Martin Featherston, the president of Brother Canada, is enamoured with speed.His favourite sport is Formula 1 racing. He also races Formula 2000 cars at the Bridgestone Racing Academy at Mosport, north of Toronto. And his business philosophy is also one built on speed. He delegates authority as far down as possible so employees are empowered to make decisions faster.
Featherston believes in total customer support, whether it’s from Brother, the distributor or the VAR. The customer touch-point must be fast. Featherston said customer support is Brother Canada’s No. 1 mandate over the next few years.
Recently Featherston made some time for CDN to talk about Brother’s place in the market.
CDN: Brother has been around a very long time – my parents still have a Brother typewriter. As the president in Canada do you have to change Brother’s image?
Martin Featherston: Absolutely! It is a big concern in the past where products and brand were tied to sewing machines or typewriters or fax machines of the past. I want Brother to be known as a reliable products company and not tied to a specific product. Three to five years from now I’m not sure what we are going to be selling next. What I would like the market to know is that they are dealing with a reliable company.
CDN: What are your channel plans for 2006?
M.F.: This year will be an exciting one. We have a restructured group. Our fiscal year was calendar year (but) we had a chance to consolidate with our parent company in Japan. That is April 1 (so) it gives us three months to prepare for the new structure and the launch in a great direction. The primary thrust will be in the commercial channel with those related VARs that go through distribution. We’ve formed a new group with a manager, field personnel and inside sales personnel to find new business and new partnerships. We are not selling direct and we want to find business and put it through resellers. It will be a very large hunt to find these partners across the country.
CDN: Other Canadian GMs of printer vendors believe HP is ripe for the picking in terms of displacing them for top spot in the market. The reason is the emerging colour segment. Do you agree?
M.F.: I will go on record and say HP is a very good competitor and I have no issue with the products they bring to market. They have no weaknesses and I do not look at them as competition with the product selection. We have a global marketing group and what we have available is what we launched. We are not going to go with a standalone colour laser product. We did not want to go and compete in that category.
CDN: Why hasn’t Brother come out with an inkjet photo printer, which is a hot market today?
M.F.: Quite frankly, it is the same as standalone inkjet printers. Competitor price points are free with bundles. We can’t bring a quality product and sell it at those price points. We are not prepared to sacrifice the product and put our name on it and expect customers to be happy with it.
CDN: There has been some talk about establishing a totally green printer standard. Where are you on environmentally friendly printing?
M.F.: It is very clear it is going to be a key point in the next three years. We have a recycling program and end-of-life-cycle plant consumables return program. Our policy for green is dictated from Japan and it is on a global basis. We offer a green Earth program. Brother Japan wants to have recycling that is valid throughout all countries and we will follow that in the next few months.
