John Corley
If you ask John Corley, president of Channel Partner Operations (CPO) for Xerox, how things are going for his group, he’ll unabashedly tell you that these are exciting times for his organization, and by extension Xerox, primarily because he feels the company is well positioned for success and has an amazing story to tell.
“We are a material part of [Xerox] and we are innovating to grow,” he adds. “It’s exciting for our partners because we’re creating new opportunities for them to not only secure their existing customer’s business, but also differentiate themselves in the marketplace to capture new customers. It’s also exciting for customers because we’re helping them along with our partners solve their evolving needs.”
The bottom line, according to Corley is value creation.
“Creating value for our partners and then along with our partners, creating value for [their] customers,” he emphasizes.
Corley views the market opportunity in the U.S. and Western Europe as massive and attractive and points out pockets of growth such as MPS inside of SMB as a growth driver. As far as the company’s overall performance, he identifies 10 percent growth in MPS, 7 percent growth in A4 color MFPs, and 5 percent growth in entry production color. Driving this growth are shifts in the marketplace and evolving customer needs.
“IT continues to be more relevant as the world of print and IT continues to converge,” says Corley. “I have not met a customer regardless of size where there is not an increased focus on productivity. Customers are looking for more value from their suppliers and vendors.”
Another growth driver is the way that customer’s work is changing with an increased emphasis on mobility, which is driving increased speed.
By understanding these dynamics Corley says Xerox is well positioned to continue to lead, adding that improving the flow of work is at the core of how Xerox can help a company solve their evolving needs.
“Inside of CPO, if I were to start with framing the market, it’s really pages printed inside of SMB–$40 billion spend on 8 million devices,” he says. “We still see the converging of IT and print. We have to help our partners develop new ways to connect the two sides of the customer’s business environment.”
Partners are connecting and integrating printers, copiers, MFPs, the same way they would connect any device on the network, a phenomenon that has been happening for years. But the questions he asks now is what happens after the devices are connected and being managed on the network and how does a partner continue to build a business?
“Our view is integrating and managing the end points is just the beginning and not the end,” states Corley. “Now that our partners have an integrated IT environment, how does one unlock the potential of those assets? How does the customer leverage the investment they made in those assets to help them drive productivity?”
The answer, he says is leveraging the software on the devices through workflow and apps so that the software on these devices enable improved process and productivity back through the individual lines of businesses and functions of companies to help those companies scale their business.
He uses the analogy of a smartphone. “If you just want a phone to talk and text, you probably wouldn’t have bought a smartphone. The reality is you get the smartphone because you get the apps to not only improve your professional life but also your personal life. It’s no different than our multifunctional devices. Why use them just to print and copy when there are so many other opportunities?”
The next logical step is figuring out how to build customized workflows and apps so they have a material impact on the end customer’s business.
“This is something I believe a lot of people in our segment of the industry are talking about, but there are not a lot of companies or partners taking advantage of it,” opines Corley.
Corley wouldn’t be talking apps if Xerox wasn’t stepping up its game big time in the apps arena. That’s considered a near-term strategy for Xerox. Looking further down the road the challenge is remaining relevant to partners and making sure they are relevant to their customers.
“Where we see opportunity for our customers is to offer services that impact the customer service and customer acquisition of their customer as well by delivering processes and productivity to their customer’s customer,” explains Corley. “Not just between departments internally, not between their customer’s lines of businesses, but extending that out into their own customer’s businesses. In the future, our partners are going to need to be fluent and integrating on premise, as well as remotely and tying back as a service as a solution. So partners need to get closer to impacting their ultimate customer experience.”
But this strategy isn’t being implemented today or even tomorrow.
“We know this is where the market is going, we know this is where our partners need to be, and we know this is where we have to play and we’re helping them get there,” says Corley. “Ultimately, we see tons of opportunities for partners to grow with us, to continue to be more relevant with their customers, and distinguish themselves and acquire new customers. But we also know that helping them on this journey depends on their starting point.”
Corley has spent a lot of time this year developing his group’s channel strategy around a right to market approach. “This is huge for Xerox,” he says. “Previously we supported the channel by defining the partner by the products they sold, not how they went to market, not what their business model was or how they made money.”
In January of this year Xerox introduced its Global Partner program which enables it to support its partners based upon their business model and how they serve their customers.
“The mission inside CPO is all about making sure we participate in more SMB decisions by having a productive portfolio of partners that choose Xerox and our supported by a world class partner experience,” emphasizes Corley. “I purposely put in the word ‘choose,’ it’s not an arrogant approach, it’s understanding our customers actually a have a choice.”
He explains that within the channel the only way to achieve successful execution is through simplicity.
“We’ve built a portfolio of technology to help partners deliver value beyond the box. And we have an app studio now and partners can solve customer’s issues and add value to their sale and even create a new revenue stream.”
Some Xerox partners are even creating their own apps and reselling them to their own partner community who can then go and market them to their own client base.
“The best thing is it doesn’t require huge technical expertise or a computer science degree, if you can build a PowerPoint slide you can build your own app,” reveals Corley. “For those who don’t want to develop their own apps, other partners are doing it for them.”
This all ties back to value creation, i.e., leveraging assets in a customer environment so they can drive enhanced productivity, customer satisfaction or leverage the investments customer’s made.
“Whether it’s Xerox proprietary apps, partner apps, third party apps, it’s all about monetizing and leveraging those assets,” says Corley.
A discussion about what Xerox is doing for the channel isn’t complete without a discussion of its channel partners, a channel that’s been changing and growing.
“A decade or so ago, the majority of our channel was mono branded partners,” says Corley. “Now we’re a different organization. I have over 20,000 partners inside my portfolio. I’m a firm believer we need a portfolio of partners. Our mono branded partners are just a portion of our portfolio, no different than if you have a financial advisor they’re going to tell you to diversify. This is the right to market approach we have taken.”
Today those channel partners are classified into four segments, mono branded, multi branded like a BTA dealer, IT/VAR solution providers, and direct marketing or volume channel partners. The defining criteria of each segment is quality.
“We need to participate in more decisions in the SMB marketplace by having a productive portfolio of quality partners that choose Xerox,” says Corley. “It’s not so much about quantity, but quality.”
‘Quality’ refers to partners that are growth minded in business and focused on growth minded SMB customers.
Is there still an opportunity to find more new channel partners?
“There’s lots of room to grow in all parts and all geographies,” responds Corley. “In reality we are the market leader inside of our equipment sale revenue inside of our market share, but until we have a more sizable portion of the market we’re not satisfied. The market opportunity is massive, and we’re not sitting back, we’re going out there and we’re playing to win.”
