CRN Network, November 19, 2009, 1130 hrs
Canon India has successfully completed three years of Gurukul 2009 across India. A part of Canon’s national channel strategy to building competencies within channel partners, Gurukul was conceptualized by the Business Imaging Solution (BIS) division. The program aims to enhance skill-sets of sales executives to drive business growth. Apart from providing partners with sales tools and product training, this program also enhances their soft-skills to help partners leverage their relationships with customers.
According to Canon, Gurukul was well received and attended by more than 150 channel partners and systems integrators. In its third year, 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 fun activity and quiz on brands.
The first phase of this campaign covered all the major metros and during the second phase the focus was on tier-2 cities.
“During 2009, we shifted our focus to our last mile activations to make the last customer touch points strong and customer-centric,” said Alok Bharadwaj, Senior Vice President, Canon, India. “Gurukul is a unique market preposition to train our channel partners' sales executives. We have 150 Canon channel partners for BIS products/range, employing more than 350 sales executives—who have become a part of Gurukul program. Even during the slowdown, our market share grew and we are one of the leaders in this space.”
Commenting on Canon Gurukul program Puneet Datta, Senior Marketing Manager, Canon BIS Division, said, “Gurukul has instilled new confidence in the sales executives. Also, with our recently launched program ROCKS, we have been able to enhance the involvement and engagement of channel partners.” |