Education sales potential for 2009
The education market holds a number of opportunities for channel players this year, says Graham Wylie
Graham Wylie: Innovative applications can open new doors for the channel
Last year saw such global economic change that it is hard to make reliable predictions for 2009. However, after 21 years in business, Steljes has seen its share of volatility.
We are approaching 2009 with confidence that even the most challenging of markets can hold opportunities.
It is fair to say that the interactive whiteboard market in primary and secondary education has reached a level of maturity, but the outlook is strong in some education markets and for whole-class teaching and personalised learning technologies such as interactive voting systems.
Ongoing opportunities in the education market include the replacement of boards more than 10 years old and projectors more than three years old and new business opportunities in the Government's Primary Capital Programme (PCP) and Building Schools for the Future (BSF).
Steljes has been involved in 75 per cent of the Wave 1 BSF projects, which include virtually every type of school from state secondary to academies and special needs. Resellers involved in this have excellent opportunities for growth.
Working with our channel partners and vendors, Steljes is introducing various technologies and supporting infrastructure to attract investment from end-users and earn margin.
We are keen to grow the market share of our interactive whiteboards in particular.
Demand for complementary products will also remain high, with visualisers growing by 60 per cent and response systems up by 40 per cent.
Value rather than volume is the name of the game in projectors: developing a targeted product portfolio for specific market applications has helped us work with key partners to differentiate their solutions in the market.
We expect the growth in video communication to be sustained and collaboration portfolios can boost margins for videoconferencing-focused resellers.
There will also be opportunities for resellers to become consultative partners and provide value-added services in the shape of integration, training and support.
Some resellers will want to differentiate themselves by becoming specialists in applications and skills, like software and systems, to integrate them with new and existing collaborative technologies.
A new world of collaborative opportunities is emerging in the corporate market with multi-boarding, distance collaboration and retrofit of existing plasma units with new products.
As organisations are working hard to reduce their costs and transform business operations, collaboration technologies should be a part of end-user's unified communications strategy and business process remodelling.
These changes will bring some sorts of products and technologies out of the training suite and into day to day operations.
However, these opportunities will not simply walk through the door. We will almost certainly have to work harder than we have in previous years.
New doors can open with innovative applications for diverse areas from hospital bed management to sports coaching.
The credit market will undoubtedly be an issue in 2009, but with a track record of prudent credit management, you can be well positioned to work effectively with partners.
We think you can reduce credit insurance costs year-on-year and help partners fund end-user purchases through leasing arrangements.
Graham Wylie is group product marketing director at Steljes