Canon India celebrates third anniversary of the 'Gurukul' program

New Delhi: Canon India a digital imaging company has successfully completed three years of Gurukul 2009 across India. Conceptualized under the business imaging solution division, Gurukul was launched with the aim to enhance skill-set of the sales employees under the authorized partners to drive business growth in the long run. Apart from providing channel partners with sales tools; product training, this particular program is designed to enhance their soft-skills which would further help partners to leverage their relationships with customers. The program is part of Canon's national channel strategy to showcase commitment in building competencies with channel partners to enable them climb the value chain.

The program was well received and attended by more than 150 channel partners, sales people and system integrators with their insatiable desire of learning and sharing emerging trends in the technology. Gurukul sessions included recap of the year, roadmap of 2010, training sessions, interactive modules demos of new products as well as discussion on the latest and new trends and technology available. This interactive technology session ended with the fun activity, Quiz on knowing your brand.

Aimed at enhancing the morale of the channel partners and providing improved customer service support, this program was highly appreciated by the attendees. Canon's Gurukul is an aggressive training program for its channels. The first phase of this campaign had covered all the major metros and during the second phase the focus was on tier II cities.

Speaking on this occasion Alok Bharadwaj, Senior VP, Canon, India, “During 2009, we shifted our focus to our last mile activations to make the last customer touch points strong and customer centric. The program of Gurukul is a unique market preposition that we have coated to have more trained and passionate sales personnel of our channel partners. This is Canon's way of extending influence beyond our sales teams.” He further added, “There are 150 Canon Channel partners for BIS products/range. They employ more than 350 sales people who have become a part of the Gurukul program. No wonder during the slowdown time our market share grew and we are in leading position in this space.”

Commenting on Canon Gurukul program Puneet Datta, Senior Marketing Manager, Canon BIS Division said, “Gurukul which was started last year, and is continuing this year with a few modifications and reconfigurations has instilled new confidence in the sales people. Also with our recently launched program ROCKS, we have been able to enhance the involvement and engagement of the channel partner.”