It was a little more than a year ago that Brother International invited a small cadre of journalists and analysts to Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut for a Fireside Chat presentation that was jam-packed with information about the company’s continued push into the A4 market.
But while the realities thrust upon the business world by COVID-19 forced this year’s media gathering into a Virtual Analyst Update, the company nonetheless delivered an abundance of information during the 90-minute presentation on Aug. 11. Several members of the Brother contingent provided insight as to how the company continues to fulfill its “At Your Side” tagline.
Dan Waldinger, senior director of B2B marketing, detailed how the company’s Value Print Program (VPP), offered contractually to all of the B2B channels, experienced 33% growth in fiscal 2019, backed by more than 125,000 machines in field. Partners such as CDW (with its Printers Supply Program) have helped drive that growth with 40% savings on Brother supplies, sans contracts, fees and renewals.
In response to the pandemic, Brother pivoted to address the future of work, the six-foot space and a work-from-home hub—all of which speak to the Brother Balanced Deployment Approach for assessing and improving workflow and productivity. The six-foot office anticipates the needs of offices on the back end of the pandemic, providing a more optimized device-to-employee ratio and the safe usage of Brother equipment. The manufacturer also partnered with Toshiba on a work-from-home kit to enable end-users to create a corporate working environment in the home with smaller footprint laser products.
At the end of last year, Brother unveiled its Solutions & Services Portfolio, BrotherB2BPortfolio.com. It provides more than 120 items for dealers to peruse, covering print, mobile, security, device management and deployment, document workflow and other solutions. With enhanced search capabilities and PDF sell sheets at their fingertips, dealers can also avail themselves of a playbook on how to offer and sell the solutions.
Speaking of playbooks, Waldinger also discussed the continued influence of the Brother Knowledge Center that enables dealers to beef up their competency. It currently sees use by nearly 3,900 users across 731 companies. Loaded with 37,000 modules and quizzes, the Center has seen 15,000 hours of training since its inception, which he feels is an indication of how customers are interacting with the site during the pandemic.
Waldinger and Bob Burnett, the director of B2B solutions development, also provided insight into the company’s recent partnership with Kofax to offer its ControlSuite print management software with select Brother laser printers, MFPs and inkjet devices. Through ControlSuite, organizations can manage, secure and govern documents with unified print management, capture and document security.
Brother has also partnered with Microsoft on the Universal Print Driver, with a rollout during the September timeframe. The cloud-based print infrastructure eliminates the need for on-premise print servers and allows organizations to control printer properties and configuration from one central location.
The OEM also invested in a partner relationship management (PRM) tool through ZINFI, which concentrates on areas such as partner productivity, process automation, actionable insights and reducing costs. It’s geared toward reseller sales and marketing efforts via a single resource tool. According to Waldinger, Brother will be partnering with a number of dealers in the coming weeks.
On the subject of marketing, Brother has invested in Oracle’s Eloqua for running email campaigns, which concentrates on lead storing, routing and nurturing. It focuses on both end-user and channel leads and brand awareness activity.
Check out the September issue of ENX Magazine, which will have a complete look at Brother’s performance and most recent initiatives.
