After nearly two years of successfully running NCR Canada, in the New Year Luc Villeneuve will find himself in Paris, thanks to his recent promotion to president of NCR Europe. Before he left Canada though, the channel veteran made growing NCR Canada’s indirect business a priority in a way it hadn’t often been before.
Villeneuve worked to overhaul NCR’s channel programs and put the indirect channel at the front of the go to market of a company best known as a manufacturer of bank machines, automated grocery store check-out machines and other self-service kiosks.
NCR has been investing in the program and making key changes around programs and incentives, and Villeneuve also worked to improve communication with and educate partners around some of their partner initiatives.
Self-service is at the core of NCR’s vision for the future, and NCR Canada’s work with partner Cycom Canada of Scarborough, Ont. and The Hospital for Sick Children is a good example of how NCR and the channel can work together to bring self-service to market in the key health care vertical.
By leveraging its existing relationship with Sick Kids, Cycom inked a pilot project deal to sell and implement eight NCR Wayfinding kiosks in the hospital’s entrance lobbies.
The Wayfinding kiosks are units that have been designed to help both visitors and patients quickly and easily find their way around the hospital.
The kiosk, which is driven by a PC and a custom-built application, has a touchscreen user interface to let users indicate where they want to go. This is designed to improve the user experience.
