'We are continually being approached to buy resellers' - Brother UK boss

MD Phil Jones opens up to CRN about taking advantage of consolidation by competitors and battling imitation supplies

Print vendor Brother has been - and continues to be - presented with offers to buy reseller partners, revealed UK MD Phil Jones.

Recent years have seen Xerox, Sharp and Kyocera snap up reseller partners, with the mammoth acquisition of Apogee by HP for £380m last year the biggest deal so far.

"We are continually being approached with opportunities like this but we have not gone ahead and I don't foresee us proceeding with these opportunities in the very near future," Jones (pictured) told CRN.

He added that the rationale for declining the offers is down to the channel and the number of contracts that can still be done through partners.

"We've realised that with enterprise today, a lot of large players are providing end-to-end managed services - not just the print bit - but desktop, network, cloud, security and print just forms part of a much wider portfolio," he explained.

"A lot of enterprise customers just want one throat to choke.

"Our strategy is to make sure that we are the best print-as-a-service vendor for people providing a wide portfolio of managed services into large enterprises, and that could be a winning strategy for us rather than being a single-dimensional print provider."

Vendors snapping up reseller partners has "naturally unsettled" partners who now don't know if their vendor partner is a friend or foe, according to Jones, who noted that the consolidation in recent years is a result of a mature space.

"The print market had its growth spurt over the last 20 years and has reached maturity and is now going into managed decline," he said.

"As a result of that, this M&A activity and vendor consolidation we are seeing is a normal byproduct of that maturity as more people realise that the amount of market to go at continues to decline."

This has played into Brother's favour, however, as the short-term risks that such moves have on their competitors' business makes it easier for the vendor to swoop in on upset partners and customers.

"It's great because we are a channel-centric organisation and maybe we had some conversations in the past where we weren't getting through the door at the speed we'd like, but now that door is being flung open," he stated.

"It's quite a delicate business warming up channel partners, but we did see a lot of unsettled partners which made for easier conversations on our end to get straight in there and have opportunities presented to us.

"I can understand that the vendors who have made these acquisitions are looking at long-term plays, but it does mean there will be some short-term risk for them and Brother is standing by and well optimised to take advantage of those."

Earlier this month, CRN revealed a list compiled by HP of a number of partners that it stated was engaging in illegitimate trading. The list was revealed after the company said it was clamping down on counterfeit and imitation products.

HP isn't the only one in the print space experiencing this issue, nor is it the only vendor with processes in place to identify counterfeit goods, Jones explained.

Brother has partners that continuously scout online marketplaces for goods that infringe on the vendor's intellectual property, as well as a whistle-blowing hotline and secret shoppers who buy goods to check if they are authentic or not.

But it is a punishing endeavour, noted the UK boss.

"It really is like pushing water up a hill," said Jones. "We can get to people like this and shut down operations, [but] another set of people pop up.

"We work with the authorities in the UK. We have a number of initiatives in place behind the scenes that allow us to authenticate products. We very quickly get to hear about pockets of products turning up in the channel.

"It's a very complex supply chain and some of the actors - to some degree criminal gangs - are becoming very astute in the way they manage this."

On page two Jones explains how the vendor succeeded in changing its reputation as a consumer brand name to an enterprise provider

'We are continually being approached to buy resellers' - Brother UK boss

MD Phil Jones opens up to CRN about taking advantage of consolidation by competitors and battling imitation supplies

Brother in arms

The UK arm of the Japanese vendor celebrated its 50th birthday last year, and its shift to an enterprise focus in the last few years has resulted in success for the 111-year-old company, Jones said.

Market data has shown that the overall print market in the UK is slightly up, according to the MD, who said this goes against the grain of current assumptions of the print space.

"Our performance in the marketplace is good. We are 32 per cent across all technologies in mono laser, in colour laser we have a 20 per cent share and we have a 10 per cent share in business ink A3, which is where our focus is," he explained.

"In spite of the fact that there is an awful lot going in the channel and overall environment that we are operating in, I am satisfied with how the business has performed.

"From our point of view, there's plenty to go at because we only supply roughly one in four in the mono laser market, one in five in the colour market and one in 10 in the business ink market.

The vendor is focused on pursuing high-volume print customers, broadening its focus across other areas, including managed print services, consultancy and vertical markets.

This is a change from the traditional perception that both partners and end users had of the vendor, which mainly targeted home and small-office customers before its recent focus on enterprise.

"We have significantly refreshed our product line-up and range to allow us to address much more of the market," stated the MD.

"In previous years, the thing people might have said about Brother is that ‘it's brilliant for small office and home office, but not the right environment when it comes to enterprise'.

"I think we've challenged that assumption in the last three years by changing our product line-up and who we are as a vendor and going to the channel with a more sophisticated proposition.

"I think for many people who haven't experienced that right now, they would be genuinely surprised at Brother's capability in this enterprise market.

"We have really moved out of the small office/home provider space to a credible supplier in the overall business marketplace."