The channel’s growth challenge
PrintIT Reseller (PITR): Many resellers want to say yes to bigger deals but lack the resources. From your perspective, what’s holding partners back the most?
James Pittick (JP): From the conversations I have, the biggest challenge is capacity and flexibility. Whether that’s scaling support from regional to national contracts or adjusting resources around large rollouts and multi-site installs, there’s always a cost/benefit to weigh up.
Too often, resellers face a choice – walk away from the opportunity, or risk stretching existing teams too thinly and dealing with the knock-on effects for their staff and customers.
PITR: Where do resellers struggle most with scaling delivery?
JP: It’s usually in the wraparound services. Winning the deal is often the easy part. The challenge comes when you move into project delivery – configuring, staging and installing hundreds or thousands of devices. Without the right logistics and technical capability, the profitability partners expected at the start can quickly disappear.
Why outsourcing is essential today
PITR: Margins are tighter than ever, how does outsourcing PDI, logistics and installation help partners protect profitability?
JP: Outsourcing takes away the high cost of hiring, onboarding, training and maintaining a large services team. It gives partners the freedom and flexibility to scale up or down as needed, paying only for resources when they’re required. That protects bottom-line profitability.
PITR: Why is now the right time for resellers to rethink their delivery model?
JP: Customer expectations have changed dramatically. The level of service we all experience as consumers has become the benchmark in business. Speed, scale and flexibility are now expected as standard.
Trying to build a permanent in-house team that can cope with the peaks, but sits underused in the troughs, is no longer sustainable. The old way doesn’t work for 2026, customers are clamouring for outsourced services because they want projects delivered faster, bigger and more reliably.
Outsourcing lets resellers compete at the top end, win larger contracts and exceed expectations without carrying the cost or financial risk.
PDI & staging: the critical step
PITR: Why is PDI so important to successful rollouts?
JP: Pre-delivery inspection and staging set the project up for success. Every device is imaged, configured and tested before it reaches the site, reducing DOA issues and ensuring everything works out of the box.
PITR: What happens when this stage is skipped or under-invested in?
JP: Problems follow. Devices arrive unprepared, engineers face delays, and in some cases return visits are needed to fix serious issues. It compromises the customer experience and quickly eats into the deal margin.
PITR: How does FUTERA’s in-house PDI service reduce risk for partners?
JP: Because we manage the whole PDI process in-house, we have full control of quality. Every device is tested against partner requirements before it leaves us. That reliability reduces headaches for the reseller and creates a smoother experience for the end customer.
Capacity for big rollouts
PITR: Can you give an example of how FUTERA helps partners deliver at scale, perhaps a large rollout or multi-site project?
JP: We recently supported a partner on a national refresh project, managing staging, logistics and installation across multiple sites in a short window. That kind of delivery would have been near impossible without outsourced capacity.
By plugging into our services, the partner hit deadlines, impressed the customer and protected their margin.
PITR: How does FUTERA’s nationwide engineering and logistics team give partners more confidence to bid for bigger deals?
JP: It gives them certainty. If they win a deal, they know they can deliver — regardless of the number of sites, timescales, or locations across the UK. That confidence is key to competing for larger contracts.
The FUTERA difference
PITR: There are other service providers in the market, what makes FUTERA different?
JP: Our difference is agility. We take on the complicated pieces of delivery that partners don’t want to touch, removing the headaches and making sure everything runs smoothly. We genuinely see ourselves as an extension of their team, delivering to the standard they’d expect of themselves.
PITR: How does being employee-owned translate into better service for partners and their customers?
JP: When you’re employee-owned, every project matters. Our people aren’t just delivering equipment, they’re delivering outcomes that directly contribute to their own success. That ownership drives better care, accountability and customer service.
The bottom line for the channel
PITR: If you had one message for resellers thinking about using outsourced services, what would it be?
JP: Don’t limit the deals you can win because of the services you can’t deliver. With FUTERA you can say yes to more, safe in the knowledge we’ll deliver it for you.
PITR: How do you see outsourced delivery evolving in the next two to three years?
JP: It’s only going to grow. Economic pressures and the pace of technology make it harder for businesses to carry the big service infrastructures they once had. Outsourcing is the engine that will let resellers grow profitably, scale with demand and compete with bigger players. FUTERA is already built for that future.
