January 2009 Office Technology

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NATIONAL CONVENTION AND EXPO

March 18-19, 2009 • North Hall 4 • Las Vegas Convention Center

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CONTENTS Volume 15 No. 7 G

FEATURE ARTICLES 10

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The A4 MFP Will it become a little giant?

COURTS & CAPITOLS New Year’s Resolutions Improving your business & life in 2009

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by Brent Hoskins Office Technology Magazine

by Robert C. Goldberg BTA General Counsel

Today, end-users in the general office, accustomed to the attributes of an MFP, are often being asked a simple question: “How often do you print or copy a document on 11 x 17-inch paper?” Frequently, the answer is either “rarely” or “never.” Increasingly, ledgerless A4 MFPs are finding their way into the workplace.

Have you aligned yourself with a vendor that will allow you to take advantage of this opportunity?

Dear New Year: It is me again, making several New Year’s resolutions on behalf of our members. I wrote you last year to ask for consideration in the new year for the good business people I work with.

PRINCIPAL ISSUES Measuring MPS Success Using page share to assess market potential

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By Darrell Amy Dealer Marketing Systems

2009’s Greatest Opportunities Readers share expectations & advice for the new year

What is success in managed print services (MPS)?

What is the scope of the opportunity? In preparation for a recent presentation, I began to think about these questions strategically. In this article, I will present the results of my findings.

by Brent Hoskins Office Technology Magazine

In 2009, what do you believe will be the greatest areas of opportunity for dealers in the office technology industry? What do you believe will be the best strategies for success in pursuing those opportunities? Recently, BTA’s Office Technology magazine asked these questions of its readers via an e-mail survey. Among the many responses received, the opportunities cited as the greatest for the new year are varied.

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InfoTrends’ ODS Conference Group Director Reardon shares industry megatrends

By Brent Hoskins Office Technology Magazine

With the primary goal of offering a detailed look at the current opportunities in the office technology industry, market research firm InfoTrends hosted its annual Office Document Strategy Conference Nov. 12-13, 2008, in Mahwah, N.J. The event drew approximately 100 attendees representing hardware manufacturers, ISVs and dealerships. Group Director Jon Reardon opened the conference with a “State of the Industry” address.

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Trainer or Consultant?

Make the correct choice & achieve success

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by Tom Callinan Strategy Development

It certainly makes sense to work with trainers and consultants, but what is the difference? How do you determine which direction is best? I will start to answer these questions by defining these two categories of professionals.

DEPARTMENTS Business Technology Association G

Education Calendar Membership Application G BTA Highlights

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G

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Executive Director’s Page

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BTA President’s Message

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Advertiser Index

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EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S PAGE

What Opportunities Are You Targeting? ith the arrival of 2009 and considering the current state of the U.S. economy, it seemed to me that this was a good time to once again do what BTA has done for 82-plus years — facilitate dealers helping dealers. Specifically, I reached out to Office Technology readers seeking their views on the greatest opportunities in the new year.

The hope, of course, is that each response will serve as a source of guidance or confirmation for other dealers. In an e-mail survey, I asked the following questions: “In 2009, what do you believe will be the greatest areas of opportunity for dealers in the office technology industry? What do you believe will be the best strategies for success in pursuing those opportunities?”

Following is a sampling of the responses: “A solid print management program tied to network support and document solutions to lock up the customer base. Use of technology such as PrintFleet.” — Terry Stock, Service Manager, Discovery Office Systems, Santa Rosa, Calif.

“The greatest opportunity in my opinion is securing all of our customer’s print volume utilizing a print management strategy. This gives you ultimate control of the account.” — Keith Skiffington, Vice President of Operations, Office Interiors, Dieppe, New Brunswick, Canada “ We will continue to trade up our existing black-and-white clients to color. We will continue to provide our print management. We have always put service before sales and that has resulted in more sales over the long term. We have been in business

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since 1941 and we continue to grow although we are small by channel standards.”

— Melissa Buscher, General Manager, Business Techs Inc., Twin Falls, Idaho “As we look toward 2009, we see print management as the greatest area of opportunity. We have had great success in the few months we have ventured into this area and look for even greater success in 2009. We see the benefits of the ‘foot in the door’ made easier using print management/solution selling. We have experienced excellent reception from IT directors once we explain our strategies in relieving them of the burden of ordering supplies and worrying with printer repairs. We can only see greater things coming our way using this approach in 2009.”

— Ronnie Warren, Vice President of Technical Services, Copiers Plus Inc., Fayetteville, N.C. “Helping customers recognize and implement cost-saving solutions in the areas of document output and management.

Budgets are tight. We can help reduce cost and improve efficiency. Take advantage of the changing distribution landscape by placing an emphasis on the local, dependable, reliable dealer.” — Richard Maxwell, President and CEO, OfficeWare Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio “Expense control/expense cutting programs. Asking clients to spend is difficult, but talking to them about cutting expenses gets their attention.” — Tom Minuti, General Manager, Copy Products Digital Office Solutions, Upper Darby, Pa. “The opportunities and challenges left

by Danka, IKON and Global.” — Chris Rasmussen, Controller, Applied Copier Concepts, Greensboro, N.C. Interested in reading responses from more Office Technology readers? See page 17.

— Brent Hoskins

Executive Director/BTA Editor/Office Technology Brent Hoskins brent@bta.org (816) 303-4040 Associate Editor Elizabeth Marvel elizabeth@bta.org (816) 303-4060 Contributing Writers Darrell Amy, Dealer Marketing Systems www.dealermarketingsystems.com Tom Callinan, Strategy Development www.strategydevelopment.org Robert C. Goldberg, General Counsel Business Technology Association

®

Business Technology Association 12411 Wornall Road Kansas City, MO 64145 (816) 941-3100 www.bta.org Member Services: (800) 505-2821 BTA Legal Hotline: (800) 869-6688 Valerie Briseno Membership & Marketing Manager valerie@bta.org Mary Hopkins Database Administrator mary@bta.org Teresa Leerar Bookkeeper teresa@bta.org Brian Smith Membership Sales Representative brian@bta.org ©2009 by the Business Technology Association. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher. Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of published material.

However, the publisher assumes no liability for errors in articles nor are opinions expressed necessarily those of the publisher.

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BTA PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE ®

FIX Provides Open Dialogue on Service ver the past 25 years I have been the instructor for the FIX: Cost Management for Service Workshop. I just returned from Las Vegas, having taught 18 eager attendees. Our class included owners, a sales rep, a controller, an OEM district service manager, working field techs and service managers. With more than 300 years of office equipment knowledge in the meeting room, there was a great deal of idea sharing.

In addition to the regular material covered in the FIX course, we have time scheduled to talk about any issues the class wants to discuss. The specific topic of how to allocate, and actually pay for, the start-up cost of supplies was brought up. Having a cross section of employee types represented, there was a lively discussion with a variety of opinions.

Using a Segment 3 or 4-enabled color machine as a point of reference, the average wholesale cost of the first set of supplies is in the $1,000 range. This cost immediately doubles to $2,000 if an extra set of supplies is delivered with the equipment that is sold under a CPC (all inclusive service and supplies) agreement.

Our discussion included: I Sales not wanting to pay for the supplies that should be covered under the CPC. I Service does not think it is fair to be assessed the initial cost of supplies that will take months of clicks to re-coop.

I The attending controller explained the complexity of allocating cost to multiple cost centers including: sales, leasing, service and supply departments. Additionally, the $2,000 up-front supply cost invariably also had to carry the cost of debt repayment.

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I The owners felt they would have to finance the cost of the supplies that often took months or years to re-coop. In most cases, the selling/leasing of a piece of equipment did not create $2,000 of up-front profit.

I Someone should be in charge of training the in-house employee(s) who takes orders for CPC supplies. This clerk must understand the many nuances of sending “free” supplies.

I Someone in a supervisory position should be the gatekeeper of what is the appropriate amount of supplies that should be sent under a CPC agreement.

I Each supply order should require a current meter reading on the equipment that will be using the requested supplies.

I W hen using a print management program covering dozens of machines, supply usage and ordering usually reverts back to the dealer.

I One service manager trains his field service techs to actively monitor the amount of supplies in a customer’s office. A supervisor can then make the decision to have some of the supplies retrieved by the tech or suspend the sending of more supplies until an appropriate amount of clicks are paid for.

I Having black and color minimum base charges is essential.

I One owner said his company had more than $100,000 of unpaid CPC supply inventory in the field.

As with many of the discussions in the FIX seminar, there are no easy answers. Our goal is to teach each FIX attendee how to calculate the cost of each segment of his or her business. Once the labor, supplies, overhead and needed profit margins are determined, an individualized educated decision can be made by each dealer. I — Ronelle Ingram

2008-2009 Board of Directors President Ronelle Ingram Steven Enterprises Inc. 17952 Sky Park Circle Ste. E Irvine, CA 92614 ronellei@msn.com President-Elect Bill James WJS Enterprises Inc. 3315 Ridgelake Drive Metairie, LA 70002 bjames@wjsenterprises.com Vice President Rock Janecek Burtronics Business Systems Inc. 216 S. Arrowhead Ave. P.O. Box 1170 San Bernardino, CA 92408 rjanecek@burtronics.com BTA East Tom Ouellette Budget Document Technology 251 Goddard Road P.O. Box 2322 Lewiston, ME 04240 touellette@bdtme.com BTA Mid-America Mike Blake Corporate Business Systems LLC 6300 Monona Drive Madison, WI 53716 mblake@corpbussystems.com BTA Southeast Bob Smith Copiers Plus Inc. 408 Chicago Drive Fayetteville, NC 28306 bobsmith@copiers-plus.com BTA West Greg Valen Hawaii Business Equipment Inc. Toshiba Business Solutions - Hawaii 590-A Paiea St. Honolulu, HI 96819 gregory.valen@tabs.toshiba.com Ex-Officio/General Counsel Robert C. Goldberg Schoenberg Finkel Newman & Rosenberg LLC 222 S. Riverside Plaza Ste. 2100 Chicago, IL 60606 robert.goldberg@sfnr.com

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MSE'S PATENTED TECHNOLOGIES PRODUCE SUPERIOR CARTRIDGES The MSE Engineering Team utilizes reverse engineering to make MSE products superior. For example, MSE patented laser cutting and ultrasonic welding technologies maintain the original cartridge specifications resulting in a reliable, leak-free product.

With 24 patents and patent pending technology solutions, MSE has revolutionized the way compatible cartridges are manufactured.

It is just one of the reasons why MSE cartridges are voted the highest quality in the industry - every year.

Š Copyright 2009 Micro Solutions Enterprises. All rights reserved. All trademarks referenced are registered trademarks of the respective owners. All model designations are for compatibility purposed only.

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The A4 MFP Will it become a little giant? by: Brent Hoskins, Office Technology Magazine

oday, end-users in the general of f ic e, ac custom ed to th e attributes of an MFP, are often being asked a simple question: “How often do you print or copy a document on 11 x 17-inch paper?” Frequently the answer is either “rarely” or “never.”

The result? Increasingly, ledger-less A4 MFPs are finding their way into the workplace. Have you aligned yourself with a vendor that will allow you to take advantage of this opportunity?

It is an opportunity worth investigating. After all, according to market research firm IDC, in 2007 there were 1.58 million color and monochrome A4 laser MFP shipments in the U.S. market (at press time, IDC’s 2008 shipment estimates were being finalized). Keith Kmetz, program vice president for IDC’s Hardcopy Solutions and Services, says a comparison of the data and research for the A3 market (MFPs capable of producing 11 x 17-inch copies/prints) versus the A4 market reveals some important findings: A4 color MFPs show the highest growth opportunity ; A4 monochrome (both MFPs and printers) is the biggest unit placement opportunity; A3 printers are a niche market; and A3 MFPs are a legacy market, but facing A4 MFP competition. “Many businesses are currently in a state of imbalance when it comes to their A3 usage and their A3 machines,” he says. “And many don’t know it.”

While end-users may not be specifically thinking about the imbalance, manufacturers are giving it plenty of thought.

It appears that Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) may have been the first to do so. Tom Codd, director of enterprise segment marketing for HP, describes the 45-page-per-minute (ppm) LaserJet 4345 A4 MFP, introduced about four years ago, as the product that “disrupted” the market. “We took a step

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back and said, ‘We’re going to design a product from the ground up for the way people actually use multifunction devices,’” h e says. “ Through our research, we immediately found that people do not print a lot of A3 (11 x 17inch documents) in the workplace. It is typically less than 5 percent. I’ve heard numbers as low as 3 percent of the pages in the U.S. are 11 x 17.”

Upon identifying the meager demand for 11 x 17-inch documents, HP officials began to think about the cost difference between an A3 and an A4 device, says Codd. “For the A3, you have to have a wider fuser, wider chassis, wider paper trays and wider paper path,” he says. “Just by adding the capability for 11 x 17, you add a tremendous amount of cost to the device.”

HP found significant success with the 4345. “We went from basically 0 percent market share in Segment 4 to tying for number one in that segment within 18 months,” says Codd. “We’ve now seen devices from our competitors that have taken the same approach, not only from the more traditional printer vendors, but also from the copier vendors.

When you start losing market share like some of these vendors were with HP’s rollout of the 4345, it can get people’s attention.”

Officials at Muratec America Inc. were among them. “At the ITEX Show four years ago, we were introduced to the HP LaserJet 4345,” says the company’s president, Jim D’Emidio.

“When we saw that, all of a sudden the paradigm shifted, leading us to look at these devices a little differently. HP went out and very quickly gained market share in Segment 4 with these A4 devices, not by replacing copiers, but by replacing printers. That’s where we saw the need. We saw

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One program. One company. Countless opportunities.

Founded from an IBM heritage and based in Lexington, Kentucky, Lexmark is one of the few global companies to own, develop and market its own print technologies and solutions.

That’s why we’ve been able to develop the Lexmark Business Solutions Dealer (BSD) Program, a resource that provides office equipment dealers with the tools for success. Every member gains access to exclusive pricing, programs and incentives necessary to aggressively compete and win. And, each participant receives unparalleled sales, service and business development support from a dedicated Lexmark team.

It’s just another way Lexmark is there to support your business with solutions that fit your needs.

Visit us at ITEX on March 18 and 19 at Booth #113, or call us at 877.999.4360.

“Lexmark has uniquely broadened our product line to allow us to be everything to our clients, including document management. The Lexmark team provides us support and hands-on implementation to ensure a successful partnership.”

June Crawford, President Copygraphix, Inc. Tuscon, AZ

Lexmark and Lexmark with diamond design are trademarks of Lexmark International, Inc. registered in the United States and/or other countries.

All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2007 Lexmark International, Inc. 740 New Circle Rd., Lexington, KY 40550.

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Slawetsky, CEO of Industry that there were a lot of end“The dealer has an Analysts Inc. “If HP, possibly users w ho n e ed ed ad diopportunity to expand his Lexmark, and others had tional scanning or copying or her business by a full not gone in this direction, capabilities, but didn’t want do I think Sharp and others to go to a traditional A3 third or half just by would have gone this way? copier in the mail room.” placing these A4s ...

The answer is ‘no.’ I fully To d ay, in ad dition to Dealers need to be believe that this is a comvarious A3 MFPs, Muratec proactive with A4 and say, petitive response.” has “eight or nine A4 MFPs, ‘This is a huge opportunity.’”

Primarily, Slawetsky is depending on the configuraMike Marusic, Sharp Imaging and referring to the launch of tion,” says D’Emidio. “ We Information Company of America th e n e w S har p Fronti er don’t b eli e ve that th e se Series A4 MFPs. The first products are going to significantly take away from the traditional A3 workhorses that models in the new line began shipping in November. Mike are in most companies. Instead, we believe that the dealer Marusic, vice president of marketing for Sharp Imaging and who walks by 50 printers to get to the copier should take a Information Company of America, acknowledges the commore holistic approach with the customer, asking things petitive pressures referred to by Slawetsky, but says market like: ‘Where are the pain points for the organization?’ and demand was a motivator for Sharp as well. It began, he says, ‘Are there places where scanning, business color or other when focus group studies about four years ago revealed the MFP capabilities in an A4 are needed in the organization?’ notable lack of demand for 11 x 17 document copying or The dealership then sells its A3 machine, but may place printing. Then, as Sharp worked on the development of the Frontier Series, companies like HP and Lexmark began to three to five A4 MFPs as well.”

Phil Boatman, national sales manager for Lexmark Inter- gain market share with the launch of A4 devices. “As we national Inc., offers a similar perspective. “We view our A4 moved from market demand toward launch, the competiMFPs as the perfect replacement for any of the aging work- tive pressure became critical,” he says. “So, it became pretty group single-function devices out there,” he says, noting that clear to us, as we moved closer to launching a product, that Lexmark has three A4 models that are unique to the dealer what was going to be an aggressive, proactive strategy channel. “Our A4 MFPs fill out most dealers’ product lines became a defensive strategy.”

Regardless of the scope of reasons for the launch of the and give them an additional growth opportunity that they Frontier Series, Sharp officials see the new line as a signifididn’t have before.”

Boatman says some dealers view Lexmark’s A4 MFPs as cant opportunity for dealers. “The dealer has an opportunity more than single-function printer replacements. “We have a to expand his or her business by a full third or half just by few dealers who believe we have brought out some ‘copier placing these A4s, by going out and saying, ‘Everywhere that killers,’” he says, citing, in particular, two models that offer I have a copier right now, I should go back to that customer integrated finishing within the footprint of the device. So, and see how many printers they have and then consolidate those,’” he says. “Dealers need to be proactive with A4 and there are no add-on or external finishers.

“One of the models we recently brought out is a 55 ppm say, ‘This is a huge opportunity.’ This side of the market is black-and-white A4 MFP,” he continues. “It offers all of the two to three times the size of the A3 market.”

Despite the size of the opportunity, says Marusic, some functionality of a traditional Segment 4, just minus the 11 x 17 capability. But, it is packaged in a very compact footprint. Sharp dealers were not initially enthusiastic when plans for It has a retail price point of about $3,799; a comparable tra- the A4 MFPs were first announced. “At our [2008] dealer meeting, it was a very, very mixed reaction,” he says. “We had ditional A3 MFP is usually more than double that.”

With some Lexmark dealers viewing the company’s A4 dealers who are already into managed print services who MFPs as copier killers and HP quickly achieving a Segment 4 were ecstatic over the product line because they saw the leadership position with its A4 devices, it may be no wonder, opportunity of driving everything under one Sharp umbrella. as HP’s Codd suggests, that traditional copier vendors are There was also a very large segment of our dealer community reacting. “It is clearly a competitive response,” says Lou that said, ‘What is Sharp thinking in selling A4 products 12 | w w w . o f f i c e t e c h n o l o g y m a g . c o m | J a n u a r y 2 0 0 9

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With A4 (letter/legal only) solutions from Muratec you can create innovative document imaging solutions for individual workgroups, enabling you to capture all document trafďŹ c within an account.This creates an additional revenue stream for your dealership without taking any focus away from traditional A3 placement opportunities.

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organizations, they don’t when A3 is our business?’ “...

They don’t have any have any idea how many We got that message very idea how many personal personal printers that have loud and clear.” printers that have either either been purchased by IT In response, Sharp hosted or bought by an employee a series of sessions throughbeen purchased by IT or ... who went across the street out the summer to educate by an employee ... So, the to Office Depot,” he says. dealers about the A4 busifirst step is to come in and “So, the first step is to come ness model, says Marusic. help the customer get their in and help the customer “Coming out of that, they arms around the printing infrastructure.” get their arms around the had an entirely dif ferent — Tom Codd printing infrastructure.” viewpoint,” he says. “ The Hewlett-Packard Co. The next step, says Codd, majority of our dealers are is to help the customer mannow well on board.”

Among the positive attributes of the A4 line cited by age the print environment, once the customer’s infrastrucMarusic, shared by Sharp in the dealer education sessions: ture has been optimized and the new recommended printer By installing more MFPs — both A3 and A4 — in one loca- fleet, which includes A4 MFPs, has been installed. Such tion, the cost of service drops, since the cost is spread over tools as WebJet Admin and the HP Universal Print Driver more machines; while the Frontier Series MX models offer facilitate print management. “We have had customers — dealer-replaceable consumables, the DX models offer user- large accounts — with printers from 10 different vendors replaceable consumables, so that dealers have the option of and 300 different models, each one with its own driver,” he only addressing break/fix repairs, increasing the profitability says. “So, with an optimized infrastructure with HP devices of maintenance contracts; and, while the A4 hardware cost and the Universal Print Driver, huge amounts of support is less than a comparable A3, the supplies and service costs are eliminated.”

Finally, recommends Codd, software-based solutions can revenue for the A4 MFP could remain the same as if the MFP be recommended and installed that provide for the was A3.

Marusic recommends that as dealers first begin to sell A4 improvement of the customer’s business processes and MFPs, they should start with existing customers and, as information workflow. By providing the customer such a suggested, focus on replacing single-function printers. “For solution, they will have a “higher level of service than the example, say you’ve placed 15 units in a business and competitor down the street,” he says. “So, they can generate they’re all A3,” he says, noting that a company with 15 A3s more revenue because they are more efficient and can turn likely has about 150 A4 single-function printers from a things around more quickly.”

Codd emphasizes that A4 MFPs are ideal in most organivariety of sources. “You can go back in and say, ‘You really only need about 40 to 50 printers. I can take about 100 of zations striving to optimize their printing infrastructure. your printers and put in 25 of these A4 MFPs. That will give “What we are seeing, especially in large organizations, is you added functionality, but they will be close enough to that you just can’t afford to have a printer on everybody’s your users that they won’t mind sharing a resource. And, by desk,” he says. “It is just too expensive since, typically, the the way, I’m going to take out two of the A3 machines lower the speed and the lower the price point, the higher the supplies cost. If everybody has printers, it becomes a very because you won’t need them anymore.’

“It sounds like you’ve lost two A3 machines,” he continues. expensive proposition. So, there is a huge potential cost “But, your net gain is a significant revenue increase because savings when you optimize the print infrastructure.”

For the dealership that has implemented a managed print of the A4 MFPs that you’ve installed and you’ve kept the customer whole so that someone else doesn’t come in and services strategy and is striving to optimize the customer’s printing infrastructure, A4 MFPs are often a necessity, says replace you completely.”

HP’s Codd says his company recommends a three-step Slawetsky. “It is almost impossible to sell an 11 x 17 MFP into approach to selling and implementing A4 MFPs. The first an A4 environment [of single-function printers] that has step, he says, is to optimize the customer’s infrastructure by never used 11 x 17,” he says. “So, if you are going to consolistriving to get their printing assets under control. “In a lot of date printer assets into an MFP-based system — either 14 | w w w . o f f i c e t e c h n o l o g y m a g . c o m | J a n u a r y 2 0 0 9

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SHARING IDEAS. CREATING A VISION. VISIT US ONLINE! www.selectdealergroup.org

Membership Peer groups have a number of advantages and benefits. Having the opportunity to network with individuals that have similar issues and business experiences can be rewarding and save a whole lot of time and energy. SDG members attend three two day business meetings per year, but have the opportunity to share success stories, problems and opportunities year round. With the changing dynamics in the office technology industry, membership in SDG provides a huge advantage over your competition.

The Select Dealer Group (SDG) is linked to the Business Technology Association (BTA), so membership in BTA is required. Although SDG was formed only a few years ago, the group already includes dealers from many parts of the USA and the size of the dealerships vary. Due to the sharing of sensitive information and innovative ideas, membership is limited to one dealer per market. Members pay an annual fee and are required to pay their own transportation, hotel and expenses related to each meeting. They also participate in the confidential annual financial survey which allows members to benchmark their performance and determine areas of strength and opportunities for improvement.

"The

Model"

Select Dealers have proven their commitment to implementing a sustainable, profitable business model using the ProFinance Model for success. To further support this, SDG has enlisted the services of John Hey and John Hanson of Strategic Business Associates to facilitate the in person meetings and help: - Implement the Profinance Business Model - Learn and share with other dealers who are implementing "The Model" - Stay abreast of tips and changes in the Model, as the industry evolves - Help your dealership become and stay profitable

Education

Meetings SDG is not a travel club where business owners travel to Five Star resorts, using business as an excuse. SDG is a business group that is serious about helping independent dealers profitably grow their business. There is a Host Dealer for each meeting who can facilitate any extracurricular activities should a member decide to tie in a vacation along with the business meeting.

Additional BTA Benefits As a BTA member, benefits include free legal advice, shipping and freight discounts,car rental programs,access to relevant industry data and much, much more.

Running a dealership requires a number of skills, so SDG exposes members to speakers that have a wide variety of expertise in the office technology industry and relevant business areas such as marketing, human resources and sales management. Members also have the opportunity to share ideas and strategies that they have successfully implemented in their own markets.

Visit us online! www.selectdealergroup.org

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printer-heritage or copierdaily tasks.”

“The data that we have heritage — and all of the The opportunity is signifilooked at suggests that printers that you are trying cant, says Boatman. “The there is greater than a to consolidate are A4, you data that we have looked at almost always have to have suggests that there is greater million-unit placement an A4 MFP to fill the gap.” than a million-unit placeopportunity just in the A4 D ea l e r s w h o h av e n o t ment opportunity just in the black-and-white MFP already done so should take A4 black-and-white MFP category. It is truly one of a lo ok at th e various A4 category,” he says. “It is truly the fastest growing segments for MFPs.” MFP options available on one of the fastest growing — Phil Boatman the market. After all, the A4 segments for MFPs. It repreLexmark International Inc. MFP may become a little sents a whole new strategy gi ant in th e of f i ce t e chfor the independent dealer nology industry. “The A4 transition is happening; that was and a brand new revenue opportunity.” debatable a few years ago,” says Lexmark’s Boatman. “We Brent Hoskins, executive director of the think that A4 MFPs will continue to put pressure on the traBusiness Technology Association, is editor of Office Technology magazine. ditional 11 x 17 devices out there. They give end-users more He can be reached choices, especially as they are now more cost conscious in at brent@bta.org. terms of what they place in their offices to accomplish their

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2009’s Greatest Opportunities Readers share expectations & advice for the new year Compiled by: Brent Hoskins, Office Technology Magazine

n 2009, what do you believe will be the greatest areas of opportunity for dealers in the office technology industry? What do you believe will be the best strategies for success in pursuing those opportunities?

Recently, BTA’s Office Technology magazine asked these questions of its readers via an e-mail survey. Among the many responses received, the opportunities cited as the greatest for the new year are varied. However, some common areas of focus emerge.

Perhaps the comments shared by your fellow dealers will mirror your vision for 2009 — or provide new ideas.

On the following three pages are many of the responses.

Additional responses can be found on page 6 and on the BTA Web site, www.bta.org. Click on “BTA Idea Exchange” in the left column of the home page. You will need your member login and password.

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“The greatest opportunity for dealers in 2009 will be in the field of print and document management. As an independent dealer, you must stay abreast of the constantly changing technology by continuing to educate and train your employees.

With a weak economy, it is more important than ever to help our clients save money by improving their workflows and making their businesses more profitable.”

Jack Stargel, President Stargel Office Solutions, Houston, Texas “The greatest area of opportunity for office equipment dealers today is to hire good salespeople. Now is the time to strengthen your sales force. Take advantage of the deep cuts made in other industries.”

Mike Upchurch, President Business Machines Inc., Raleigh, N.C.

opportunity for dealers to both secure and grow their business during these difficult economic times. MPS matches the need of our clients to reduce cost in a tight economy and we can help them do that with an effective MPS solution.”

Richard Mark, Managing Director R L Mark & Co. Ltd., Wildey, Barbados “Areas of opportunity are in production, high-end color and solution selling. We are encouraging our salespeople to be patient and look for opportunities inside our customer base to basically redefine who we are and what we can do. We have created an IT department that specializes in certain solution offerings and have appointed certain reps to champion specific solutions. We try to take advantage of the educational opportunities offered through BTA and by the manufacturers and software providers. We also keep a great line of communication going with our partner vendors and our customers.”

Steven Cobb, President Dean’s Office Machines Inc., Greensboro, N.C. “The best opportunities will be in the areas of saving the customer money by lowering their costs and increasing productivity. Two key areas we are pursuing in addition to copier hardware are EDM and print (printer) management.

Doing a thorough assessment and providing a cost per page (cpp) for clients to help manage their output costs, as well as establishing those costs that the client currently does not know, gives you further stickiness with the customer. The EDM approach to help customers get more productivity out of all working associates is an excellent non-copier approach to existing clients.”

Donald Cole, Vice President MT Business Technologies Inc., Avon Lake, Ohio

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efforts on their customer service will be the strong that survive. As the manufac“I believe independent turers continue to buy up dealerships dealers have a great and att empt to f i gure out how to opportunity to capitalize manage the newly acquired mega distrion the turmoil that exists bution channels, they will continue to in our industry ... upset their customer base, leaving room Concentrate, focus and do for the independent dealerships to not let fear paralyze you.” accelerate their growth and profitability.

Strategies to implement should start “We have started to focus more on commercial down-the- with a ‘back to the basics’ of customer service, even bringing street customers, since the OEMs have hit the large RFP in an outside trainer to revitalize every employee’s outlook. areas with bids that are too low to compete with. We will Communication will also be a key factor in retaining now seek quality customers, instead of quantity customers.” employees. As the economy seems to crumble, service companies stand the best chance of coming out on top — don’t Rock Janecek, Service Manager miss out!”

Burtronics Business Systems Inc., San Bernardino, Calif.

Allen Grenz, President OASYS Inc., Burlington, Wash.

“Write all-inclusive maintenance contracts for in-place network printers. You can help make your customers more “Stay on top of the latest technology. Train. Train. Train efficient without spending more money.” your sales staff to show what. Train your service staff to Barry Wallingford, President show how. Train your management staff to show the differAtlantic Business Systems, Melbourne, Fla. ence between our dealerships and the manufacturers’ sub“Concentrate only on factors that a dealer has control over, sidiaries."

Frank Sluss, President i.e. retention of valuable employees, negotiate strong, favorBusiness World, St. Croix, Virgin Islands able program agreements with your manufacturer, look for new customers in your area of expertise and compensate “Managed services. There is more reason for outsourcing your sales staff more for new installations. Cold call and benchmark all employees on productivity. Emphasize to all in a poor economy. As long as it makes economic sense. We employees that you require them to acquire additional skills anticipate a significant growth in managed print services. beyond their current skills sets. I believe independent dealers There is more competition, but that means there are more have a great opportunity to capitalize on the turmoil that vendors creating interest.”

Arthur Schwartz, President exists in our industry. In particular, dealers in secondary Image Systems for Business, Somerset, N.J. markets must not allow manufacturers to take advantage of them. Concentrate, focus and do not let fear paralyze you.”

“Because more people are concerned about their Terry Newsom, President expenses, they’re willing to listen about ways to improve Pacific Office Automation, Beaverton, Ore. processes and reduce expenses. This has created an opportu“We believe that we will heavily market to verticals that nity for us to do a complete output analysis within accounts are continuing to do well in this challenging economy — and implement plans that improve output technology, and health care, tax preparers, accountants, churches, etc. We improve and reduce the management of related expenses.”

Michael Steinhoff, President have new products that will do very nicely in these areas.”

Rhyme Business Products, Portage, Wis. Joey Bartlett, Owner Tri-County Business Systems, Salinas, Calif.

“Managing the relationships with our existing clients in all “Service is where it matters. Sales may remain level. If areas of the business to leverage our expertise and go-tothey decline, however, those dealerships that refocus their market strategies in order to get closer to the customer and “I see managed print services to be the gold we will be digging. The strategy we use will be a well-trained IT business unit that we will put in place in 2009.

Monochrome is on the decline, midrange color is peaking. I’m looking to production color.”

Joseph Birk, President Data Comm Inc., Jefferson City, Mo.

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capture additional revenue streams from them. In a tough economy, we believe that the customers who currently trust us will look to us to help them further reduce their operating costs while increasing their level of service and support.”

Ron Hulett, Managing Director U.S. Business Systems Inc., Elkhart, Ind.

“The greatest area of opportunity is definitely in the solutions arena. I look “The greatest area of for ward to h elping our custom ers opportunity is definitely archive their files and take a dive into in the solutions arena ... do cum ent managem ent. Th e b est The best approach approach for document management is for document taking it head on. Learn about your management is product and the solutions that are availtaking it head on.” able and be able to show customers how “Pursuing print management-type you can make a difference in their office.” programs will be our best opportunity to grow the copier Mariana Pacheco, Sales Manager part of our business. Without acquisition I think growing International Copy Machine Center, El Paso, Texas the copier business will be very difficult. If you look at the industry numbers and see what piece of imaging the copier “Selling printer products on a cost-per-page basis. In a now represents, you see that we need to be in the print- challenging economy, we have to continue to find new busicentric business. You need to partner with a manufacturer ness as we watch some of our long-term customers evaporate. that can provide A4-type products to effectively compete.”

Why not attack the printer users with a different approach?”

Mark Watson, President William Wallace, President CDS Office Technologies, Springfield, Ill. Action Business Systems Inc., Baltimore, Md.

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InfoTrends’ ODS Conference Group Director Reardon shares industry megatrends by: Brent Hoskins, Office Technology Magazine

ith the primary goal of offering a detailed look at the current opportunities in the office technology industry, market research firm InfoTrends hosted its annual Office Document Strategy Conference Nov. 12-13, 2008, in Mahwah, N.J. The event drew approximately 100 attendees representing hardware manufacturers, independent software vendors (ISVs) and dealerships.

Among the 25-plus presenters and panelists was Jon Reardon, group director at InfoTrends. Reardon opened the conference with a “State of the Industry” address, focusing primarily on what he describes as the megatrends within the industry. Among the current and developing megatrends he cited: Vendor focus will shift from “hardware placed” to “pages captured” — Revenue growth in today’s market is hard to come by with prices falling in virtually every segment of the industry, said Reardon, noting that margins are low or even negative in some segments. “Vendors need to move from a hardware focus to a page focus, a position that InfoTrends has taken for quite some time,” he said. “Success in this business depends greatly on finding the right applications to drive page volumes, particularly for color.”

Increased penetration of A4-size MFPs up and down market — “A4 MFPs continue to gain penetration in the market, while A3 placements are declining,” said Reardon.

“We do see growth in A3 color hardware, but not enough to compensate for the loss of A3 monochrome.” The challenge for copier-heritage vendors will be determining how to structure their channels to take advantage of the business, he said, commenting that some are finding success in selling A4 MFPs as part of a managed print services strategy. “A4 will continue to penetrate the market and have a major impact on the traditional copier business.”

Shift from monochrome to color — While the shift is still a trend, the hyper-growth of the color market has now tapered, said Reardon. “We are still forecasting growth for

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Above: Attendees gather for one of nearly 20 sessions on the agenda at InfoTrends’ Office Document Strategy Conference. Right: Group Director and conference cochair Jon Reardon. color hardware, but at a much slower rate than in previous years,” he said, adding that color penetration will occur at a much more consistent rate in the speed segments between 20 and 40 pages per minute. Reardon explained that high growth in entry-level segments resulted in a lot of color unit placements, but little color volume. “Vendors need to focus in those areas of the market where color is a requirement or where color can add value at the right price point.”

Managed print services (MPS) — InfoTrends recently completed a research project on MPS, which reveals that many U.S. businesses have an “intense interest” in engaging in managed print services, said Reardon. Medium sizedbusinesses offer the largest revenue opportunities because they represent a market that is largely untapped, he said. “Of the respondents to our survey, 54 percent of them in the

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more expensive copier/MFPs with A3 mid-market size [100 to 999 employees] engines. indicated that they were considering “Many businesses Among the opportunities: MPS, but they have not engaged yet.” In are figuring out or contrast, said Reardon, 21 percent of

Color placements and revenue are struggling with ways respondents representing large busigrowing and will continue to do so to take the costs out nesses (more than 999 employees) and through 2012. of their own businesses only 15 percent of respondents repre Sales of solutions-enabled devices and MPS becomes a senting small businesses (99 employees help slow the decline in average selling brilliant strategy.” or less) indicated that they were considprices; they also protect the machines in ering MPS. “Many businesses are figfield (MIF) from competitors. uring out or struggling with ways to take the costs out of The light production market continues to grow, protheir own businesses and MPS becomes a brilliant strategy.” viding an important source of pages.

During his presentation, Reardon also listed the “threats” Reardon concluded his remarks by sharing a quote from and “opportunities” that exist in the industry, some specifi- legendary comedian Milton Berle, intending to emphasize cally tied to the megatrends. Among the threats: the need for all conference attendees to seek opportunities: Monochrome placements and revenues are falling.

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”

Brent Hoskins, executive director of the Business Technology Products are faster and more complex, but prices are Association, is editor of Office Technology magazine. lower.

MFPs based on inexpensive A4 engines are challenging He can be reached at brent@bta.org.

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COURTS & CAPITOLS

New Year’s Resolutions Improving your business & life in 2009 by: Robert C. Goldberg, General Counsel for the Business Technology Association

ear New Year : It is me again, making several Ne w Year ’s re s olutions on b ehalf of our members. I wrote you last year to ask for consideration in the new year for the good business people I work with. Regretfully, it was not a wonderful year and the economy has fallen sharply. Although the pie may be a bit smaller now, independent dealers are getting a bigger piece of it as they quickly adjust to the new business conditions. Things are difficult right now and I am hoping you can help set things in the correct direction. I know my requests are many, but if you could find a way to give BTA’s member dealers just a couple of these things, their futures would be even brighter.

Help dealers manage their inventory and not give in to those attractive month- and quarter-end deals demanded by their reps. That fantastic incentive opportunity may not be worth the purchased equipment that sits in the warehouse to qualify for the “free trip.” Give dealers the courage to manage their salespeople and not permit suppliers to offer incentives directly to them for moving their equipment. Remember whose business it is.

Show dealers how to navigate the new realities of the current financial markets. The “good old boy” network of friendly local bankers who dealt on a handshake and a promise are a thing of the past. Today’s banking relationships are grounded in profitability and good asset management.

Banks and finance companies do not want to be the only ones making investments — dealers will have to put in some capital as well. Dealers will need more collateral and guarantees to borrow less money.

Find leasing companies that truly understand the word “partner.” Leasing companies that abandon dealers during tough economic times should not be welcomed back when conditions improve. Insist that dealers “get it in writing.” A lease is a contract and the terms are enforceable. Make certain that leases and master lease agreements reflect the actual terms agreed upon and are clear and certain.

Help dealers understand their financial statements. Guide them to peer groups so their results can be compared with others. Send them to BTA workshops and meetings where they can expand their knowledge and learn best practices.

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Please give dealers a hand in reducing their expenses. Help them see that there are not any sacred cows and that they may have to cut costs to remain profitable. Show them how to renegotiate existing relationships for better terms and conditions. It may be a good time to negotiate with the landlord for a rent reduction.

Provide dealers with the skills to communicate openly and honestly with their employees. Help them to actively listen and share both successes and failures. An informed staff can be part of the solution for continued growth and profitability.

Communicate clearly the importance of a full life. Business is the means, not the end. Find a place for family and friends.

Volunteer to help others who face even greater challenges from the troubled economy. Being overworked and stressed out impairs the ability to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Take a walk, go to the health club or simply relax with a good book.

2009 is the year for our members to improve their business skills, become better leaders, to be more creative and to work smarter, not harder.

Robert C. Goldberg is general counsel for the Business Technology Association.

He can be reached at robert.goldberg@sfnr.com.

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EDUCATION CALENDAR February 3-4

BTA ProSolutions Little Rock, AR Software vendors teach you about their technology. However, your clients don’t care about technology — they want their business problems solved. You need to understand your client’s business problems before you can provide solutions. Darrell Amy of Dealer Marketing Systems will teach attendees how to: get the attention of top-level decision makers, analyze business processes, secure buy-in with proof-of-concept demonstrations, understand how document technologies solve business problems, sell consulting reports, overcome common objections and much more.

4-5

SDG Meeting

Dallas, TX

11-12 BTA ProFinance

Charlotte, NC ProFinance instructors John Hanson and John Hey of Strategic Business Associates will teach you the financial model that helped them make the decisions that grew DC Hey from a $5 million to a $150 million IKON-acquired enterprise. In addition to helping you implement the model in your company, they will help you understand the strategies required to become more client and employee focused — key strategies toward successfully growing your company, improving profitability and winning against the competition. ProFinance is designed for dealership owners and executive-level staff members who make the critical business decisions that impact their companies’ success.

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“Transforming Your Dispatcher into a Resource Coordinator” Free to BTA members, the February “Building My Business” webinar, “Transforming Your Dispatcher into a Resource Coordinator” will be presented by Jack Duncan of Jack Duncan Consulting. Dispatchers take service calls and hand them out to technicians. Resource coordinators still respond to service calls from customers and hand them out to technicians, but they also watch the call boards for missed response times, move calls where necessary to lower travel time and expense, alert management of potential customer issues, etc. In this webinar, Duncan will address how to effectively transform your dispatcher into a resource coordinator.

March 18-19 ITEX ‘09

Las Vegas, NV BTA members receive a discounted $79 registration to ITEX ‘09. Use the BTA members-only promo code BTA9B when registering. BTA will also be hosting a reception in the BTA hospitality suite on the evening of March 18. Watch www.bta.org for more information.

For additional information or to register for courses or events, visit www.bta.org or call (800) 843-5059.

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MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION PART I – COMPANY INFORMATION Company Name: Street Address: City: Phone: ( )

PO Box: State/Province: Fax: ( )

ZIP/Postal Code: Web Address:

No. of locations (include parent):

No. of employees (include owners):

Year business was established: Contact Names: Principal Contact: Sales Contact: Service Contact:

Annual revenue: $ Title: Title: Title:

Country:

E-mail Address: E-mail Address: E-mail Address:

Heard about BTA from/Referred by (name & company): Occasionally, BTA makes its member list available to companies who wish to present opportunities to our members.

Can BTA include your e-mail address in the online BTA Membership Directory? Yes No Suppliers and vendors to BTA members may communicate with member dealers, indicating membership in and support of the association. Suppliers and vendors are prohibited from indicating or suggesting that BTA approves, supports, endorses or encourages its members to use the products or services being promoted or endorses the supplier or vendor of the product.

PART II – PRODUCT INFORMATION

Please indicate the products you sell or the services you provide (check all that apply):

OEM Authorizations: Equipment/Products: Audio/Video Presentation Equipment Bar Coding Equipment Binding Equipment/Supplies Cash Registers/Point of Sale Check Writing/Protection Equipment Computers/Accessories/Supplies Copiers (MFPs), B&W Accessories/Parts/Supplies Copiers (MFPs), Color Accessories/Parts/Supplies Duplicating Equipment/Parts/Supplies Facsimile Equipment/Parts/Supplies Filing Systems/Electronic Organizers Furniture Identification Systems/Labeling Equipment

Mailing/Shipping Equipment/Supplies Networking Products/Services OCR Scanners Office Supplies Paper Handling Equipment Phone Answering Equipment Power Protection Printers, B&W Accessories/Supplies Printers, Color Accessories/Supplies Recycled/Remanufactured Equipment/Supplies Security Equipment/Systems Shredders Software Development/Sales/Support Time Recording Equipment

Typewriters/Accessories/Supplies Other: Services: Circuit Board Repair Consulting Equipment Rental Financing/Leasing Insurance Internet Solutions Publishing Service/Repair Training/Education Other:

PART III – MEMBERSHIP Categories and Classifications Retail Dealer Memberships:

Vendor Associate Memberships

Service Associate Memberships

$430

$1,500 Annual Sales up to $5 million

$500 Annual Sales up to $1 million

$2,000 Annual Sales $5-$10 million

$750 Annual Sales $1-$5 million

$2,500 Annual Sales over $10 million

$950 Annual Sales over $5 million

1-10 Locations (1 year)

(Receive $400 in coupons.)

$795

1-10 Locations (2 years)

(Receive $950 in coupons.)

PART IV – INVESTMENT

Dealers save with two-year membership!

Select one: Payment Enclosed (Make check payable to Business Technology Association) MasterCard Visa American Express

Annual BTA Dues: $ Card Number:

Exp. Date:

Card Holder’s Name:

I hereby apply for membership in Business Technology Association: Signature:

Date:

Return to: Business Technology Association, 12411 Wornall Road, Kansas City, MO 64145 Phone: (800) 505-2821 Fax: (816) 941-4838 E-mail: membership@bta.org Join online at www.bta.org Membership dues must be submitted in U.S. funds. Dues paid to BTA do not qualify as a charitable tax deduction. Dues do qualify as a business expense.

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BTA HIGHLIGHTS The following new members joined BTA during the month of November:

Dealer Members Accel Imaging Systems, Ft. Worth, TX A-Copi, Augusta, ME Atlantic Business Systems, Melbourne, FL International Copy Machine Center Inc., El Paso, TX Knight Office Solutions, San Antonio, TX Sands of the Keys, Islamorada, FL X-Tech Laser Printing Inc., Goleta, CA Service Associate Member GE Capital, Irvine, CA Vendor Associate Member MS SecureShred, Fremont, CA For full contact information of these new members, visit www.bta.org and click on “BTA Hotline Online” on the home page before March 1.

BTA Legal Services BTA Legal Services are some of the most valuable benefits of BTA membership. If you have called the BTA Legal Hotline, you already know how BTA General Counsel Bob Goldberg can help to ensure your vendors’ contracts are fair and equitable, assist you in correctly handling personnel matters or guide you in appropriately pursuing any dispute with a vendor. There are also many different contracts and agreements that you can download for personal use in your dealership from the BTA Web site. Are you in need of legal guidance? Call the BTA Legal Hotline today at (800) 869-6688 or visit www.bta.org and go to “BTA Legal Services” in the left menu of the home page.

For the benefit of its dealer members, each month, BTA profiles two of its Vendor or Service Associate members in this space.

BTA Service Associate member BEI Pros, an innovative service profitability consultant group, was created to provide a unique service to the office equipment industry.

Its company mission is to show dealers how to achieve operational and financial benchmarks and drive 52 percent-plus G.P. in service. BEI Pros accomplishes this through its Onsite Consulting Service, customized action plan development and assistance with the execution to ensure the desired results of service profit and operational benchmarks are achieved. Contact Jerry Newberry at (813) 713-3592 or Jeff Kelly at (757) 435-3752 for more information. www.beipros.com BTA S e r v i c e Associate member GreatAmerica Leasing Corp. is a national lessor dedicated to helping manufacturers, vendors and dealers be more successful and keep their customers. The company originates leasing transactions through numerous vendor and manufacturer relationships and provides financing in all 50 states and some U.S. territories. Founded in 1990, GreatAmerica is headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with offices in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri and Illinois. The company has a staff of more than 270 people. www.greatamerica.com A full list of BTA Vendor and Service Associate members can be found online at www.bta.org.

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PRINCIPAL ISSUES

Measuring MPS Success Using page share to assess market potential by: Darrell Amy, Dealer Marketing Systems

hat is success in managed print services (MPS)? What is the scope of the opportunity? As the marketing partner in the MPS 2.0 program (www.mps20.com) these questions keep haunting me. In preparation for a recent presentation, I began to think about these questions strategically.

In this article, I will present the results of my findings.

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The Old Way to Measure Success: Units From the hardware manufacturers’ perspective, success is measured in machine placements. In my days as a DSM for a manufacturer, we used to take the total number of copier units projected to be sold in the United States and multiply it by the Business Equipment Quota Index (BEQI) for the counties in which a dealership was authorized. This was the unit potential of the market. This could further be divided by the percentage of copiers sold in each segment to get a realistic expectation of placements by segment.

Next, we would take the dealer’s unit purchases and divide them by the unit potential. This was the dealer’s market share.

Success was gauged based on the percentage of market share.

The challenge is that the majority of ongoing revenue and profitability for a dealer comes from service and supply sales.

“Clicks” drive success. In the past, it was enough to assume that if we placed a lot of big copiers, we would get a lot of clicks. As we awaken to the number of pages that are actually being printed on laser printers, we begin to realize that unit placements may not be the main thing we should focus on. In today’s environment, dealers are sobering to the reality that measuring hardware market share may not be enough.

Instead, we need to focus on our success in getting pages.

What is the Scope of the MPS Opportunity?

According to InfoTrends research, last year in the United States there were 461 billion pages printed on office-grade multifunction systems. There were 1.202 trillion pages printed on laser printers. Therefore, there were 2.61 pages output on printers for every page output on MFPs. What is Your Page Opportunity?

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might be the BEQI. This number shows the percentage of business equipment one can expect to sell in each county, ZIP code and MSA (metropolitan statistical area) of the total projected sales for the United States.

To calculate the page volumes in your market, simply take the BEQI index for your county and multiply it by the number of pages on printers and number of pages on copiers. For example, the latest BEQI information I have showed Los Angeles and Orange counties took 4.96 percent of the equipment sold in the United States. Following this logic:

The New Way to Measure Success: Page Share Where the old way to measure success was units, the new way is pages. How many pages does your dealership have related to the potential of your market?

Let us follow the example above. Using rough numbers, if there were 1.4 million office copier units placed in the United States last year, the unit potential for the two counties would be 69,440. If the dealer sold 6,900 units, they would have enjoyed a 10 percent market share. Based on unit placements of copiers, that dealer could say they had a good year in the copier business.

However, that same market has a potential of 84 billion pages per year. If that dealership is billing 2 billion pages per year, they have 2.4 percent page share in the market.

Measuring success versus the total pages in the market will likely be a sobering exercise. At the same time, it can be very inspiring as our eyes continue to open up to the massive scope of the MPS opportunity.

Implications So what are the implications? There are many. However, here are a couple to begin with: Change how you measure success — We need to change how we measure success in our industry. While hardware unit placements will always be important to manufacturers, pages

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are what are important to dealers. As such, uring success. The way to do this is based The MPS opportunity a dealership’s benchmark for measuring on page share. success should be its percentage of the Darrell Amy is president of Dealer is huge. Independent total page count in its market.

Marketing Systems. Working in conjunction dealers need a new For manufacturers, the good news is with Digital Gateway, DocuAudit and Gary way of measuring this: When dealers focus on pages, hardHalperin, the group has launched an success. The way ware will follow. I heard one managed initiative to help dealers succeed in to do this is based print provider recently say, “I have never managed print services. The goal is to take on page share. sold more hardware than when I stopped the best of what was working in the early selling hardware.� days of MPS and create a replicable model Get serious about managed print services — The for a dealer to succeed. Out of these discussions market potential is huge — 2.61 times the page volume of the emerged the concept of MPS 2.0, which is an initiative to copier market. mainstream MPS in a dealer’s operation. The program The opportunity also comes with a limited time frame. provides a suite of services to mentor dedicated MPS While people buy new copiers every three to five years, comsales reps, market the MPS business, measure panies only sign up for a managed print services agreement financial success with benchmarks and manage the business “once.� It would be very hard to unseat a current MPS vendor with software on the backend to automate unless it was doing a horrible job. the fulfillment and billing.

It is critical that you align your dealership to succeed.

Learn more at www.mps20.com.

Unfortunately, I have only seen a handful of dealers knock it Amy can be reached at (214) 224-0050 ext. 100 out of the park in managed print services. The MPS opportuor damy@dealermarketingsystems.com. nity is huge. Independent dealers need a new way of measVisit www.dealermarketingsystems.com.

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PRINCIPAL ISSUES

Trainer or Consultant?

Make the correct choice & achieve success by: Tom Callinan, Strategy Development

t certainly makes sense to work with trainers and consultants, but what is the difference? How do you determine which direction is best? I will start to answer these questions by defining these two categories of professionals.

Trainers possess a skill set that needs to be transferred to your employees; they are teachers. A perfect example is a software trainer. You hired a new order processor and you want him (or her) trained on your OMD platform. So you hire a trainer to accomplish this goal. Similarly, you are not using your SalesChain CRM to full capability, so you want to train your entire sales force on advanced capabilities. In the first situation, you only have a single employee that requires training, so you may decide to send him to a group class with employees from multiple companies. There are a lot of advantages to this approach, including a sharing of information across companies and a lower expense. In the second situation, since all of your sales reps need the training, it may be less expensive to bring a trainer on-site. You lose the benefit of interacting with other companies, but you only have one travel expense — the trainer — and the investment per student will probably be lower since there is a guaranteed attendance for the trainer and no facility expenses.

Trainers do not necessarily need to have any specific experience, although I believe maintaining relevance in the field is critical to quality. Think about your college professors. Many of them completed their undergraduate work and then went on to earn doctorate degrees, sometimes without ever stepping foot in the professional world. They conducted extensive research and will continue to conduct research in their respective fields.

If they teach in subject areas like science or business, they may even work with companies in the commercial world — perhaps as consultants. Your software trainer may also have a consulting business where he travels to dealers to help them work through issues with their software. This keeps the trainer relevant. I would call this outsourcing your work rather than a consulting engagement, but that is irrelevant to this discussion.

When it comes to sales training, you can teach any bright

I

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person with strong communication skills how to deliver a program. It is a plus if he is also enthusiastic. The trainer does not even need to have experience selling as long as the program is strong. That is not to say that every sales trainer is bright or possesses strong communication skills; you did have some sub-par professors, correct? I even had a professor or two who you could not help but like, but who provided ver y shallow substance on the subject matter. I do not recommend hiring trainers without relevant experience; I am simply stating it is possible. Regardless, I recommend you look at the experience of the person who developed the program the trainer is delivering. The person who develops the sales training program is paramount.

Consulting is a more complex engagement. You are not hiring a consultant to transfer knowledge, but more appropriately, you are depending on the experience, education and training of the consultant to help you identify inefficiencies in a certain area of your business, make recommendations for improvement and design the implementation and monitoring plan of the recommendations. You may also engage a consultant to help you launch a new initiative.

Business is not a simple linear equation. When you adjust one area it impacts many others. Without the proper experience and education, it will be impossible for a consultant to be effective. He can actually increase your problems rather than help you achieve more success. What you pay a consultant without the necessary experience could be the smallest portion of your losses. So a consultant should have a strong understanding of your business as well as deep experience in what you are trying to accomplish. As the famous sales trainer Tom Hopkins is known to say, “Don’t listen to anybody with less experience than you.”

Consultants can usually train, but trainers cannot necessarily consult. To cite an extreme example, I do not think many large companies would hesitate to engage Jack Welch as a consultant and it is safe to say that if Welch taught a business class at your local university, it would be standing room only. Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania actually teaches at the University

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of Pennsylvania and his class has the Suppose your equipment revenue is My experience shows lon gest waitin g li st of any cl ass on not growing at your desired rate. Do you campus. On the other hand, that enthusihire a consultant or a trainer? Many comthat basic sales training is astic and articulate sales trainer may have panies reflexively diagnose the situation rarely the solution. There little to no relevant experience to help you as poor selling skills and send their sales are many inputs into make deep business decisions. employees to a sales training seminar. sales rep success, not the We already referenced software training They may repeat this approach for years least of which is a solid and that is a simple decision. Let us say (and with various training companies) as sales manager. you want to integrate your SalesChain they work to find the training company application with your OMD software and that works. My experience shows that tie them all into an electronic forms package and a business basic sales training is rarely the solution. There are many intelligence package so you can set up workflow, a functional inputs into sales rep success, not the least of which is a solid dashboard and easily mine your company data. This is the sales manager. For decades, the sales manager has been idenperfect situation to hire an IT consulting firm with demon- tified as a key element of a salesperson’s success. After this strable experience in this area. Unless you have a true IT con- critical individual has been evaluated, your entire go-tosultant on staff that has experience with this type of project, it market strategy needs to be analyzed. You could use a conis not the type to tackle alone or with a trainer that lacks the sulting firm with expertise in designing a repeatable business, finance and IT experience. go-to-market strategy for your sales team. In your quest to

BTA Can Help.

Scholarships for use at colleges or accredited vocational trade schools are available to the sons and daughters of BTA retail dealership members and the sons and daughters of their full-time employees.

Scholarship recipients are chosen by an impartial and independent evaluator.

Having trouble finding money for your child’s education?

Completed applications must be received at BTA by May 1. To obtain a scholarship application form, contact Mary Hopkins at mary@bta.org, call (816) 303-4031 or write to: BTA Scholarship Foundation, 12411 Wornall Road Kansas City, MO 64145. ÂŽ

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So, sales trainer or consultant? Next find the correct sales trainer, you can actuIn your quest to find the time you need to make that decision, ask ally be damaging your credibility and your yourself the following questions: sales force’s skills as they are taught concorrect sales trainer, you f licting approaches from trainers of Am I looking for transferable skills can actually be various quality levels. You are also wasting (trainer), to outsource work ( highly damaging your credibility a lot of money. skilled worker) or a fix to a problem or and your sales force’s I will give one more example, as I am new initiative (consultant)? skills as they are taught sure you are gaining the information you If I am hiring a sales trainer, does he conflicing approaches ... need to make the correct decision on what have relevant experience? Who developed type of firm or person you should engage. the program he is delivering?

Say you want to launch a professional services initiative. You Do I need a consultant skilled in a single area or am I decide to send your sales manager to a sales training seminar better off hiring a firm with skills and experience across my on document management. You have not analyzed your various business functions? (Rarely will one consultant have employee skill set, thought about the correct metrics for a suc- skills across all functional areas. If he says he does, proceed cessful program or how to handle the pre- and post-sales with caution.) activity. You do not even know what your product and services What is the complete background of the person or firm I portfolio should look like or the investment involved in getting am hiring? (Ask for a resume.) I am hiring him as a consultant, the program off the ground; you simply send your sales so would I hire him to lead the area in which I am hiring him to manager to a sales training program for document manage- consult? If not, then do not hire him to consult. ment. After he returns, you spend the next two years trying to When you make the correct decision, you will experience get a document management program off the ground, but it success.

Tom Callinan is the founding principal of Strategy struggles along with limited success.

Development, a management consulting and advanced sales What you lacked was the road map that could have been training firm. From 1998 to 2005, he was an executive with provided by a consultant with experience in launching a proIKON Office Solutions. Prior to IKON, he was fessional services initiative and who understood how that inithe founder and CEO of Copifax Inc. tiative would affect you financially and operationally. In both He can be reached at of these situations — the sales growth and the professional callinan@strategydevelopment.org or services launch — you actually gave up a significant amount (610) 527-3317. of revenue and profits by mistakenly using a sales trainer Visit www.strategydevelopment.org. rather than a consultant.

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