After 30 years in the AV industry, Royce Lye, MD of BenQ UK & Ireland has witnessed plenty of change throughout his career. A large chunk of that has been seen in his time with BenQ, a journey that started almost 20 years ago.
Early days
When Lye joined Acer’s peripherals division as Marketing Manager for UK & Ireland in 2002, the company were looking to rebrand to build new channels that weren’t necessarily tied into its original parent, Acer Group. Lye was tasked with overseeing the rebrand to BenQ: “I knew the channel well and how to rebrand a company. We were an IT company then, not AV at all, and I had a background in IT. I thought I’d be spending a year, year-and-a-half tops, helping to rebrand from Acer to BenQ. Almost 25 years later, and I’m still here.”
After 7 years of nurturing and growing the BenQ brand, in 2009 Lye took over the UK projector business which sat at around 2 percent market share. After restructuring channel partnerships, recruiting more team members, and driving the PR message home, the product and brand awards started to flood in, and Lye stepped up to Sales & Marketing Director in 2011. In 2013, BenQ hit 10 percent market share, and by 2015, had achieved a record 17 percent.
The next big thing
During this period, Lye took a trip to the Far East in China and discovered a product that he thought would totally change both the AV and education industries: “The big diversification for us in product was interactive flat panels. It was a product BenQ had started to manufacture, but we hadn’t yet looked at introducing it to the European market. We discussed when it might go into education and tied up a deal with a distributor.”
In 2013, BenQ’s interactive touchscreen products were launched in the UK and the UK quickly becaome the largest country for BenQ in interactive touch globally. Over the next 5 years, Lye rose to Executive Director UK & Ireland, and then to General Manager, overseeing a team that had now grown to contain 28 sales and marketing professionals. In 2014-2016, BenQ became the number three projector brand and doubled its market share in the first twelve months, and in 2016, the brand was number one for 1080p projection. Lye was also selected as the one of the AV Industry’s most influential 100 people in the 2017-2010 AV100 in recognition of his passion and commitment to the industry. In 2019, Lye became Managing Director for UK and Ireland, just one year before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A small hurdle
Like most other industries around the world, the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns meant that BenQ faced uncertainty. Lockdowns meant that traditional in-person learning was no longer possible, which led to around half of the company’s education business disappearing overnight. The tried and tested stories and solutions were no longer applicable to the market and Lye quickly realised that the key to solving their issue was to diversify to cover more bases.
The company also had a range of workplace technology solutions such as monitors that they were already selling into the market, and with the steep rise in remote work, the demand for these was higher than ever before. Lye and his team worked hard to transition into digital selling, and workplace solutions helped to plug the gap left by education.
It’s all about relationships
In recent years, Lye’s focus has been on developing the relationships with the company’s channel partners. Other companies may be content to have a simple, transactional relationship with their channel, but Lye has always strongly believed that this should never be the case: “It’s about designing, positioning and how you look after your channel. One thing we’ve added with the team here is to work with our channel partners whether they’re a reseller, distributor, we treat everyone closely.”
As a result, the relationship that his team have created with channel partners goes well beyond transactional and is a true partnership in every sense of the word. From pre-sales support and excellent after-care to regular training and events, BenQ UK has built a partnership that works to deliver results for both sides.
When asked about his plans for the future, continuing to develop the partnership with channel partners was near the top of his list, with a goal of moving the channel closer to the end user, while maintaining channel strategy. Another key focus is on developing a go-to-market strategy across all products – not restricted by traditional markets or strategies – to ensure stability and structure for the brand in years to come.
A team to be proud of
Looking back through his career and time at BenQ, it would be easy to think that Lye’s proudest accomplishment would be winning the AV News Outstanding Achievement in AV 2023, however: “My biggest achievement is my team. Seeing the team and individuals develop and grow within the company and the wider industry, and having the opportunity to help them on their way has been so rewarding. I’m proud to have such a fantastic, multi award-winning team, and we have some real talent that we’ll continue to nurture for years to come.”
