An eventful 2016 is now behind us, and 2017 shows promise of opportunity ahead. With that in mind, ENX magazine thought it would be interesting to hear from industry leaders about their organizations’ highlights of the past year and their expectations for the next 12 months.
Everbank
“This year EverBank had its first full year of a modified Vendor Equipment Office Technology Platform. The expansion included IT specialists with deep domain expertise in the products and services sold by today’s dealers and VARs. In addition, the program management function now supports the outside sales people and serves as another inside resource, greatly increasing the client experience. These enhancements have been well received by new and existing relationships with independent dealers and manufacturers.
“EverBank also held its first Net New Summit, bringing together a select group of dealers to identify best practices and learn tactics to increase new business. The interactive format was very well received by the attendees and we look forward to more engaging events in 2017. In summary, the 2016 focus on increasing performance measures and serving our clients well, helped achieve an impressive year-over-year growth, exceeding 20 percent. We look forward to serving the needs of our industry once again in 2017.
EverBank’s Fred Carollo
“For 2017, EverBank intends to continue expanding the Vendor Equipment Office Technology Platform by releasing new product offerings to the market. These products will align with the ever-evolving industry by integrating network services as well as other IT offerings. In 2017, we envision a seamless suite of products for our manufacturer and dealer customers. We are developing a new go-to market documentation package that will be relevant for today’s sophisticated dealers, and exploring new “profit-enhancing” products to complement our current extensive suite. We will continue our approach of offering innovative market-relevant products and educational events to help our dealers and manufacturers grow and take market share. This market/partner alignment strategy has and will continue to drive EverBank’s growth in the industry.” — Fred Carollo, GM of Office Technology Platform
Canon U.S.A.
“Signaling a bold new direction, Canon U.S.A. unveiled One Canon, a unified B2B plan to leverage the full power of Canon’s capabilities. In response to the growing demand for SaaS, Canon launched its Canon Business Services Platform, a software subscription delivery and management infrastructure platform offering dealers a simple way to order, manage, bill and deliver subscription-based document and information management solutions, allowing dealers to easily transition to new software sales and delivery models, while lessening investments normally needed in their own systems.
Canon also expanded award-winning product lineups, with third generation imageRUNNER ADVANCE MFPs, including the imageRUNNER ADVANCE 8500/6500 Series, imageRUNNER ADVANCE C7500 Series and imageRUNNER ADVANCE C5500 Series, BLI PRO Award-winning imagePRESS C850 Series of Color Digital Presses, imagePRESS C65 and the U.S. debut of Océ ColorGrip technology for the Océ VarioPrint i300 sheet-fed inkjet press.
“Commitment to innovation was also reflected through the following industry accolades: Idealliance G7 Certified System designation for the Canon PRISMAsync Color Print Server for imagePRESS, several awards in North America and Europe for the imagePRESS C10000VP Series, marking 10 years of imagePRESS innovation, and the SGIA Product of the Year Award awarded to two Océ Arizona flatbed printers.
“At Canon U.S.A., we see three major trends surfacing for businesses this year: an increased need for tailored technology, a growing demand for software as a service (SaaS), and an expectation that customers will leverage their investments in traditional office technology, tying these into key workflow automation projects. As the marketplace evolves, dealers are being asked to tailor their implementation of hardware and software technologies in more personalized ways.
“While the delivery of technology for general use cases will certainly not go away, customers are different, and their use of technology, in many cases, will be linked to their unique business requirements. Canon’s hardware, software and professional services are ideally suited to assist dealers in capitalizing on this trend given the flexibility provided to configure and in some instances customize solutions delivery for individual customers.
“Additionally, Canon predicts the demand for SaaS will continue to grow. As the economics and ease of implementation and management become even more attractive, customers will continue to migrate to cloud based services capable of being consumed on a subscription basis. In concert with this trend, Gartner has listed embedded analytics via SaaS as one of the top employee-facing technology trends that CIOs will use to drive digital workplace transformation.
Canon’s Dennis Amorosano
“Canon is preparing its dealers to lead this transition through a comprehensive portfolio of cloud, subscription based solutions offerings, which complement existing premise technologies. In an effort to simplify transacting and management such subscriptions, Canon has established the Canon Business Services Platform, a software subscription delivery and management infrastructure offering a simple way to order, manage, bill and deliver subscription-based document and information management solutions.
“Finally, understanding the growing expectation for businesses to link their traditional office technology investments with business workflow to deliver an all-inclusive, seamless end user experience, Canon U.S.A. customers and stakeholders can expect increased collaboration across Canon’s technology platforms and organizations via our One Canon unified approach. Through these efforts, we intend to bring the full breadth of Canon’s capabilities and expertise to our channel partners, assisting them in satisfying from the simple to most complex workflow challenges faced by our mutual customers.” —Dennis Amorosano, vice president, Business Imaging Solutions Group (BISG) Marketing and Canon Information Imaging Solutions (CIIS) Professional Services
Continuum
“Continuum experienced exciting expansion in 2016 and is set up for unprecedented success in the coming year. From our new Boston headquarters, to feature announcements like Tru-Verify — the time-lapse video backup verification feature exclusive to Continuity247, the only fully managed backup and disaster recovery platform — to Navigate 2016, the company’s largest conference yet, the future is looking very bright for Continuum partners who leverage the full power of their IT management platform.
Continuum’s Michael Amiri
Continuum also doubled down on its commitment to service in 2016 through the Continuum Veterans Foundation, which provides financial support to charities that help veterans find jobs in IT. In 2017, Continuum is setting its sights abroad, with major international expansion planned into the
United Kingdom, Benelux Union and Australia. Navigate 2017 will also return to Las Vegas and will be the company’s largest event yet, offering more content, more collaboration and more information for partners to grow their business profitably.” — Michael Amiri, Director of Dealer Services
NovaCopy
“The future is bright for NovaCopy as it wraps up 2016. With our continuing success with MPS, managed IT services and a new e-com site, NovaCopy’s customers have had more to love than ever before. Innovation (3D Printing) is no stranger as the company is still the South’s top 3D reseller for MarkForged, 3D Systems, and Creaform.
NovaCopy’s Darren Metz
Flexing its marketing muscle, NovaCopy was named “Best Marketing Program in North and Latin America” by M-Files. Surging past the 300-employee mark, the company received several awards for Top Places to Work. And, we ended the year on a high with two acquisitions.
“Moving into 2017 at light speed, NovaCopy has plans for even more acquisitions and customer service tech. Armed with a mission “to flourish as a team by delivering caring, efficient service and support” the company continues to stay at the forefront of its industry.” —Darren Metz, CEO
