PrintFleet President Chris McFarlane describes the challenges associated with leading a business through periods of dramatic change as “fun.” He must be having lots of fun because few people have led their company through such dramatic change as McFarlane.
Chris McFarlane
Over the past several years, under McFarlane’s guidance, PrintFleet has evolved from a mostly North American device management software company into a global business providing cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) and Data as a Service (DaaS) solutions.
McFarlane truly enjoys his job too. He cites the variety of tasks and the opportunity to work with “very interesting people” as what he enjoys most about it. He says that having clients of every size in over 125 countries ensures that his days are always exciting. Those days often start with an early morning call to sales or account management leaders in Europe or North America.
“The rest of my day may well follow from that call, in terms of liaising with our marketing, technology or finance staff to ensure that our resources are appropriately deployed,” he explains. “Given the diversity of our business partners and their global operating locations, about 30 percent of my time is spent traveling.”
McFarlane continues, “My job allows me to lead us in these new directions with the full support of our board and shareholders. Very exciting indeed.”
The new direction appears to be the right one too because PrintFleet has garnered many accolades this year, including recognition as the Best Print Management Solutions Provider, 2016 by UK-based CEO Insight Magazine and the Outstanding Achievement in Innovation award by Buyers Lab for the embedded Data Collection Agent (DCA) that they developed on behalf of Samsung. As for being named a Difference Maker by ENX, McFarlane says that he was very pleased that his peers recognized him as someone who has contributed meaningfully to the industry.
McFarlane is quick to point out how fortunate he’s been to have had people throughout his career who he could look to for guidance and support. He maintains that the benefits of a trusted and unbiased colleague are incalculable, and he cites colleague, Bob Westrope, who said to him: “You know what needs to be done — just get on and do it.”
It was also very important for him to acknowledge PrintFleet founder and Chairman, Brian Cosgrove.
“He has been a pleasure to work with and for,” he says. “When I was in the consulting business, the slogan for my practice was Courageous thought. Bold solutions. Brian epitomizes this for me, personally and professionally. As chairperson and founder of PrintFleet, Brian had the courage to start and finance the business at a point in his life when many of his contemporaries were thinking more about retirement than the next big thing. Brian’s commitment to doing the right thing and his unwavering support of the business and me has allowed us to make great progress.”
McFarlane says that he hopes to see PrintFleet continue to establish milestones on all fronts, including revenue growth and client satisfaction. “In particular we intend to add to our several people to our European team and significantly enhance our connections within the VAR community,” he adds.
As for the future of the industry, McFarlane believes the office technology industry is in store for accelerated change, and that change will be driven by greater connectivity.
“As in many other aspects of our lives, isolationism is becoming increasingly unsustainable,” he explains. “The need to get and stay connected with others is becoming paramount. Transactions within our industry need to become frictionless, affording benefits of scale and “just in timeness” to organizations. This reality will lead to a broader blending of solutions.”
