There are a slew of reasons Brother International Corporation has to ignore the BTA channel, given its unofficial status as a mature space that’s facing continual decreases in the volume of pages printed. Yet the century-old manufacturer—perhaps best known for its line of consumer printing products and sewing machines—is embarking on a burgeoning campaign to elbow its way into the B4 consciousness of office dealers and pilfer market share from other OEMs.
Brother makes no bones about it: this vendor wants your business. And it’s working hard with dealer clients and their end users to prove that its B2B channel focus isn’t just throwing another log on the OEM printer fire. The manufacturer continues to generate interest in its Brother Authorized Partner Program. Its Brother Workhorse Series of printers, MFPs and scanners is exclusive to the BTA channel, without competition from online retailers or direct sales efforts by Brother. In fact, Brother employs a sales force that focuses exclusively on demand generation for its dealer and channel partners.
And for those dealers who bemoan that there’s no service money to be made on the back end of the sale, due to its machines’ A4 laser economical price point, Brother’s Value Print Program can enable them to reap the benefits of a typical MPS pact, while the OEM can handle either level one or two servicing (dealer choice) and, if need be, replacement of the machine.
Brother is also extending its reach with the recent announcement of a partnership with Toshiba, which will enable Toshiba’s direct sales and authorized resellers to offer Brother’s Workhorse Series and take advantage of the Value Print Program.
We spoke with Dan Waldinger, senior director of B2B marketing for Brother, and Bob Burnett, who heads B2B solutions, to learn more about the various programs the manufacturer brings to market, from technical prowess to educational and marketing opportunities designed to reinforce the bond between Brother and its dealer partners.
Tell us about your career path leading up to your current position at Brother.
Dan Waldinger, Sr. Director for B2B Marketing, Brother
Waldinger: I’ve been in the office equipment industry for 30 years. I started with a large copier company, Mita, back when the primary technology for copiers was analog. In the beginning, I was a copier research specialist and held a number of positions there for 10 years, managing the effectiveness of dealer programs. A majority of their business came from indirect channels. I moved to Savin and held various product management positions. Around the time the analog to digital transition was occurring, I moved into the printing solutions business with Ricoh. It was there that I worked on emerging MPS trends and launched Ricoh’s first MPS solution. In 2001, we proceeded to launch a number of technology showrooms across the country known as Ricoh Technology Portals, basically the equivalent to the tech stores you see today, but with a B2B focus. We had a lot of dealer and direct major account business run through those technology showcases, and we wrote quite a lot of MPS business.
I’ve been with Brother for seven years in December; I came over to launch its B2B effort. At first, I was primarily working on the OmniJoin cloud web conferencing solution. Given my background in the channel, as well as printing and document solution management, when we decided to push up market into the B2B space and join the BTA channels, it was a logical fit for me to take over that marketing effort.
What were some of the highlights in 2017 for Brother across all its lines of business, and specifically in the dealer channel?
Waldinger: It was an exciting year that marked our 110th anniversary on a global basis. Brother is headquartered in Nagoya, Japan, with more than 38,000 employees globally. Our most recent fiscal year’s sales were more than $6.4 billion dollars. Some of our other products include sewing machines, karaoke services, cloud services and industrial gear motors.
On the printing side, in 2017 we were happy to win the Monochrome Line of the Year from Buyer’s Lab. We developed the Brother Workhorse series of products from the ground up. As we pushed upmarket into SMBs and larger businesses, we knew the requirements of the product would change. The line has a lot more durable parts, higher print volumes, higher capacities, more paper handling, higher speeds and superior image quality. We have pushed aggressively into the BTA channel. We know it’s a mature space, so every piece of business that we get is going to be at the expense of another vendor. So we have to work harder, smarter and be fluid in responding to the needs of the BTA copier dealers.
That’s one of the advantages we wanted to have when entering the channel; we didn’t want dealers to compete with retail and e-commerce. We also do not want our dealer partners to compete with us.
– Dan Waldinger, Brother
Which were some of the drivers behind the growth of the Workhorse series?
Waldinger: Looking at the larger market, IDC is saying that in U.S., about one trillion pages are printed per year.1 We are predicting and seeing declines in print volume, however, so we’re focusing on having the right solutions for where our customers are today. There’s a shift from A3 to A4, and some of the larger copier companies have been pitching a centralized strategy in business with a 25 to 35:1 employee-to-device ratio for what they consider to be an optimized environment. Thus, 25 to 35 people are sharing one connected copier or large MFP. Brother is talking about a two-pronged strategy. We’re complementing some of the A3 copiers, but we want to get that A4 technology—those printers, MFPs and scanners—a lot closer to the workers. A much more optimized workgroup ratio would be around 8 to 12:1 employee-to-device ratio. So when we launched the Brother Workhorse Series, primarily it was a combination of two clean, inexpensive products designed from the ground up: both a color laser product—which is an MFP and a printer with a number of different configurations—and a monochrome laser product in different configurations, designed as a workgroup solution.
This is an exclusive, protected lineup for the channel that includes dedicated scanners as well as color printers and MFPs. These are not products our BTA copier dealers will see on ecommerce retail sites. That’s one of the advantages we wanted to have when entering the channel; we didn’t want dealers to compete with retail and e-commerce. We also do not want our dealer partners to compete with us. We do not sell these products direct in any way. We have a sales force that is primarily focused on demand generation.
What can you tell us about demand generation and your vertical approach to markets such as education, health care, retail and government?
Waldinger: We have a dedicated, verticalized sales force that calls on end user customers. We have groups of people who focus on retail and hospitality, health care, education, corporate (including financial and manufacturing) and government. Their primary purpose is for awareness of Brother printing and document solutions. They will call on a customer and speak with them about their business needs in printing and document management. We’ll present our products, perhaps do some proof-of-concept evaluation units and perform assessments in their environments, along with some predictive analytics on how we can help save them money or improve their workflow. Once an end user is sold on a Brother solution, we simply ask them who they like to buy their technology from, or we can marry them with one of our authorized partners to place and service the solution. We’re purely there to support their pre- and post-sales needs. In addition to the sales force, we have a group of field engineers who can work in concert with the dealer on the front and back end. They can examine what the workflow looks like and determine if they are trying to solve some security challenges or issues around mobility. It focuses on how we can put our solutions in play with those customers and make sure that they’re comfortable with our technology. Bob Burnett manages our engineering team in the field.
We connect with customers to understand their pain points, to learn more about what’s happening in spaces like education or health care. We’re having conversations with customers about how we can help them with their regulatory compliancy initiatives. In education, with K-12 apps like Google Classroom, we talk about how our products can be used as on-ramps and off-ramps for those applications. It’s also about privacy and security, in terms of the Family Education Rights & Privacy Act (FERPA) regulations. A lot of the same challenges occur on the health care side with HIPAA regulations and security, and we have a number of solutions we offer to help customers in their compliancy journey. We have a lot of capabilities in the box for secure scanning to mobile devices and secure scanning to the cloud. We also have integrations with third-party apps. This is where a key differentiation occurs; if a large customer has a customization need, we do not charge for it, whereas others do. There’s a value to that service, sometimes in the thousands of dollars. Our Special Solutions Teams (SST) will work with customers and do customization with integration into the back-end systems and legacy network environments to make sure that it works—pushing drivers across the network, updating firmware.
Bob Burnett, B2B Solutions, Brother
Burnett: Our field engineers will go to the end user’s site and help them evaluate their needs, especially on the security side. Everybody’s security challenges are different in how their IT managers and security professionals want to apply their schema, depending on the vertical they’re in. Our team has the ability to tailor the configuration on the machines that fits their needs. If they’re not doing something today, most times the printing devices get overlooked in the whole security schema. That’s not a good thing to do. If this is a device that is on the network, you really want to have that as a part of your whole security architecture. There’s a lot of different solutions we can bring to the table.
What strategy is Brother employing to strengthen its relationship with the dealer channel?
Waldinger: Another differentiator is our Brother Value Print Program (VPP). It’s designed to work in concert with our dealer partners’ MPS. Many of our dealers already have MPS offerings, and the best way for us to complement that is to provide them with programs and pricing that allows them to integrate our products into their programs. For example, if you have a customer who’s going to sign a three-year MPS contract, Brother will provide extended warranties for that customer. We will provide discounts to the dealer to share with the customer on the supplies that go with the contract. With that extended warranty, we can become the level-one service provider for that customer. Our machines are primarily not break/fix products. If there’s a problem with our product that cannot be solved over the phone, we’ll ship a replacement the next day. This way, dealers don’t have to deploy service techs to fix something that might require a couple of days to repair. Dealers love this; in an MPS contract, they can continue to service the rest of the fleet, but Brother’s VPP takes the burden out of servicing the product. This has been very successful for us.
What has been the dealer response to the VPP initiative?
Waldinger: Initially, they scratch their heads. Dealers don’t make a lot of money on the devices, they make it on service, and that’s been the model for a long time. They wouldn’t want to dispatch service on a product that sells for under $1,000. We provide them the ability to make the service revenue because the product is still being serviced; the only difference is the product is being serviced by Brother. We can do the exchange warranty and we know how to troubleshoot over the phone. We have a number of dealers today who still want to be that first-level support, because they want their customer to have the single point of contact in an MPS contract. We can act as level two, and their help desk can get on the phone with us and we’ll just exchange the product the next day. VPP allows the dealer to continue to charge for service that, frankly, they’re not having to deliver. It’s a win-win for us and the dealer. And after all this, if there are still dealers that want to become a servicing reseller and fix products themselves, we have programs for that too.
Have dealers been able to leverage their existing client base to extend into nontraditional products?
Waldinger: There’s definitely an appetite for dealers to expand their product offering. We’re seeing a lot of interest on the labeling side with our QL labelers. There’s a wealth of vertical possibilities, such as health care for printing prescription labels, or labels to tag wires in a manufacturing environment. They’re also ideal for event planning, visitor management, and shipping and labeling. On the printing side of the house, because we have a platform called Brother Solutions Interface, we can also look for system integrators and developers. Some dealers might want to sell a specific solution. For instance, we have a developer who provides print-for-pay and scan-for-pay in coffee shops and apartment buildings, called PrintWithMe. We recently launched a translation service relationship with a company called thebigword. Customers can use Brother as an on-ramp to get hardcopy documents translated into multiple languages. We’re creating relationships with developers, where the dealers can bring their customers to Brother and basically they will continue to benefit from it with reoccurring revenue-stream models that we have.
Dedicated scanners also provide an opportunity for dealers. Clients still have paper content in closets, boxes and filing cabinets, and they need to access the value of that information that’s locked in hard copies and digitize it for scanning. Also, Brother Mobile Solutions, a sister division, has generated a lot of interest from the dealers. These are mobile printers that can be deployed in police cars for printing tickets, or in retail stores for printing labels. It’s ideal for any on-site application that requires service to provide a receipt to the end user through our mobile device printing capabilities.
How does Brother plan to expand its reach into the office technology dealer space, and what will be the catalyst?
Waldinger: That relationship with the dealer is going to be a big push for us, and it’s going to create an ability to rapidly expand. When we’re talking and meeting with the dealers, we’re finding that a lot of our competitors may have changed their “hands-on, high-touch” business approach. They’re saying to us, “You guys are really hungry, you return phone calls, you come into our marketplace.” Having grown up in this industry, I feel the relationship piece is the most important element. Some vendors seem to have forgotten the importance, but it’s to our advantage. We’re able to replace some of the other products or at least co-exist with them. Getting back to partners with pricing, programs and support is going to be the most important piece for Brother. Our slogan is “At Your Side.” For us, it’s our culture. When we develop a new relationship with a dealer, it becomes part of the Brother family and we make sure that they’re taken care of. That is a differentiator for us. We’re with them for the long-haul.
Document workflow needs are continually evolving, and our partnership with Toshiba to integrate the Brother Workhorse Series of A4 hardware with their A3 lineup provides the kind of scalable solutions today’s businesses demand. Brother is focused on providing dealers with the hardware, solutions and personalized services that deliver on the unmet printing and imaging needs of mid-to-large businesses, and this partnership is just the latest testament to that commitment.
What other tools does Brother offer to support its dealers and enhance its reputation as a substantial partner in the industry?
Waldinger: With a lot of consolidation occurring, it’s key for us is to be top of mind with dealers. We sponsor Rolling Thunder events, where dealers can learn about our technology, and how to align our total document solution approach to what their customers are looking to solve, and they even bring their customers in to meet our solutions engineers. We can provide exclusive learning opportunities for them and offer thought leadership in the areas of security and mobility, as well as the trend lines around IoT. The more we can bring to the marketplace, the more attractive we’re going to be to those larger BTA dealers. We’re about to launch a national ad campaign that will be included in digital and broadcast TV. That’s a package dealers can tag and access in their marketplace. It’s a lead-gen campaign and we’re excited about it. Our new campaign is “Make Your Business HUM” and focuses on how we’re driving business forward. Dealers look for ways to connect with customers, whether through digital or awareness campaigns in their marketplace.
We’ve also invested in a marketing automation platform where we can do email campaigns on behalf of dealers to generate leads. Some dealers don’t have marketing departments, so we can run campaigns, do lead generations and provide PR support to dealers. When you sign up as a Brother partner, it’s not just selling our products. It’s having access to our service and marketing professionals, having a wealth of assets to call upon to be successful.
We have a training platform called the Brother Knowledge Center that serves about 9,000 sales reps across the country. Reps can access product training modules, and it’s also a repository where they can download assets, brochures, white papers and videos they can bring to their customers. When they complete our courses, they receive gift cards. We’re in the process of expanding the program, which is in its third year and has been quite successful. It can be delivered on mobile devices as well as desktops.
Burnett: With the Rolling Thunder events, it’s a team selling approach. We bring in a group of people, including our marketing and technical folks, set up our line of hardware products and software solutions and really bring them to life. We interact with their sales teams to find out what challenges they face with their customers. It’s amazing the light bulbs that go off during the conversations. They say “Wow, I didn’t realize Brother could do all of that.” They get to see what Brother and its technology are all about.
- Source: IDC Infographic, sponsored by Brother International, Defending Your Business Infrastructure with Print Security, 2018
