustainability – it’s what guides us as a business and we’re aiming to set an example for others in the print sector to follow. We’re remanufacturing used cartridges returned to us and we recently became the first company to be awarded the Blue Angel certification for a remanufactured cartridge. “The second is our people. There are more avenues into a career than there used to be, and the result is more talented people coming into the industry, which is brilliant. To give you an example, one of our team joined as an apprentice at 17 and has already progressed to become a channel marketing executive at 21, so they’ll be way ahead of me when I joined Brother at 29! “There are plenty of potential future leaders among our younger employees and I can assure you that the channel is in very good hands,” he concluded. www.brother.co.uk Mike Anderson
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