Print.IT Reseller - issue 53

01732 759725 28 PARTNER PROGRAMME Investment in collaboration Building on positive partner feedback regarding Canon’s account management culture, the company has invested heavily in headcount, training and tools to demonstrate its ongoing commitment to this central principle of collaboration. Pittick said: “We’ve done a number of things - some of it is around increasing headcount and some around increasing headcount availability. We have brought new people into the channel, some from within Canon and other external appointments. There hasn’t been a lot of internal change for some time and we’ve now got a fresher mix of ideas and input into the channel.” Canon embarked on a large transformation programme two years ago. “That gave us the opportunity to really look at how we wanted to structure our organisation to support the channel. Historically it had been very siloed and one of the key changes we made was to open up the expertise that we have within Canon to the channel,” he added. As an example Pittick cited changes made in areas such as software and professional services. Previously there would have been five to six dedicated people on hand to support partners. “With around 110 partners, that resource was often stretched,” he explained, adding: “Within the company we’ve got a huge professional services division, current headcount is around 100 people. Most of them were aligned specifically with the direct arm of our operation, what we’ve now done is embed a culture where our professional services, software and application specialists can just as easily be deployed to support our partners with their customers. We’ve unlocked those areas of our business to our partners, providing them with access to a much broader skillset and knowledge base of people.” Another area where investment has been made is within account management. Partner feedback indicated an appetite for additional support with business planning and helping them to stand out from their competition. Pittick said: “We’ve invested in quite an extensive learning and development programme with our existing people to redesign some of the business planning template tools we use. We’re also looking at introducing other tools for them to use and deploy within those relationships to help our partners with business growth.” He added: “What I’ve reiterated to my team is that this is an opportunity for us to engage with our partners, to really understand where they are looking to grow and where we can help them. We will agree goals and actions and put these into a documented plan that we revisit at quarterly business reviews etc. We will become accountable to those commitments and that’s two way – the partner commits to what they want to achieve and we commit to the things we can do to support and help them achieve those things. “With the regular reviews you can check, monitor and adjust as necessary. With any plan you may need to make adjustments along the way, and having a process and template brings accountability to us and to the partner and the relationship.” Demand generation The updated programme reinforces Canon’s commitment to helping partners stand out from the competition and generate demand. Canon will empower partners with market insights and propositions to optimise traction in target customer segments, and campaign tools to generate a higher volume and quality of leads. “That’s a commitment that we’re making, it’s an area that we definitely need to improve upon. Part of the business transformation I spoke about earlier was reorganising our marketing and sales functions at a country level. We have an extensive team in the UK, in charge of all areas of marketing but in particular demand and lead generation. Campaigns will generate leads based on market segmentation work that we’re doing,” he said. “Other areas of focus include looking at how we improve additional services for partners. How we support them with collateral and documentation and co-branded marketing activities for them to run their own campaigns with our support; to create their own demand generation and lead activity; and how we can deliver things like marketing as a service on a campaign basis.” Canon’s partner landscape is evolving and further growth whilst a key objective is, according to Pittick, a work in progress. “We are less concerned about the number of new partners we sign but more interested in the quality and value of partnership. Within the IT reseller channel, we will review how we can utilise second tier distribution more effectively for some of our fast moving products into B2B environments. That way we might end up with a large number of second tier partners but we will facilitate that business through a smaller number of distribution partners. At the higher end it’s about resource management, so we want to make sure that we don’t take on too many too quickly, and dilute the support we are giving to our partner community. Growth is definitely an ambition, but it’s growth in the right way,” he said in conclusion. www.canon.co.uk With any plan you may need to make adjustments along the way, and having a process and template brings accountability to us and to the partner and the relationship ...continued...