To support business continuity and digitisation efforts, the company has also introduced a series of initiatives focusing on the channel partners. Webinars and online training were conducted on personnel safety, product sanitisation, safety parameters, emerging technologies, and trends. There were also trainings on virtual selling techniques so that our partners could generate and convert new business leads.

“We also introduced products and solutions that support digitisation and hybrid working to support the market demand under these initiatives,” Gehani said. “Recently, we have introduced Xerox ACE account acquisition programme, where our channel partners can further earn incentives on any incremental business recorded with Xerox India.”

Gehani added that at Xerox, it has been its constant effort to develop innovative solutions for workplace challenges for different industries.

“The market situation was impacted due to the global health crisis. However, we saw an opportunity to play our part. The pandemic made it crucial for companies to adopt hybrid working models and ‘back to office' plans, thereby accelerating the demand for solutions that could bridge digital and physical environments with an increased focus on workplace automation, team collaboration, productivity, and IT security. Amidst this, we supported our customers and channel community as a solutions partner, navigating through new business challenges,” he said.

While businesses were disrupted, the company’s diverse product portfolio and cloud-enabled services held it in good stead and allowed it to continue offering its customers uninterrupted value-added services.

“We were also closely consulting our customers around the prominence of employee health and safety, digitising data, securing it in the cloud, and automating it into workflows,” he added.

Xerox also conducted a global Future of Work Survey with senior IT decision-makers to find that around 82% of the workforce in respondents' organisations will have returned to the workplace in 12-18 months, on average. In preparation for the return, 56% of companies are increasing technology budgets, and 34% are planning to speed up digitisation efforts.

“Overall, our focus during this time has been on unravelling the positives for our customers and leading from the front. In our case, that positive has been digitisation and the knowledge that we can help our partners and customers transform their businesses – and to an extent, ensure against such situations – through technology, he added.

According to Gehani, the “must-haves" in a Partner Programme that will provide a strategic framework to re-build or launch a new channel partner programme are motivation and incentivisation, adaptability, effective training, dynamic content and communications, and objective analytics.

“Our business managers ensure staying in constant touch with the channel partners, discussing solutions, and supporting the sales process at the partner's end. Through continuous engagement, we evaluate specific support needed and partner with them,” he said.

He added, “There are no second thoughts that our channel partner network plays a significant role in Xerox business, where most of the indirect business comes through them. They are our go-to source to gain meaningful market feedback, insights, and customer expectations. We evaluate specific support needs to be provided directly by Xerox or through other partners through constant engagement with our channel partners, wherever feasible.”

Programme is the most recent programme that has been launched for the benefit of our partners, where they can earn incentives on any incremental business recorded with Xerox India.

The ACE programme is simple to understand and applies to equipment and services like Xerox Workplace Solutions, XMPie, FreeFlow Core, and DocuShare. There is no capping to the amount that any partner can earn through this program —providing the necessary support to our partners in growing their business further.

Apart from the sales incentives, the ACE Programme will help our channel partners in the focused deployment of resources, maximise productivity, develop a sales pipeline, and motivate their sales team to take ownership and generate additional revenue. The ACE Programme will also help the channel partners achieve better customer satisfaction by positioning the right product/solution to create an optimal value proposition and improve the overall customer relationship.

“What makes ACE stands out vis-à-vis any other regular incentive programmes is the extensive market reach it offers to our channel partners network. Over 100 partners are engaged in this programme, and it is not “increased sales" entirely that we are looking at, but to build solid relationships with partners and tap into existing customer relationships that partners have built are also equally essential for us to succeed,” Gehani added.