NEC’s Alliance Partner Strategy predicts the future of business
How NEC’s forward-thinking business model gives customers perfectly tailored options
The history of 20th-century business was one of conglomeration. The bigger companies bought their more dynamic competitors, often inadvertently kneecapping innovation in the process.
Trying to own all products is good for conglomerates’ bottom line, but it’s often not exactly suited to meeting consumers’ specific needs.
Nils Karsten, strategic alliance manager at NEC Display Solutions EMEA, talks about how NEC is deploying a new but also classic model: an ecosystem that integrates partner competencies and technologies using strategic alliances.
The main goal of NEC Display Solutions is to provide each and every customer with the precisely perfect solution for their specific needs.
It’s an easy thing to say, but NEC has a detailed plan and overarching ethos to ensure it happens. NEC doesn’t focus on one headline technology or one solution.
The company develops an array of technologies and solutions, so NEC consultants can help each customer find what works for them.
This involves a lot of listening to customers. Those customers’ need for flexibility, in turn, led NEC to develop its alliance of strategic partners.
NEC creates an impressive array of innovative hardware in its goal to meet every use case. They’re built modularly, so they can be easily scaled up or down.
The company has more than a century’s experience in the development and manufacture of electronic devices and embracing new technologies, so the solutions are as reliable as they are innovative.
Rather than locking customers into a proprietary environment, NEC solutions are made to easily integrate with partners within all major verticals, whether that means software, CMS, platforms or any type of other hardware.
NEC partners with companies whose offerings fit their customers’ needs and offer real added value for the overall purpose. Sometimes, these are transactional relationships.
NEC will purchase a solution in order to offer it as a bundle with one of its display solutions.
And on the other hand, there are strategic alliances, which allow NEC to promote, provide or recommend a mutual solution to the appropriate clients.
Over the last 12 months, the number of connected partnerships has grown tremendously. More than 100 CMS companies are accessible within NEC hardware.
The huge variety of computing devices that customers can integrate into the display without an external player is unique in the market.
This means being able to scale performance levels and brings the simple advantage of being able to support the most suitable option for the client whilst having no stake in the client’s decision.
It´s all about creating the perfect installation for the client’s situation. The client gets access to software that NEC knows is instantly workable and smooth-running, without being pressured into a decision.
A perfect example of this commitment is NEC’s partnership with signageOS. The NEC Open Modular Platform powered by signageOS basically allows all NEC end users to onboard whichever CMS or content provider they wish, confident in the knowledge that their system will function flawlessly.
At ISE 2020, CEO Stan Richter said of the partnership’s announcement that it’s all about choice.
“It’s a fair approach. If I put myself in an end user’s shoes, I don’t want to be locked in. I want to have options. Closing the industry leads to short-term success. Opening up is the way towards long-term success.”
Additionally, NEC supports its partners with the NEC Solutions Zone. It showcases some of the most successful and notable use cases, as well as highlighting strategic partners.
NEC clients can explore Solutions of the Month and browse recommended integrators. It’s an online exhibition that serves both clients, in that they see options displayed, and partners, whose work is signal-boosted across the world.