NEWS FEATURE
Canon UK & Ireland has launched Canon United, a new campaign bringing together the company’s full technology portfolio into a single connected proposition. Partner Channel Director Stuart Miller explains why the initiative matters, how it will support channel partners, and why Canon is taking a broader, more integrated approach to helping customers navigate increasingly complex business environments Canon United changes the game
Canon United is built around the principles of a united team – being match-day ready, ongoing support and shared commitment. The campaign uses the football analogy to reinforce a simple message, every player has a role, but the best results come when everyone works together toward a common goal. Miller said: “I think it’s really good for us because it appeals both externally to partners and customers but also has real meaning internally amongst Canon’s employees. And I think that’s a really important point as well.” What makes Canon United different is that, for the first time, Canon has brought together its five principal business areas into a single proposition to shine a spotlight on areas of the business that partners may be less familiar with. Five main lines of business “It’s the first time that we’ve brought together our five main lines of business,” Miller explained, adding: “We want to demonstrate the strength and breadth of our hardware technology, we’re looking to make sure that partners not only have access to ImageFORCE, for example, but also light production and large-format printers as well. “The next part that we bring together is our software solutions, which is really important to us as a business. It helps drive additional revenue streams for our partners as print volumes reduce.” The campaign also incorporates Canon’s imaging solutions, including specialist camera technology. “This is where we bring together our B2C division, our camera technology including highly specialised PTZ camera technology and our podcasting cameras. The consumer and media side is a big part of our business that we don’t actually talk a lot about. It’s a multi- million-pound operation in the UK and Ireland and very important to us.” He continued: “Then we also have our
services offering such as eMaintenance, Smart Services and any form of third‑party subcontracted service that we offer out to our partners.” At its heart, Canon United is about helping partners understand the breadth of what’s available and enabling them to have broader conversations with customers. “It’s really to try and give our partners a broader understanding of what Canon actually has as a technology portfolio. It comes at a time where there’s quite a lot of diversity out there in terms of what customers are using and where those suppliers are coming from. It’s not unusual for customers to have multiple suppliers. And the Canon United initiative is designed to try and cut that supply chain down where possible,” he explained. Elevate your game Canon United was launched during the company’s inaugural Leadership Summit, held under the theme Elevate Your Game. The event brought together senior business leaders for a day focused on the future of work, cybersecurity, AI adoption and the role of strong leadership and strategic partnerships in supporting organisational performance. According to Miller, the objective was to create a genuine thought leadership event rather than a product showcase. “The Leadership Summit was designed to primarily target business leaders in our direct customer base and the owners and shareholders in our partners. We wanted to talk about future technologies in general terms, not just in Canon terms.” The event featured futurist Richard Watson, cybersecurity and resilience expert Sarah Armstrong- Smith, Canon EMEA’s Quentyn Taylor, and leadership coach and former Olympian Dr Cath Bishop. Miller said: “The event was informative, guests heard from some renowned speakers across the world of
Stuart Miller
futures and technology and importantly, weren’t subjected to a sales pitch. “Feeback from guests was that they thoroughly enjoyed what they heard and weren’t bombarded by Canon and our technology. I think when you run these thought leadership events, that’s got to be the real focus. It can’t be the product first.” As for Canon United itself, Miller sees it as a campaign with the potential to evolve and grow, provided it continues delivering value to partners. “As long as it remains relevant and it’s successful to our partners and ourselves, in that order, then we’ll continue to run that campaign,” he said. For Canon’s channel partners the message is clear, connecting print, document workflow and information management solutions can help organisations improve visibility, automate manual processes, strengthen security, reduce costs and create more efficient ways of working, giving them greater flexibility to respond to changing customer needs, explore new opportunities and be future-ready. www.canon.co.uk/business/campaigns/ canon-united/
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