ViewSonic has updated its Finch Club partner program and rolled out new displays and projectors suited for use by remote workers and in education, retail, and hospitality settings.
Both moves, which are core elements of a revamped go-to-market strategy ViewSonic calls “A New View,” represent significant milestones in the company’s ongoing process of reinvention from its roots as a maker of computer monitors and projectors to its new identity as a supplier of solutions for communication, collaboration, digital signage, and other use cases.
“We began this journey about five years ago with interactive screens and interactive software,” says Jeff Volpe, ViewSonic’s president for the Americas. “Today, five years later, despite the fact that we have this very tumultuous time with COVID, our business has quite transformed to a solution-oriented company.”
Indeed, he continues, the spike in demand for distance learning and work-from-home technology brought about by the coronavirus pandemic has only made the course ViewSonic set for itself half a decade ago more relevant.
“The strategy is not altered at all, but everything has accelerated,” Volpe says. “The new norm is unclear, but what is clear for me is that the environment of our society and how we work is different, and it’s going to remain different. It’s five years ahead of where it was going to be.”
New devices added to ViewSonic’s catalog last month include Direct View LED displays designed to serve as an affordable alternative to custom-made video walls; wireless presentation displays with built-in screen sharing software, plus remote configuration and content management functionality; portable USB Type-C monitors for business travelers and home-based workers; and several new lamp-free laser and LED projectors.
Additions to the Finch Club range from access to one-on-one online demo assistance from ViewSonic personnel to enhanced multimedia tools and customized content for presenting ViewSonic solutions and a new bounty program that pays cash incentives to partners for introducing ViewSonic to net new accounts. Special pricing long available to enterprise partners is now available to channel pros pursuing SMB-sized deals as well.
“There is a new technology that allows us to do special pricing quicker and more definitively than before,” Volpe says. In the works as well, he adds, are portals and other tools aimed at familiarizing partners with ViewSonic’s “New View” vision.
“We need to train the channel partners on what our software is, what our solutions are, what the devices are, and our differentiation, our competitive advantage,” Volpe says.
Though everything about “A New View” predates the COVID-19 crisis, the sudden switch from classroom learning to online instruction sparked by that disease has led to increased sales of ViewSonic’s interactive, large-format myViewBoard systems, according to Volpe, as well as faster adoption of smaller interactive displays by teachers in need of remote education products they can use from home. Corporate buyers with remote employees are investing in similar products more heavily this year as well.
“The small, medium, and large business space is very, very focused on trying to keep their business continuity very high, and in order to do that they have to be very focused on connecting, collaborating, and working together in a remote environment,” Volpe says.
To make meeting those needs easier for partners, ViewSonic is packaging myViewBoard displays together with software, wall-mounted or motorized stands, integrated PCs, and other items.
“myViewBoard has really given us a really a great opportunity to help our channel partners put together bundles and solutions to facilitate distance learning and collaboration amongst remote workers,” Volpe says. “It makes the resellers not have to worry and put all the pieces together and then miss a component.”
ViewSonic is working to get products where they’re needed faster as well, he continues. “We’ve added a couple of warehouses in strategic areas throughout the U.S. so that we can do drop ships in a very short period of time, like just a few days.”
Together with the recently introduced products and partner benefits, Volpe contends, such efforts will help channel pros weather today’s stalled economy successfully.
“We believe that technology companies should thrive through these kinds of shifts in how people do their work,” Volpe says.
