Transitioning Towards a New Delivery Model

Dennis Amorosano

Obviously there’s a major trend in the industry toward what we call the delivery of ‘managed document services’ and what most of the industry refers to as ‘managed print services’. Let’s call it a ‘delivery model’ if you will and that’s going to become more prevalent in 2012. It will continue to represent a growing percentage of the business that Canon and its channel partners are driving on a year-over-year basis. We’ve seen this trend occurring over the last couple of years, but certainly in 2012 we’ll see it continue and accelerate particularly as customers in the mid-tier market more actively and aggressively adopt managed print services types of approaches for managing their fleets.

In general, we’re continuing to see this migration of customers where more are taking advantage of some of the more technical capabilities that technology provides and integrating devices into business process applications and workflow. We expect to see that continue as well. Whether it’s managed services or this tighter integration of technology—both represent significant opportunities for Canon and our channel partners given our technology portfolio.

If we stay focused on those trends there are some challenges for our existing channel partners who are putting in place the infrastructure to effectively deliver managed print services to their customers. Having said that, our channel partners who long ago invested in those capabilities, are now seeing managed print services represent a bigger part of their businesses.

Given the nature of Canon’s channels we still have a decent number of channel partners who are in the midst of transitioning so they can offer that type of delivery model. That will remain a challenge for those partners and by extension to Canon. We obviously are working on things to help with that transition.

The same holds true in terms of higher level integrations of the technology into customer environments. Again, we have many channel partners who have built comprehensive abilities in terms of integration, some of whom have even gone out and built systems integration type capabilities into their businesses or acquired systems integration companies. In general most of the channels are more adept at selling a packaged hardware and software [solution] and are still in the process of developing the skills to tightly integrate the technologies into customer applications and business process.

Canon has consistently made investments in the technology offerings we bring to the table that are specific to delivery of managed print. From a technology perspective, you can look at technologies like our enterprise management console software or the uniFlow software technology as core examples of providing tools to our channel partners they can use for facilitating a managed print services approach to their clients. Around the technology we’ve done a lot in terms of providing our channels with the educational opportunities to help them transform their existing business model.

We have a partner transformation program that we launched late last year and we’re just now starting to see dealers gravitate towards that. For dealers who haven’t made the transition and acquired these skills, the program is a 12-month mentoring program that provides them with the background and education to help transform their business to effectively deliver a more services-oriented approach to customers.

Last year Canon formed a services company Canon Information and Imaging Solutions (CIIS). We’re leveraging that company and the resources in that organization to provide our channels with the sales and technical implementation support that will allow our channels to more effectively pursue those opportunities in the marketplace. Whether it’s a technical integration of Canon’s technology or the delivery of a consulting type service to their customer base, our channel partners now have the ability to leverage that resource through CIIS to pursue those opportunities.

Finally, as you would expect, we’re continuing to drive a significant amount of activity in terms of new product development. You’ll see quite a few announcements from us in 2012 whether in our existing hardware or existing software portfolio. We think the enhancements we have coming will raise the level of value we can deliver to end customers and in doing so will help our channel partners be much more competitive.