HP-The King Rules Yet Again

HP’s comeback was fueled by its strong showing in all parameters under product quality; while no one doubted HP’s product quality even when it finished #2 the year before, this year the partners have given it especially high scores on technological leadership of the product and the way it offered price vs performance ratio.HP is back as the favorite inkjet printer vendor of the channel partners after a one year hiatus. The saga of HP’s dominance in the inkjet printer segment was broken by Epson in 2013. Epson took everyone by surprise as it scaled from being #3 in 2012 to the #1 spot. However, status quo has been restored in 2014, though Epson still ran the mighty HP pretty close in what was almost a two-horse race for the top spot.

With several launches during the year, HP has outscored competition in the diversity of the product range parameter too. Even on relationship management, HP seems to have regained the faith of the partners especially in terms of the consistency and effectiveness of communication with channel partners, its reward systems and its consistency in honoring commitments made to the partners. HP’s training and certification programs for channel partners have also come in for special praise.

The major areas of concern which contributed for the steep drop in HP’s ranking in 2013 was its lukewarm service support to channel partners, as most of the respondents were unhappy with HP’s delay in stock replacement and inactive service approach. The vendor’s understanding to resolve problems got the lowest overall score. While HP has managed to partially redress some of these problems, lack of clarity in the pricing contracts still remains an area of concern for the partners.

Epson, like last year, was riding high on its pre and post-sales and transparency in commercial terms—criteria that managed to satisfy its partners. Thanks to its ink tank system printers, Epson has now emerged as a serious competition for HP in inkjets. Epson is the only major printer maker offering ink tank system printers. These printers empowered users to print freely without worrying about running costs, productivity and warranty issues as the ink tank system printers offer the lowest printing cost using genuine inks which produce high quality prints.

No other company has managed to match Epson in after sales support, relationship management and online support. Its nDimension and nSolution program to target the channel and SI community are well appreciated. In addition, impactful advertising, innovative consumer and dealer schemes, a strong online presence, continuous ground level activities and participation in exhibitions, extensive retail visibility and availability all ensured Epson to be step ahead when it came to marketing support.

For Epson, though the overall satisfaction score may have increased, however, its product quality and marketing support are still lagging behind. Respondent wanted Epson to improve its point of sales material and allocation of funds for marketing (co-op funding).

Canon has scored lower than its competitors on the relationship management and marketing support. Nevertheless, Canon is aggressively rolling out customer schemes and programs to enhance the printing in house and offices with its new range of inkjet printers.

Swot Analysis of Winner Trio

HP

Strengths

• Technological leadership of the product
• Price vs. performance ratio
• Consistency and effectiveness of communication with channel partners

Weaknesses

• Lack of ability to provide satisfactory repair & replacement services
• Delay in stock replacement
• Delay in back-end incentives and its settlement

Epson

Strengths

•  Innovativeness of market development programs
•  Vendor’s advertising
•  Presence of Online Partner Portal & its effectiveness

Weaknesses

• Lack of Transparency in commercial terms and policies
• Less flexibility in Commercial Terms
• Less availability and competence of Account Managers

Canon

Strengths

• Overall Product Reliability
• User-friendliness of the product
• Promptness with which the schemes/incentive programs are communicated

 Weaknesses

• Lack of consistency in honoring commitments made by the Vendor’s personnel to the partners
• Less flexibility in conducting localized promotions
• Ineffectiveness with which Vendor manages disruption due to its change in personnel