It might be one of the world’s best known brands, but making sure Canon’s customers get the best possible service on the ground is Peter Brown’s priority. So what does this Canon lifer bring to the party?

Reigate, Surrey. It’s not the most glamorous location. But in this leafy corner just off the M25, Canon UK, one of the country’s biggest sales and marketing operations, nestles unobtrusively in the countryside.

With a turnover somewhere north of £400m, keeping an eye on the financial performance of such a huge operation requires a detail-focused FD with an eye on the big picture. “I’ve been here for 18 years,” FD Peter Brown tells me when I arrive. “I did a number of roles, starting with financial analyst and then FD of some of the subsidiaries. Then I came back to the parent company and I’ve been FD for just over three years. I look after finance, the support groups, supply chain, admin, legal.”
As we’ll see, it’s a varied role that requires patience and a willingness to
get your hands dirty.

9.30AM The first thing in Brown’s in-tray this morning is the regular Sarbanes-Oxley catch-up meeting with Julian Black, Canon’s financial accounts manager. Being part of a US-listed firm means that everything about Canon’s processes has to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. If he’s in any way miffed about this, Brown hides it well.

“The main challenge for us is that we changed our enterprise resource planning system in August, so we’ve got a very tight time frame – just this half – to put controls in place and make sure they’re adequately tested and operational.” So as well as making sure the major roll out of the Oracle ERP system went through smoothly, factoring in Sarbanes-Oxley must have really tested Brown to the limit?

“Well, the implementation was Europe-wide, and that’s designed to give a level of transparency to the business which it didn’t previously have,” he explains. “We were the eighth company to go live with the system so the risk to the business was lessened thanks to that. The challenges really were to change our processes to adapt to the new system rather than the system itself.” Sounds perfectly straightforward.

10.30AM We’re heading outside with Brian Owen, general manager central services, and Alastair Barnes, premises services specialist, to take a look around the grounds of the Woodhatch office. Canon owns some of the land and has covenants on other patches, so the FD wants to see what improvements need to be made to the site. Unfortunately, I’ve arrived on a miserable day and the rain is lashing. Brown’s not to be deterred though, so with trusty golf umbrellas – Canon-branded of course – we start the tour.

It gives me the chance to quiz Brown on the Canon UK business model. “We’re a sales and marketing operation in essence,” he says as we tramp through the damp countryside. “There are two parts of the business – the consumer part which is cameras, printers and so on. For that, we sell to the likes of Jessops and Dixons – we’ve got about 300 customers there, worth about £250m in turnover. Then we’ve got Canon Business Solutions, which is concerned with the copier part of the business. We operate in three ways: selling direct to small and medium-sized businesses; selling direct to large corporates and governments; and selling indirectly to our partners who sell on, often to the same customers. The split is about 50-50 between direct selling and through partners.”

Today’s tour is to evaluate whether the site needs a revamp, and what should be done with some of the existing – though slightly dilapidated – outbuildings. “We’re not a property company, so we need to consolidate our assets into one area,” the FD says. “We haven’t got many other buildings left now, and we’ve still got 20-odd sales offices. It’s important that the sales guys have got a base out in the regions, but the buildings are smaller so the back-office and management functions are here. We’re reducing that to squeeze it into this one office. There’s a competitive pressure to reduce costs and overheads.”

Brown seems happy with how things are going with the site. He’s keen to make sure the finance team understands the plan for next year. Keeping on top of the sales plan – ensuring targets are met – is a key role for this FD.

12.30PM It’s time for lunch. But the FD can’t get away with a quick sandwich at the desk. Today he’s got to meet with selected staff to answer any concerns they have about the business. It’s part of a company-wide effort to keep the 2,000 employees informed about Canon’s strategy, performance and plans. Every month a nominated director makes themselves available to answer questions.

So it’s off to the staff canteen and into the lion’s den. “I’ve been doing these for ten years,” the FD says. “We rotate the directors every month. On site here there are seven directors or so, the sales directors are out on the road a lot so I end up doing it quite often.”

I’m interested to see how the FD will deal with detailed questions on Canon’s capital expenditure plans for next year. As it turns out, this is more of a good housekeeping meeting, with the staff airing concerns about network log-ons and wondering why the Christmas party has been cancelled – Brown explains it’s due to poor staff take-up. But the main issue, which the FD is more than happy to get his teeth into, is the introduction of Oracle as Canon’s new ERP system.

Brown listens patiently to the staff’s complaints – sorry, questions – and explains that the short-term pain – raising the correct invoices, managing suppliers without having to re-enter them on the system and so on – will be worth it once the kinks are ironed out and people are more comfortable with the system. The staff, drawn from a cross-section of the business, need to be convinced of the new system’s effectiveness, something Brown as FD really needs to hammer home.

“A lot of things get blamed on the system when it’s not the system’s fault,” Brown tells me afterwards. “But a successful implementation forces you to get it right at the front end. And they have to realise it’s the people and not the process that has to change.”

2.15PM Back to the office, and we’ve successfully negotiated the minefield of employees’ concerns. It’s become clear that one of Brown’s key responsibilities is staff satisfaction and development. With a steady flow of innovative cameras and printers arriving from the continent, managing the flow is key. For that, people and process take centre stage.

While he’s at his desk, Brown is eager to look over the latest list of dealers and how well they’re doing. We’ve got a meeting with one later so he wants to get up to speed with how the service and sales operations are going. He says that getting the after-sales service right can’t be ignored, even by a huge organisation like Canon.

“The business model is simple in that they make the money from selling but also from the after-sales service,” Brown explains. “We need good quality partners, because our badge is on the box. We have lots of accreditation schemes and we can audit partners to see if they qualify.”

3PM The FD’s three o’clock has cancelled, so Brown goes through some of the latest sales figures supplied by the team. Keeping an eye on this falls squarely into the FD’s remit, and Brown’s background means that although he might have the FD title, he still views himself as a commercial player in the business.

“I’ve been involved in management accounting since I began,” he says. “That means I can talk to the sales guys in their language to help them come up with creative solutions, while administering that correctly. It’s about achieving that balance.”
So no temptation to put the pedal to the metal and drive sales relentlessly? “It’s a balance,” he laughs. “And a good FD will have that balance. I’ve seen finance people going out to a new business area and going native. They’ve gone too far to get the adrenalin buzz of the sales operations.”

3.30PM The FD grabs five minutes to send a few last-minute emails and then we’re off to meet one of Canon’s star dealers. They’re based in Tring so we get on the M25, giving Brown the chance to brief me on why we’re driving through the pouring rain.

“The company we’re seeing is called Falcon, it’s run by two guys in their early forties. They used to be regular copier salesman and now they’re big Canon dealers and have been for 12 or so years. They needed an injection of capital for the next stage of growth, which we helped out with. As a result, we get extra turnover in the form of purchases from us, and someone who is loyal to the Canon brand.”

“I said I’d come along to see what the operation is like for myself,” the FD explains. “We’ve got a number of dealers and they range in size. Our biggest partner is probably buying £25m to £30m worth of kit from us a year, while the mid-range ones like today’s guys are buying between £1m and £2m a year from us. But that’s growing.

4PM We’ve arrived in Tring. We’re welcomed by one of Falcon’s co-founders, Rob Kedgely, who has organised a brief presentation to show what the company has achieved in the past 12 months since Canon made its investment. It’s a positive story. Sales have grown, turnover’s up, and there’s no sign of any discord or dissatisfaction with the products that Canon are supplying. And service is improving.

“You can’t fault their numbers,” says Brown. “They’ve given it a go and from being, as they said, ‘white sock’ sales guys, they’ve turned it into a £4m business turning a reasonable profit.” Canon hasn’t invested in many of its dealers, but it’s clear that when the FD spots one that shows great promise and could do with some help, he’s happy to assist with its growth. The investment is structured in the form of a loan which is paid off the more kit the dealer purchases from Canon. That way, the dealer gets growth capital while Canon gets a guaranteed income.

“One of the strategies I’ve always had is ‘keep it simple, no surprises’. And this business, with its transparency, is a classic case of that,” Brown tells me.
Getting this type of deal off the ground is clearly where Brown sees himself as adding value. “That’s the sort of thing the FD brings to the table in a business like Canon. They’re things I have to come up with,” he says.

We leave the boys in Tring. The FD seems happy with the progress they are making. All that’s left now is to negotiate the M25 home. It’s been a busy day for the FD, and he’s successfully managed the demands of staff, suppliers, partners and customers. Not bad for a day’s work.

Related tags: printer, camera, copier, canon, peter brown, sarbanes-oxley, sales and marketing, fd,