 How do you see the channel fraternity evolving in the last 10 years? About 20 years back, in the absence of the channel community, most of the companies had adopted direct sales to conduct their businesses. But today, you will find 99.9% of the business of these companies being taken care of by the channel partners. There has been a huge amount of growth and expansion in the channel. From less than 1000 channel partners back in 1985, today there are more than 30,000 channel partners in the IT space. Also to add to this, no other country has seen such a growth in the channel business. In terms of quality, the channel has adopted new levels of competency by understanding customer requirements and positioning their organisation and principals. What is the role of channel partners when it comes to Canon? The channel community has been the catalyst when it comes to taking the technology and the new products to our consumers. A channel partner is the one who educates the consumer, understand the consumer requirements, position our products to meet his expectations and become our direct link to them. So channel partners are a vital part of Canon’s process worldwide. What kind of training do you impart to your channel partners? We have adopted 2 types of training. One is technology imparting and the other is soft skilled imparting. In terms of technology imparting, the trainees are trained on the technology front and are given first hand knowledge about the newly introduced technologies. We have launched Gyan Yatra, which is a continuous process where we have covered 20,000 partners so far in the last 2 and a half years. We also have a portal specifically meant for them where we drive soft skills for the partners so that they get trained in selling skills, customer handling, conflict management and leadership skills. How has the surveillance market of Canon taken off? Canon has globally entered the surveillance market 7 years back. We had launched our surveillance products in India a couple of years back but not on a large scale. But in 2009 because of the recent terrorist activities, we thought of making our presence in a big way and introduced several cameras for security concerns, fitting into the needs of this market. Furthermore, we are introducing additional 3 cameras, taking the number to 10 by the mid of May. What is Canon’s Vision 2010? We at Canon always look for innovation. Canon, in 2010, for the first time in history, is launching the international level of Image Expo on wheels named as Canon Image Express on 23rd of April, 2010. The expo will exhibit 80 brand new products and is going to cover close to 40 cities. Besides, in another partner initiative, we will be identifying forty partners per city on the parameters of profitability, visibility, knowledge enhancement and development. The forum will start with roadshows and exhibitions in 25 cities initially and then move to other cities. The Channel has been and will always be an area of prime focus for Canon in India. |
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