Canon Canada Reviews

Pros

- good training
- pays decent base

Cons

- not enough support once training is done
- horrible crm system

Pros

good training program

looks reputable on resume

Cons

lots of pressure to get the numbers up

Advice to Senior Management

dont have every ceo in every subsidiary to be japanese

Pros

Friendly and amazing co-workers that make the hours go by faster.

Cons

9-10 hour days are the norm, as are the "I want this now" tasks given by managers. A lot of finger pointing when something goes wrong, just to look good to the boss.

Advice to Senior Management

It helps to assimilate into the Canadian work culture.

Pros

- Training in Mississauga was well done
- If you can hit your yearly goals (highly unlikely), you will make around $100K.
- Fellow co-workers were the only thing keeping most people sane.
- Good, competitive products

Cons

I don't even know where to begin really. For a Fortune 500 company, it is mind boggling that this place hasn't imploded yet, although it seems like it is on the verge of happening.

The "Hunter/Farmer" program they have implemented from Canon Australia looks good on paper, but is terrible in practice. "Hunters" are supposed to go after new clients only, clients who only have competitor products. "Farmers" go after current Canon clients and up-sell them when their leases expire. The major flaw here is that both types get completely sick of their jobs, VERY quickly. Farmers make less commission because it should be easier to sell to current clients, except that current clients do nothing but complain about how terrible the service is, and then take it out on their sales rep. How are you supposed to sell something to a client who is currently having a bad experience with your product? Hunters HATE their jobs most of the time because they are supposed to cold call every single day. Most "hunters" hoard business cards from the few times they go cold calling, and then enter them into Canon's CRM tool "iCan" when they dont have any more kicking around. A lot of reps hate it so much they spend most of the day at home. Yes, you are a sales rep for a Fortune 500 company. But when you spend 7 hours of your day annoying secretaries to buy a photocopier, it becomes humbling. Also as a small sidenote, Canon forces you to wear a suit and tie every single day. Cold calling when its 35 degrees out is sure pleasant. It is also intimidating for clients who are laid back.

It should be a mix of hunter/farmer, so that you can go after new clients, but when that gets discouraging, you can atleast work on a few easy clients who may purchase again. Ricoh does this. Most sales employees at Ricoh have been in their positions for years. The average at Canon is MAYBE 6 months, if you can hold on for that long.

Canon does have a good product, but they ARE more expensive then their competitors. You have to fight tooth and nail to get the marketing support to lower your price, if that even happens. So you end up losing tons of deals because you cannot match competitor prices. Management needs to realize that you cannot just sell the benefits and features of a machine. How do you justify it to a small family business that it's worth spending an extra $4,000 on a photocopier because it's paper decks are more sturdy and the touch screen is colour enabled. Lets get serious here. EVERYONE is price conscious and that is their deciding factor. We are talking about a photocopier here.

2 weeks vacation to start - need I say more. It's pathetic. 3 weeks is pretty much the norm everywhere.

Most people get into copier sales because of the experience it will give them on a resume, and likely have their eyes set on better things like Pharma/Medical equipment sales. If that's the case, go to Ricoh or something. You will end up staying there longer and likely feel a little more proud about what you do for a living.

If you are thinking of accepting a job here, save yourself 6 months and don't. This is likely what will happen: You will have a honeymoon phase of 3 months where you are eager to hit your yearly bonuses and think that working for a Fortune 500 brand name is just grand. Then you will slowly realize your managers and senior managers are completely incompetent, and are likely in their jobs because they didn't have it in themselves to leave when they should have. You will likely stick around for another 3 months hoping that the managers will turn it around and that you might somehow make a few big deals to reach your completely unattainable goals.

Advice to Senior Management

I really don't know if you can fix the current situation by replacing a few people or implementing new ways of doing things. It's so dysfunctional and embarrassing, I would say it needs to be blown up to start from scratch in order to retain employees for more than 6 months.

Pros

Discount on Canon products twice a year at best.

Cons

Watch your back! People trying to work in complete fear. Such turnover it would make your head spin. Upset customers and you can't do anything about it. The processes are brutal! Most time is not spent selling as a sales rep. Data entry and covering your ass between far to many meetings. The company respects in dealer channel so much more than it's direct operation. The direct channel is just a front, window dressing! If you want to take years off your life apply at Canon Canada!

Advice to Senior Management

Single malt scotch!

Pros

Canon is a leader in every community it is in. It is a leader in environmental stewartship, Technical R&D, and the products are technically superior to most competitor's products.

Cons

The middle management team leading the Business Solutions Division is mediocre on its best days and downright incompetent on its worst days. Their management style is one straight of the middle 20th century as described by Hersey. They exemplify McGregors Theory X style by managing employees through intimidation, threats and coercion. Mistakes made by employees and junior management are punished, usually by deducting money from the employee's pay. The communication style is to ignore requests or challenging questions with the hope the challenger will give up and move on. The staff turnover at the entry level sales rep level in 2010 was 100%! Some sales staff gave up significant commissions and bonuses just to get away from this brutal management team. Staff Harrassment complaints are essentially ignored by Human Resource staff.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management at Canon Canada should not be afraid to bring in a competent consulting team to review the BSD division and be prepared to take the necessary steps to fix the faults. Currently the BSD channel is getting beat up by the performance of its other sales channels, notably the dealers.

Pros

There were some travel opportunities within Canada. The training in Mississauga was executed well.

Cons

The management are not able to train new staff properly or allocate the time required to do so. They do not know how to use back end systems and you have to teach yourself, or find another staff member to help you. There is so much pressure from above that the management team regularily have spastic episodes on members of their team. Favoritism is apparent. The goals are quite high, with limited marketing support in order to creatively compete. You are not allowed to address the president or anyone in a senior management position without saying "Mr./Mrs." first. When round table discussions are planned, and someone from senior management comes in, questions must be pre approved and are limited to one per person. It is a drama to track someone down to find answers to questions, even as an employee. The company is making a profit, but the turnover is notoriously high in the sales division. Customers continuously comment on the fact that they have another new rep.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn how to run a sales organization properly, and the morale will be a lot higher and employees will want to succeed.

Pros

Good compensations, great benefits, plenty of motivation to hit the top bracket (Vacations and so on). good resume builder as a whole.

Cons

Dying industry, unfocused field of sale, too much administration inefficiencies. This job requires a thick skin as the product is matured and market is very very competitive.

Advice to Senior Management

For god sake stop with the iCan! and cut the layers of bureaucracy, perhaps you'll save some money by making it more efficient so you can cut your profit margins a tad too.

Pros

Easy to get into, no degree needed. Selling a premium product. Get pretty good deals on cameras and other canon gear

Cons

unreasonable time expectations. Will tell you when you start that you are to work 40 hours per week, will then expect upwards of 50 - 60. Success is dependent on the client base you get. If there is a discrepancy between a client and a rep, Canon makes reps pay them the difference.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue doing what you are doing. The fact that promotions from within are occurring more often is encouraging. Provide your sales staff with a home.

Pros

Annual salary is quite competitive.
Many co-workers are a pleasure to work with but that is not because of the company, it is because of the people themselves.

Cons

Lack of integrity - Example: couple of years ago company announced salary freeze claiming they had to control costs because of the recession, but during that same year announced a contest giving dozens of sales reps trips to Europe valued at $8,000 per sales rep. Total cost of all the trips was over half a million dollars.

The defined contribution pension plan is disgracefully inadequate. It is structured so the company invests as little money as possible in the employee's future. After many years of hard work the typical employee will suffer the shock of a drastic drop in income during their retirement years.

Deception - Example: On the company web site for employees the Human Resources Department describes the pension plan as 'generous' and 'excellent'. HR also deliberately deceives employees in company-wide emails - announcements which contain bad news for employees are portrayed as being good for them. This simply insults people.

In the Sales Department, reps can be quickly promoted to management within 2-3 years, while employees in other departments are left to rot in the exact same job for decades.

Poorly designed jobs. After a short time, job challenge drops to zero because many tasks are either boring, menial, or frustrating. Job tasks are exactly the same from one day to the next. Dealing with one problem after another can cause frustration. Many days It can also be frustrating to lose hours having no chance to do what you planned because instead you are pulled all over the place doing what one person after another wants you to do for them.

Upper management is very superficial. They recently saw fit to treat themselves and other managers to a company-paid trip to California. They spend a lot of effort on boosting the company's image to customers. Should spend more effort on tangibly improving employees' working conditions.

Management does not value the knowledge of its clerical employees. Prefers to think they know everything and tell employees what to do.

Management is closed-minded to criticism of any aspect of the company. Instead they constantly make excuses and say we need to support things the way they are. They also try to act like Canon is the perfect company and will only change if management decides it needs to.

Anyone contemplating a long career should seek a different company.

Advice to Senior Management

Canon management is aware of what they are doing and very callous about it. We have given up long ago expecting anything better from them.