Xerox Channel Chief Says Partners Are Key To ‘Reinvent Ourselves’

“What most of the new partners and existing partners are asking me about is, ‘How can we leverage all these great things that Xerox is doing? How are you going to bring those to market?’ And the answer is very simple: we are committed to bring them to market through our partners,” says Xerox North American channel chief Karl Boissonneault.

Xerox plans to lean on its partner community as it seeks to reinvent itself into a print and IT services powerhouse, while taking share from rivals and injecting profitability into the channel, Xerox North American channel chief Karl Boissonneault told CRN.

“We’ve made it clear that channel is playing a key role in our strategy going forward as we look to — we use the term ‘reinvent ourselves’ — which really means fueling our mix shift from having most of our revenue concentrated around print to enabling more revenue coming from areas such as IT services and digital services, and also having a larger portion of our print revenue coming from an indirect model versus a direct model, which is good news for our partners,” said Boissonneault, president of Xerox North American channels.

In the coming year, Norwalk, Conn.-based Xerox is expected to close on its $1.5 billion acquisition of former print rival Lexmark, which will not only give the company domestic manufacturing capabilities, but also open its products to sales in the Asia-Pacific region.

Boissonneault said the move is designed to reassure its customers and partners that it is committed to the print space, and moving aggressively to take share. The planned Lexmark acquisition “cemented that position,” he said.

“To be able to pick up a Xerox product line comes with a cost. It comes with a significant investment,” he told CRN. “For (businesses) to be able to make those investments, they have to believe in our strategy. And I think what we’ve done over the past year now is clearly communicate our strategy, clearly explain why we’re doing what we’re doing, the role they play in it, and we’ve been very consistent around that.”

Additionally, the company has introduced a new product aimed directly at capturing business just south of the enterprise with its PrimeLink C9200, an entirely new device that brings capabilities of larger, more expensive production printers down to Main Street in an affordable package that is loaded with enablement.

“We as a partner. We want something that’s new. We want something that’s different. We want something that’s beneficial to clients,” said Josh Justice, president of Just Tech, a La Plata, Md.-based solution provider and one of the largest Xerox partners in the U.S. “Channel mainly goes after SMB and these are the clients we go after. These are the clients that we compete to win, and oftentimes, these are the most competitive sell cycles, and to see that we have, you know, something like this, that’s such a game changer, that’s so much better than what we have before.”

JustTech is a Xerox Diamond Partner and has been a Xerox partner since it was founded in 2006. Justice — a member of the Xerox Mono Branded Advisory Council — was recognized last month during the company’s Global Partner Summit for his years of work with Xerox. He said the longtime print and copy icon delivered the goods for the channel with PrimeLink.

“The pricing was incredible,” he told CRN. “The pricing was less than the previous model. I was shocked. I can tell that Xerox really wants to win with this product. They’re all in, you know, I would have expected based on the capabilities of price increase. But I really think that they want to gain market share, as do I and really want to win with this product.”

Xerox’s new products are its most secure and loaded with apps that provide tremendous productivity gains for organizations, Boissonneault told CRN. Additionally, AI-enabled devices are ready to help managed print providers streamline workflows and optimize their organizations growth.

“But really from a strategic perspective, with our partners having the Xerox logo or brand associated to theirs, leveraging our IP or expertise, leveraging our people, leveraging our product and our full value prop is really a way to enable them to differentiate themselves and go out there and succeed on their own goals,” he told CRN.

Here’s more from CRN’s interview with Boissonneault:

How should the channel be thinking about what Xerox is bringing to the table here in 2025?

We’ve made it clear that channel is playing a key role in our strategy going forward as we look to — we use the term ‘reinvent ourselves’ — which really means fueling our mix shift from having most of our revenue concentrated around print to enabling more revenue coming from areas such as IT services and digital services, and also having a larger portion of our print revenue coming from an indirect model versus a direct model, which is good news for our partners.

What I’ve just described there is very similar to what most of our partners are thinking about. Everybody wants to grab more share in this secularly declining market, and you do that by differentiating yourself. And also you want to make sure that you invest in areas of growth with larger total addressable markets to position your company for the future.

So what’s great about all this is what we’re doing, and the things we’re looking at are really well-aligned to what most of our partners are also looking at for their own strategies, which provides an opportunity for us to really work closely with them in building that.

Then going back to the print aspect, which is really the majority of what we’re discussing with our partners, and I mentioned earlier, everybody’s looking to get more share from others.

You do so by differentiating yourself. I actually believe we play a tremendous role in helping partners differentiate themselves. You can look at the product lineup, which is complete, which will even get more robust once we close the Lexmark acquisition.

Then you’ve got the fact that we’re bringing some of these new offerings around digital services to the channel, new offerings in the IT services space through the channels.

In fact, we’ve got our first two new offerings we’ll be launching the channels in Q2 in regards to IT services, which is really exciting. I mean, that’s what most of the new partners and existing partners are asking me about is: ‘How can we leverage all these great things that Xerox is doing? How are you going to bring those to market?’ And the answer is very simple: we are committed to bring them to market through our partners.

I was talking with a partner about the PrimeLink and, to him, the big benefit is how it brought some upmarket capabilities down to the midmarket to SMB space. That seems like a differentiator.

I’m sure you’ve heard before that things like, well, the speeds and feeds don’t really matter or most products are similar or it’s not about capabilities, it’s mostly about price points. All of that has changed with PrimeLink. I can’t remember the last time I had partners call me and say, ‘Wow, this product is phenomenal.’

The first thing people will talk to you about is the quality output that comes out of it. It is, what we call mid-range to high production environment, quality-type outputs.

It provides production-level, front-to-back registration. It’s got great media flexibility. It can handle a bunch of different stocks, banners up to 51 inches, all the things you would expect, (up to) 400 GSMs (grams per square meter paper stock), 24-inches deep, all the great things which are usually reserved for really, kind of, high-end production devices are now brought into what I like to call it more of a compact footprint, which is another key element of this product.

Because of its compact footprint, it can serve in both office and light production environments. Think of marketing firms, even law firms. You will see some of these devices in there because of its compact footprint.

And then when you layer on top of that, the level of quality you can get, the range and the speed of scanning you can get out of it, the paper capacity, the finishing capacity, it’s just a tremendous product.

One of the things that I heard from a partner that they were excited about is that this is a new device. This isn’t an upgrade or a new generation. Is that correct?

It’s a brand-new platform. So it’s not an evolution of a previous platform. It is a completely brand-new platform. A new engine.

So that, in and of itself, I think, excites people, and then it comes with all the latest innovation that we’ve done in the production environment. So think about the new Xerox integrated print server, which comes in standard with these products.

It has the ability to leverage Xerox Free Flow Vision Connect platform, which is really designed to provide graphic communication owners or operators an ability to measure, monitor and manage their fleets.

Because if you think about graphic communication owners, they want to drive more productivity, and reduce their costs and provide themselves with newer revenue opportunities by being able to tackle new client segments through differentiated medias and things like that. So we now provide them with this platform and technology to help them effectively monitor, measure and manage their fleets.

But also our Free Flow Core (Workflow Automation software) enables full automation, personalization and omni-channel marketing through the XMPie platform, which is some of the areas I was talking about in regards to capturing new revenue opportunities within their existing or potentially new client base.

So that is very specific to, I guess, the entry level production space. But also, again, going back to my comment on compact footprint and complete finishing capabilities, this serves really well in high end office environments as well.

So this is a great product. We’ve done a great job at positioning it price-wise, and for our partners, one of the big differentiators with this product and its predecessor is the revenue and margin opportunity it provides on the post-sale perspective.

What can you tell me about the incentives on this product?

Channel partners can take advantage of promotional support that includes enhanced compensation (SPIFFs) and access to a limited-time stocking offer designed to accelerate early momentum — one to go, two to show.

Additionally, units sold contribute to broader performance-based rewards, ensuring alignment with existing rebate structures. These offers are available through authorized PrimeLink partners and are structured to drive both visibility and velocity in the market.

The pending acquisition between Xerox and Lexmark is due to close in the second half of the year. I was talking with a partner who said they’re excited about the products, yes, but also how this brings some manufacturing capabilities to Xerox as well.

I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that there’s certainly an element of pride right now around having an American icon, coming back and being owned by another American icon. So I’m hearing that quite loudly from our partners.

That said, I mean, the way I look at Xerox and Lexmark coming together is really more around, Lexmark does a lot of business through the channel, which is where we want to do more business.

They have a tremendous A4 portfolio, which now combined with our portfolio will provide really what I believe to be a best-in-class portfolio. All of a sudden, you add Lexmark and Xerox, we become really relevant in the A4 space.

Xerox is already very relevant in the A3 and production space. You add the Lexmark positioning in Asia-Pacific, where we are not, also expands our footprint globally.

So those are really strategic benefits I see, which you can say those are really more benefits for Xerox, but I think ultimately as Xerox benefits from this, indirectly, our partners will benefit from the same as well because ultimately they’ll have access to these great capabilities.

Are you looking at 2025 as being a year where partners can double-down with Xerox? Just based on what you’ve described, the PrimeLink, the incentives, the shift to services. Is this a great year to be a Xerox partner?

We’re certainly feeling that. We certainly believe that. I’m getting calls now from new dealers that we didn’t have much of a relationship with, who are now really interested in speaking with us.

Over the last few years, some people question Xerox commitment to the print industry, And I kept saying, ‘There’s no reason for you to doubt that.’ I think having the Lexmark acquisition come through just cemented that position and removed any other doubts and anxieties.

To be able to pick up a Xerox product line comes with a cost. It comes with a significant investment. For (businesses) to be able to make those investments, they have to believe in our strategy. And I think what we’ve done over the past year now is clearly communicate our strategy, clearly explain why we’re doing what we’re doing, the role they play in it, and we’ve been very consistent around that.

We’re excited about 2025, and beyond. The feedback we had from our partners during our Partner Summit was fantastic.