As the game of musical chairs played out at top channel spots in the communications hardware business in 2008, Motorola's Enterprise Mobility division looked beyond the usual suspects and tapped Janet Schijns as its vice president of worldwide channel and distribution.
Schijns spent the last 15 years as president of The JS Group, a channel consulting company that counted Motorola among its many high-tech clients. Prior to that she worked for Sandoz, a large pharmaceutical holding company, working in their medical equipment dealer channel. She also spent time at L’Oreal in its dealer network.
PHONE+ spoke to Schijns in early January. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation.
How is your experience in channel consulting helping you at Motorola?
It’s definitely different experience for a channel chief. ... I think that’s a good thing. I think you’ll see that — as an aside — more vendors looking for more unique experience in the person running the channel in working one on one with the channel partners.
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| Motorola Channel Chief Janet Schijns |
I think the biggest experience from JS Group that helps me in the role is that I was intimately involved with a number of vendors and partners around their growth as well as recovery plans. That experience of working one on one and really being part of the team at a variety of vendors partners and distributors has been an experience that lets me in my new role really understand what our business partners businesses look like, what their business challenges look like and how their business really runs. ...I think that experience is really helping me in this new role. I can feel exactly what their needs are.
... As an example, many of our partners today are expanding their solutions capacity. That comes at a considerable cost to their firm. ...I understand the costs of that from reviewing in the last six years over 1,000 balance sheets with partners. I see the impact on their GS&A and their overall operating expenses. In my new role, that experience has helped me craft strategies that will help me reduce the cost of developing solutions and working on solution channel readiness for Motorola’s Enterprise Mobility group.
Engineering solutions for the channel takes some of that cost out. Our product groups are heavily engaged with my team on how to best engineer solutions for the channel to help take costs out of their business. That is a specific example of how my experience consulting with all their partners led me to understand their business and bring it in and develop a strategy around it quickly.
