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Lexmark's UK boss on why it won't follow competitors in acquiring partners

Lexmark would rather stand "shoulder to shoulder" with partners than acquire them, according to UK&I MD Martin Fairman.

Last week saw Xerox snap up Wakefield-based managed print provider Arena Group, continuing a pattern in recent years which has seen Kyocera acquire Annodata in 2016 and, most notably, HP shell out £380m for Apogee in 2018.

However, Fairman (pictured) insisted that the print vendor has no intention of competing with its partners base.

"Lexmark is absolutely focused on working with our channel partners and being a partner to them as well," he told CRN.

"We don't want to compete with our partners - that's not our strategy - we want to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. We have no desire to start acquiring dealers to be competitors for our partners.

"Our strategy is to work with the channel, foster the channel and go and win with the channel."

Last year, Sammy Kinlaw, Lexmark VP of worldwide channel told CRN that the vendor would be focusing on recruiting smaller partners in order to gain more market share. Fairman said that he has seen this number grow, particularly resellers that are moving to managed print services (MPS).

"We have certainly seen a growth last year versus 2018 in that marketplace," he stated.

"Despite all the acquisitions and mergers that have been happening in the industry, we are still growing our install base."

The UK boss was coy about the Xerox and HP saga, but indicated that the print market will boast huge opportunities for vendors in the coming years.

"We still don't know whether that merger is actually going to happen, but I think there is great opportunity for Lexmark in the coming years, regardless or whether that merger happens or not," he said.

"We're very focused on driving and onboarding new partners to our ever-growing portfolio around cloud management and MPS solutions."

Fairman added that another key driver for growing its share of the print market is its emphasis on manufacturing devices with long life cycles and creating more awareness in the UK of the potential business interests of joining the circular economy.

"We seem to get in this cycle in the UK of trying to replenish equipment every three to five years," he explained.

"Technology now - certainly Lexmark technology in terms of the way it's built - is designed to last way beyond that. We've launched, and we're about to open up to the market, a seven-year warranty on our devices.

"We want to say to end users and partners that, from a sustainability point of view, the biggest impact is obviously ripping out old machines, putting in new ones, the transportation and the manufacturing of them.

"Why are we, as an industry, so keen on ripping and replacing equipment? So we're trying to extend the life of the machines within the field and that's a key initiative for us around sustainability."