Kodak appoints Midwich to broaden distribution of its networked, workgroup and departmental scanners in the UK & Ireland

- New Kodak business development manager, Bob Gristock, recruited to provide additional resource to support the new distributor relationship

London July 15, 2010 – Kodak (NYSE:EK) today announced that it has appointed Midwich Limited to broaden distribution of its networked, workgroup and departmental scanners to over 6,000 IT resellers based in the UK and Ireland [through its wholly owned Square One subsidiary].

Effective immediately, Midwich will provide an additional route to market for Kodak’s comprehensive range of SoHo and enterprise scanners.  These include the Scan Station 500 networked scanner, Kodak’s ScanMate, i30/40 and i1200 plus series workgroup scanners, along with its higher performance departmental Truper, Sidekick, i1300 plus, i1400 and i4000 series scanners.

With a 30-year heritage, Midwich is an award winning trade only distributor, well known with systems integrators and resellers selling print and imaging, audio visual (AV), consumer electronics and office equipment solutions. ISO 9001:2000 accredited, Midwich employs over 200 staff with sales in the year ending 2009 totalling £173 million.

Neil Murphy, Kodak’s UK sales manager for document imaging, says, “With a relationship dating back 20 years, Midwich already supply our MFD printer and digital camera technology so scanners provides a natural extension for them to create new business opportunities, broaden their existing document management portfolio while cementing the partnership between the two companies.”

The initial launch plan will be for Midwich to sign resellers it works with – over 6,000 in total - to Kodak’s Reseller Programme which offers a package of incentives for resellers to select Kodak including financial rebates on equipment sold.  Midwich will also develop innovative promotional offers to take the Kodak brand to market such as bundling scanners with other Kodak products it distributes.

Jonathon Francis, Midwich’s print & imaging business manager, said, “We have a clear strategy with Kodak to target its number 1 competitor, focusing on reseller sectors where we have a strong reputation and informing of them of Kodak’s class leading solutions and the very real margin opportunity. Having approached them, adding scanners to our portfolio will allows us to deliver incremental business for Kodak, while taking profitable opportunities to our reseller community.”

According to analysts, InfoSource, the market for workgroup, departmental and low volume scanners is projected to be up to 18% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) from 2010 to 2014.[1]

To add value to the new relationship, Kodak will fund the salary of a product specialist based at Midwich’s Norfolk headquarters to support sales staff immediately with reseller queries involving any Kodak product it distributes.

Additionally, Kodak has appointed document imaging veteran, Bob Gristock, who joins as new business development manager.  He will have an active role in supporting Midwich win new scanner business over time. 

With over 26 years document capture product experience both from a hardware, software and sales perspective, Bob Gristock was formerly Visioneer’s business development manager for Western Europe, and held product manager roles at distributor, Headway Technology Group[2].  With extensive corporate accounts project management expertise having worked in a reseller environment, he fully understands the needs of end-user organisations installing EDMS-based solutions – a skill set crucial to supporting Midwich develop its imaging business in the long term.     

Murphy concludes, “This announcement is good news all round.  Kodak extends its channel to market, Midwich adds a portfolio of products from a market leader to generate new sales, and resellers now have an additional line of credit to buy Kodak’s award winning scanner equipment to use on client projects.”

The announcement means that Kodak today has four distributor partners targeting the UK and Irish markets; two predominately document imaging focused distributors – Kofax and Avnet – and two more general IT focused suppliers, Northamber and now Midwich.