Langenhagen, Germany, 16 July 2020
Konica Minolta’s Workplace Hub Partner Program, which launched in October 2019, has been warmly received by channel partners. So far, more than 50 dealers from 13 European countries have already signed up, with more planning to join in the coming months. The program’s success reflects dealers’ enthusiasm to work with Konica Minolta in providing customers with the solutions they need for their intelligent, connected workplace. Konica Minolta’s all-in-one Workplace Hub service portfolio solutions such as Hub, Edge and Pro are a perfect example of this.
Created specifically for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), the Workplace Hub service portfolio products are intelligent all-in-one IT solutions that include a full package of managed IT services that can help to simplify an organisation’s IT. Introduced at Konica Minolta’s European Leadership Campus (ELC) for its dealer partners in October 2019, the Workplace Hub Partner Program was launched for dealers keen to expand their business by adding IT services to their portfolios. Olaf Lorenz, General Manager International Marketing Division at Konica Minolta, explains why the solution has proved so popular with dealers: “We are very excited by how quickly the Workplace Hub Partner Program has taken off. It is clear that dealers have immediately recognised that the solution offers a strategic opportunity to change the nature of their conversations with customers – moving beyond printing hardware into the broader scope of digital transformation solutions. For SMBs, Workplace Hub brings into reach the sort of sophisticated and secure IT services that would traditionally be associated with large companies. This means our dealer partners can create significant additional value for their customers, making powerful managed IT services easily accessible to them via the Workplace Hub solution.”
LSA, a dealer from France, is the first partner to have sold a Workplace Hub solution. Their customer is a big and growing organisation with 900 employees from Marseille that helps people with low or no mobility. They wanted to modernise their IT infrastructure in order to facilitate remote work and increase flexibility for their employees. They not only wished for a global reflection in their IT and printing infrastructure, but also wanted to set up open spaces for employees and create meeting rooms and transit spaces. As a single provider was sought to take care of the organisation’s IT infrastructure, LSA provided the perfect solution by implementing Workplace Hub Edge.
As part of the program, dealers are provided with specialised training on selling and supporting customers with Workplace Hub solutions and services. This helps partners maintain and expand their relationships with customers, handling day-to-day management of IT services with Konica Minolta’s support. “The resellers of our products are a key pillar of our business success. With the Workplace Hub Partner Program, we are able to provide a solution that provides additional value to their customers”, explains Morgan Leucat, Director Europe GTM DWP, Konica Minolta Business Solutions Business Solutions France S.A.S. “This is why we offer different levels of partnership to suit IT capabilities and preferred level of investment in technology and training. For dealers that previously did not include IT solutions in their portfolio, our partner program is an effective way of restructuring their offering. With its dedicated training, Konica Minolta digitally transforms their business together with them. For our dealers already experienced in providing IT solutions, the Workplace Hub service portfolio offers an innovative and powerful new solution to complete their portfolio for smaller and medium-sized businesses in particular. Should they wish, dealers can handle everything from sales, installation and management of customers’ Workplace Hub solutions entirely in-house. Naturally, there is also the opportunity to resell any service or application on top of Workplace Hub.”
For more information about Workplace Hub, please click here.
About Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe
Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH, based in Langenhagen, Germany, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Konica Minolta Inc., Tokyo, Japan. Konica Minolta enables its clients to champion the digital era: with its unique imaging expertise and data processing capabilities, Konica Minolta creates relevant solutions for its customers and solves issues faced by society. As a provider of comprehensive IT services, Konica Minolta delivers consultancy and services to optimise business processes with workflow automation. The company further offers its customers solutions and managed services in the field of IT infrastructure and IT security as well as cloud environments. With regard to its office printing solutions, ‘IDC MarketScape: Western Europe Smart Multifunctional Peripheral 2018 Vendor Assessment’ stated that Konica Minolta is ‘recognised globally as a leading smart MFP provider of note’. As a strong partner for the professional printing market, Konica Minolta offers business consulting, state-of-the-art technology and software and has established itself as the production printing market leader for more than a decade in Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa (InfoSource). Its Business Innovation Centre in London and four R & D laboratories in Europe enable Konica Minolta to bring innovation forward by collaborating with its customers as well as academic, industrial and entrepreneurial partners. For its solutions that combine ‘smart service with smart technology’, Konica Minolta was awarded the prestigious ‘Buyers Lab PaceSetter Award for Outstanding Serviceability 2018/2019’ from Keypoint Intelligence. Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe is represented by subsidiaries and distributors in more than 80 countries in Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. With approximitaley 10,000 employees (as of April 2020), Konica Minolta Europe earned net sales of over 2,34 billion in financial year 2019/2020.
For more information, please visit http://newsroom.konicaminolta.eu/ and follow Konica Minolta on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter @KonicaMinoltaEU.
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Contact
Melanie Olbrich
Konica Minolta
Business Solutions Europe GmbH
Phone: +49 (0)511 7404-5337
melanie.olbrich@konicaminolta.eu
SOURCE Konica Minolta
