Kodak Names New Channel Chief In Partner Push

Todd LeVeque, a former channel executive at document capture company Kofax, took over the channel post at Kodak and began work Tuesday. LeVeque said his job will be to provide an efficient, reseller-friendly organization as the Rochester, N.Y.-based company looks to grow share and sales in the expanding marketing for scanners and digital imaging solutions.

"We've got to make a statement in the marketplace," LeVeque said at the AIIM/On Demand Expo in Boston.

Don McMahan, general manager and vice president of sales for Kodak's digital imaging organization in North America, recently completed a restructuring of the company's channel, sales and marketing organization. McMahan said he has established a regional network of sales teams that will maintain regular contact with Kodak imaging resellers.

"We're big on face time," McMahan said. "It's all about showing up."

McMahan joined Kodak earlier this year after previous jobs in the channel and sales organizations of Fujitsu and Visioneer.

Kodak now has about 400 authorized resellers in North America, up from about 250 last year, according to McMahan. His goal is to grow the roll of Kodak solution providers to between 1,000 and 1,500.

To get there, Kodak aims to attract solution providers that have partnered with distributors, including those in Tech Data's TechSelect program and Ingram Micro's VentureTech Network, he said. Kodak has a two-tier distribution strategy in its North American commercial business.

Kodak initially began talking about increasing its channel organization and sharpening its channel strategy last year, and the company has worked to put additional pieces in place to support a growing number of commercial solution providers.

Its original efforts revolved largely around the Scan Station 100, a network-based scanner with an LCD user interface and enterprise-ready features, including production of searchable PDF documents and LDAP compatibility. It has a street price of about $2,200.

At the AIIM conference, Kodak announced that it has reached an agreement with Notable Solutions Inc. (NSI) to integrate NSI's AutoStore Embedded Client into the Scan Station 100.