AUGUST 2018
VOLUME 25 NO. 8
Connecting People, Ideas and Products in the Document Technology Industry since 1994
engage ‘n exchange KONICA MINOLTA Delivering on its Vision of the Future
XaaS: GETTING TO THE HEART OF EVERYTHING AS A SERVICE
CLOVER SERVICES GROUP Offers a World Beyond Toner JOURNEY TOWARD XaaS Needs to be Traveled Gradually
The Tale of
Marco’s March to the Top
Jeff Gau and Jennifer Mrozek, Marco
ENX Magazine
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TECHNOLOGY
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TECHNOLOGY
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TECHNOLOGY
With fewer parts for less maintenance1 and predictive service that keeps your business up and running, HP A3 MFPs are an upgrade from traditional copiers.
Š Copyright 2018 HP Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. 1Fewer service parts claim based on HP analysis of leading in-class A3 color laser printers and MFPs as of February 2018; calculations use publicly available and/or published manufacturer rated yields for long-life consumables and assume 600,000 pages printed (using a 60% black/40% color ration). Learn more at hp.com/go/pagewideclaims.
An Open Letter to The Imaging Channel: Chapter Two As I delve into the massive amount of data that BEI has collected over the last 25 years, I see some amazing shifts in product technology and capability. However, in spite of these shifts, some things have never changed. The impact of this steadfast refusal to change is hurting the bottom lines of many dealerships and will continue to do so at an ever-increasing rate. This letter highlights one of the most perilous fossils of our industries past, we OVERSELL almost every imaging device. You are probably thinking...prove it! BEI Services pioneered the concept of dynamic volume tiers that allow us to analyze how volume effects cost. We use twelve tiers and place machines of like page volumes into these tiers. Here are the numbers: As of the end of April, 49% of ALL units placed were in tier ONE, with an average page volume of only 1,386 pages per month. You are probably thinking that this is because of MPS and the large population of low end printers we now service, however, that is incorrect. Take segment D4 which are mono 60 ppm, A3 size machines. 52% are in tier one with a monthly page volume of only 2,064 pages. This is more striking when looking at desktop printers. Segments 1–4 are all above 67% in tier one, and all with average monthly volumes of less than 1,000 pages. We got to this point because most dealers are overly focused on pleasing two entities, their outdated Salesforce compensation programs and outdated manufacturer hardware quotas. I know this to be true because if profit were the motive, these would not be the stats. Every model of machine has a volume ‘sweet spot’ where cost is at its lowest. However, 80% of equipment exist outside of that sweet spot. So as volumes continue to decline, A4 products become faster and more feature rich and print becomes a
commodity, we as an industry need to decide who the master is. That master should be the customer, and their needs. Customers whose expectations are changing much faster than our old way of doing things. I believe that iDaaS (imaging Device as a Service) is the future. To make this new billing model successful, the sales compensation of old will have to change. To make money, the correct machine must be placed to meet the anticipated volume and needs of the customer, not the machine that helps the sales representative make the most money and meet a purchasing quota. It is of the utmost importance that we take control of our service deliverable. As an industry, margins have been so good for so long we have become ambivalent to the disciplines needed to manage service. We have also been confused by outdated industry models that allow money to get moved from place to place, thus, magically improving Service Department profit. The cost of service lies primarily in labor and parts. Therefore, if you are not reducing labor expense (letting techs go), reducing parts spend, or adding new profitable revenue, you are NOT driving more service profit to the bottom line. Contact BEI Services to gain insight on how you can reduce the cost of your service deliverable and increase profit.
Wes McArtor President, BEI Services, Inc.
Visual Edge Technology incorporates a strategy of operating through established successful companies across the U.S., focused on providing a broad line of client solutions, including managed IT services, office automation solutions, multifunction products for print, wide-format solutions, managed print services and document management software. Visual Edge Technology companies represent brands Canon, HP, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Ricoh, Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba and Xerox. Visual Edge is continually focused on identifying successful companies to join our strategy.
• A B Dick Office Solutions, MI • A-COPI Office Solutions, ME • American Copy Service Center, CT • Axion Business Technologies, RI, MA • AXSA Imaging Solutions, Inc. FL, GA • Benchmark Business Solutions, TX & NM • Brady Business Systems, MI • Business Technology Partners, FL • Commonwealth Technology, Inc., KY, IN • Copeco, Inc., OH • Copier Source, Inc. d/b/a Image Source, CA • Counsel Technology, IA • Dunn’s Business Solutions, MI • FastForward Digital Solutions, FL • Graphic Enterprises Office Solutions, OH • Graphic Enterprises, OH • Janco Office Systems, CT • MCM Business Systems, WV • Midwest Automation, NE • N2N Technologies Inc. IN • Netwise Resources, Inc., IN • Office Systems, VT • Premier Business Products, MI • TLC Office Systems, TX • United Business Machines, NH • WBS Technologies, FL • XMC, Inc. TN, AL, GA, AR, MS • Zymphony, FL
ual Edge Technology’s Corporate Family
© Keypoint Intelligence |
Michael Brigner
Michael Cozzens
Senior Vice President
Vice President of Business Development
mbrigner@visualedge.com
mcozzens@visualedge.com
!1
David Ramos
Vice President of Business Planning & Analysis Visual Edge Technology
dramos@visualedge.com
WE DO NOT WE DO NOT NO EMPLOYEES WE ARE NOT
THEIR JOBS A PRIVATE EQUITY CHANGE YOUR CHANGE YOUR LOSE AS A RESULT OF THE GROUP NOR ARE WE MARQUEE... MANUFACTURER(S)... ACQUISITION... OWNED BY ONE... GIVE US AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHARE WITH YOU WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT AND WHY 28 COMPANIES HAVE JOINED OUR STRATEGY!
AUGUST 2018
VOLUME 25 NO. 8
Connecting People, Ideas and Products in the Document Technology Industry since 1994
engage ‘n exchange KONICA MINOLTA Delivering on its Vision of the Future
XaaS: GETTING TO THE HEART OF EVERYTHING AS A SERVICE
CLOVER SERVICES GROUP Offers a World Beyond Toner JOURNEY TOWARD XaaS Needs to be Traveled Gradually
The Tale of
Marco’s March to the Top
In This Issue
22
DEALER SPOTLIGHT
Consistent Growth, Satisfied Clients and Employees: The Tale of Marco’s March to the Top
Jeff Gau and Jennifer Mrozek, Marco
By Erik Cagle
16 STATE OF THE INDUSTRY
XaaS: Getting to the Heart of Everything as a Service, and the Plodding Journey Toward the Cloud By Erik Cagle
30 BUSINESS PROFILE
From Marketing to MPS and Technical Service Prowess, Clover Services Group Offers a World Beyond Toner By Erik Cagle
30
36 CHANNEL INSIGHT
Tomorrow’s Tools, Today: Konica Minolta Already Delivering on its Vision of the Future By Erik Cagle
42 MANAGED SERVICES
Journey Toward XaaS Needs to be Traveled Gradually By Charles Lamb
46 SALES & MARKETING
36
Define Who You Are: Creating an Effective Value Proposition By Darrell Amy
48 SERVICE MANAGEMENT
Promote for Success: Don’t Ruin Your Best Tech By Ken Edmonds
51 PRINTER TECH TIP
Solving a 50.7 Error with Clicking or Gear Grind Noise on the HP CP6015/CM6040MFP
51 6
By LaserPros •
www.enxmag.com | August 2018
We Saw It In ENX Magazine
Things the other guys don’t want to hear...
Superior Quality. Increased Profitability. Guaranteed. NXT Premium is the NeXT Best Thing in Toner Others keep telling you that buying and selling their recycled toner is to your advantage, but NXT Premium Replacement Cartridges are quality-tested, performance certified cartridges that offer a Lifetime Warranty. • 100% lifetime warranty • Certified performance (ISO/STMC) • Reduce printing costs up to 50%
• High quality new components • Expanded U.S. distribution
Learn more online at www.arli.com/nxt Toll Free: 1.800.887.3040
Fax: 1.847.689.1616
Contributors
Staff
DARRELL AMY has served in sales and marketing roles for dealers and OEMs, and software companies in the office-technology space for 25 years. As the founder and Chief Innovation Officer for Convergo (www.convergomarketing.com), he helps office-equipment dealers and managed-services providers grow revenue by implementing digital-marketing strategies and integrating them with sales. He is also the cofounder of the Social Sales Academy (socialsalesacademy. net), helping sales reps integrate social into their sales methodology. Additionally, he is the co-host of the Selling From the Heart podcast (www.sellingfromtheheart.net).
Susan Neimes Publisher & Managing Editor
KEN EDMONDS is serving as a service management coach and consultant. He has an extensive background in the imaging business having owned a successful dealership and worked as service manager for multiple dealerships. He also served as a District Service Manager for Konica Minolta and as a Document Solutions Specialist for Sharp Electronics. He has more than 40 years of experience and attended many training programs for service managers including BTA Fix seminars, Pros Elite program, Service Mangers Achieve Results training by John Hey and John Hansen. He also completed the University of Wisconsin training program for technical trainers. He can be reached at Ken@kedmonds.biz.
Erik Cagle Editorial Director
CHARLES LAMB is the President and CEO of Mps&it Sales Consulting. His firm delivers proven methodologies and processes that assist dealer principals seeking a successful transformation into the managed services space. He’s created complementary solutions including Funnelmaker, Gatekeeper, and Shield IT services. For more info, call 888.823.0006, e-mail him at clamb@mpsandit.com, or visit www.mpsandit.com.
G
2018 I
N
Th
eW e e k In I M
AG
Ronelle Ingram Contributing Editor
OPEN NOMINATIONS FOR THE 2018 ELITE DEALER AWARDS
Christina Kim Editor
engage ‘n ex engage ‘n exchange engage ‘n exchange
México & Latin America
La Revista del Distribuidor Dealer Source
engage ‘n exchange
Corporate Office
Susan Neimes - susan@enxmag.com Erik Cagle - erik@enxmag.com 10153 1/2 Riverside Drive, Suite 729 Toluca Lake, CA 91602 tel. 818-505-0022 • fax. 818-505-9972
NOMINATION DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 14, 2018
Elite Dealer Nomination Form Available at
www.enxmag.com
8
•
www.enxmag.com | August 2018
ENX Magazine is published monthly by Affinity Business Communications, Inc. Any inquiries should be sent to: enx@pacbell.net or mailed to the corporate office. Copyright ©2018 by ENX Magazine printed in the U.S.A. All reproduction in whole or part is prohibited without written permission. Cover photo from depositphotos.com
We Saw It In ENX Magazine
The stability and reliability you can trust ...with over 35 years in the industry. We’ve spent decades working with our factories making sure we can offer unheard of compatible quality that’s comparable to OEM product, while other brands are scrambling to fill stock quotes from any manufacturer at the lowest price. Nectron has long since established exactly where our product is made and to our unique and exacting specifications. We pass that quality and those savings along to you, all backed with an ironclad 1 year guarantee. Try us and find out why Nectron is that one bedrock provider of quality, inventory, and savings that so many resellers and wholesale distributors can count on year after year.
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All supplies & Parts available for prompt delivery! ENX Magazine | www.enxmag.com
All prices, rebates, and availability are subject to change without notice. Please call us to confirm.
Nuworld is not responsible for typographical errors or inaccurate specifications. Registered trademarks are properties of their respective owners.
Copiers • Printers • MFPs • Faxes • Scanners E m a il: info @ n u w o rld in c.co m
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All prices, rebates, and availability are subject to change without notice. Please call us to confirm.
Nuworld is not responsible for typographical errors or inaccurate specifications. Registered trademarks are properties of their respective owners.
NBS / ENX | August 2018
Since 1985
Your Prime Source T EL: 800.729.8320
FAX: 800.829.0292
INSTANT REBATE SALE! ALL INSTANT REBATE PROMOS ARE VALID THROUGH SEPTEMBER 30, 2018 TO CANON PREMIER PARTNERS OR WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!
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65
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95
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Both models can only be sold to 3P Authorized Dealers!
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NBS / ENX | August 2018
Erik Cagle
State of the Industry
XaaS: Getting to the Heart of Everything as a Service, and the Plodding Journey Toward the Cloud
T
ry carving out a definition for everything-asa-service (XaaS) as it applies to the office technology space and the dealers who serve it. It’s not an easy exercise. And its title alone suggests anything and everything a dealer can provide its clients on a monthly, subscription-based format by seat or by user, often (but not always) driven to and by the cloud. It would start, but certainly not end, with managed print services and managed network services/managed IT.
ONCE CONDITIONS BECOME UNAVOIDABLE AND THE DEALERS GET INTO REACTIVE MODE, THEN I THINK (SBB PROLIFERATION) IS GOING TO HAPPEN OVERNIGHT. I JUST DON’T KNOW WHEN THAT IS OR WHAT THE CATALYST WILL BE. West McDonald, Print Audit The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) lists three tiers of cloud service models: Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Other service platforms have been broken out that may be considered offshoots of the core: Telephony-as-a-Service, Desktop-as-a-Service, Network-asa-Service, etc. West McDonald, vice president of business development for Print Audit, notes that in addition to SaaS, the office equipment world is seeing the asa-service model permeate document management, user management and device management. In a sense, device monitoring and management has been going on for 20-plus years on the printer and copier side, and would technically constitute SaaS when the infrastructure is hosted in the cloud. “When you look at XaaS, that would include hardware-as-a-service, if you’re paying a monthly subscription on print-enabled devices, either by seat or by user,” he said. “With enterprise-level document management platforms, which in the past was anything a dealer would quote a price for software and a price for maintenance, now it’s a monthly fee which comes with unlimited updates. Under a sub16
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www.enxmag.com | August 2018
scription-based service, as long as you keep paying your bill every month, there’s no extra for updates.” McDonald, of course, has been a champion of the seat-based billing (SBB) model for years, but only since 2016 has it began to garner traction. SBB relies on a monthly flat fee per seat for printing rights under an MPS contract, as opposed to the still-prevalent cost-per-page (CPP) calculation. The SBB takes into account consumables, parts, support and software, while leaving a window open to layer in future services. In an era of declining page volumes, MPS providers who offer SBB provide clients with a fixed budget and cost savings through workflow enhancements. Yet, CPP—warts and all (overages, page count validations and the “how low can you go” commoditization)—still has a grip on the dealer community. “We probably have 20-25 dealers doing SBB, out of a pool of 3,500 strong,” McDonald lamented. “We’re not very good at elected change in the office equipment world, but we’re very good at reactive change. The market reality with what’s happening at some of the OEMs...the pies aren’t growing and they’re fighting for the existing pies. Those that are doing a good job are faring OK, and those that aren’t are suffering badly, because there’s no new market. Once conditions become unavoidable and the dealers get into reactive mode, then I think (SBB proliferation) is going to happen overnight. I just don’t know when that is or what the catalyst will be.”
THE KEY WILL BE TO ROLL IT OUT ON A LARGER SCALE. WE BELIEVE IN THE CONCEPT, AND FIRMLY BELIEVE SBB IS THE NEXT PHASE OF THE COPIER/PRINTER SPACE Steve Gau, Marco One SBB trigger could lie in St. Cloud, MNbased Marco, which is approaching the $400-million plateau for sales and is one of the nation’s largest dealerships. According to Steve Gau, vice president,
We Saw It In ENX Magazine
continued on page 18
XaaS: Getting to the Heart of Everything as a Service, and the Plodding Journey Toward the Cloud Copier Division, Marco is currently evaluating and testing the concept on a smaller scale and is pleased with the results. As the dealership has been offering its managed IT services on a user/ seat basis, Gau believes it will dovetail nicely on the managed print side. “The key will be to roll it out on a larger scale. We believe in the concept, and firmly believe SBB is the next phase of the copier/printer space,” he said. “People have become accustomed to having a monthly payment forever. It’s about taking and combining the different elements of the as-a-service business into single-platform billing that customers will benefit from, and moving away from meter collections and other things.” Marco currently offers managed print and managed IT, and has annexed voice, video and cloud as a service. Its ongoing movement toward XaaS is strategic, and Gau notes that in the past 30 days, he has learned about two instances of Konica Minolta direct operations quoting print on a per-device basis as opposed to usage. Marco has enlisted the help of an industry veteran to develop its own strategy to stay ahead of local and national competitors who have the twin capabilities of MPS and managed IT.
OUR INTENT IS TO BE SEEN AS A TECHNOLOGY MUTUAL FUND. WE WANT OUR CUSTOMERS TO FEEL WE ARE CONSULTATIVE. Trevor Akervik, Marco
“Our intent is to be seen as a technology mutual fund,” noted Trevor Akervik, senior director of managed services for Marco. “We want our customers to feel we are consultative. If we offer a broad suite of what clients are consuming, in a way they want to consume it, then we can educate them on the pros and the cons of each and they can make the best decision for their organization, backed by our knowledge and expertise. If we were only one deep in a particular solution, then it would feel like we’re going to give all the reasons why that’s the best way to do something, and it might not necessarily be best way for that individual client.” Akervik points out that Microsoft Office 365 played a role in prompting the IT space’s heavy hitters to move toward more subscriptions. The dealer’s as-a-service platform, while incorporating various vendor tools, are Marco-delivered offerings. “We’re following the trend that clients are moving to a consumption through operating expense-type of mode,” Akervik said. “We’ve been forward-thinking in the way we provide offerings and now our as-a-service offerings really cover the gamut of our IT suite that used to be predominantly project based, meaning they would buy or lease product that had installation 18
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www.enxmag.com | August 2018
services attached to it, and they would consume on a refresh schedule. Now they’re consuming that in an operating expense, a lot of which is over the internet and through a subscription.”
Overturning the a-la Carte
New York City-based Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office has embraced selling everything around a managed, recurring revenue stream that standardizes, automates and drives efficiencies—a process that encompasses everything that is attached to the solution in some capacity. “In short, we’ve gotten away from offering break/fix, time/material, being reactive,” remarked Bill McLaughlin, executive vice president and chief technology officer. While Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office has provided some SBB contracts for managed print, it mainly relies on a CPP formula. On the IT side, its services are offered exclusively on a per-user basis. McLaughlin notes that customers prefer to have that one “throat to choke” and value the predictability of a fixed, budgeted monthly charge, sans the ‘a-hah’ out-of-pocket moments from unbundled services. In addition to creating more customer stickiness, it enables Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office to scale from an operational standpoint, allowing the dealers to standardize and automate their own internal processes. It’s a formula that allows for greater profit while reducing excess SG&A expenses. Growth and scale from a managed IT viewpoint can be daunting for the dealer; how it delivers service and the technology required looks considerably different as its share of the pie increases. Thus, constructing a platform for scalability is extremely important.
IF YOU DON’T HAVE A SCALABLE INFRASTRUCTURE, IT MAKES IT DIFFICULT TO LAYER ON TECHNOLOGIES THAT REQUIRE YOU TO MANAGE MORE THINGS. Bill McLaughlin, Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office
“If you don’t have a scalable infrastructure, it makes it difficult to layer on technologies that require you to manage more things,” McLaughlin said. “We have to match different skill sets to different positions within that platform. We’ve had to incorporate new software within the help desk to allow us to gain more visibility into our customers, thereby allowing us to be more proactive in managing the infrastructure and delivering service. The challenge is the unknown, so it’s important to have that scalable structure, so that when the unknown happens, you’ve got a foundation and some stability.”
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The logic is breathtakingly simple. Why spend thousands of dollars on a depreciating asset, when you can pay a flat monthly continued on page 20
We Saw It In ENX Magazine
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XaaS: Getting to the Heart of Everything as a Service, and the Plodding Journey Toward the Cloud fee that includes unlimited on- and off-site IT support, antivirus, monitoring and backup for unlimited devices? That’s the value proposition offered by Verticomm, the managed IT division of All Copy Products in Denver. Indeed, any customer with an internet connection can access their mission-critical applications anywhere, a stem-to-stern platform that touches desktop-as-aservice, infrastructure-as-a-service and network-as-a-service through its Total Cloud platform.
THROUGH OUR CONSULTING PROCESS, WE HAVE A VERY RIGOROUS QUESTION-BASED SELLING METHOD. Calvin Wanner, Verticomm
“Through our consulting process, we have a very rigorous question-based selling method,” noted Calvin Wanner, Verticomm sales manager. “We identify some of the major key points from our understanding of the client overview: how much revenue they take in, the number of employees and locations. And if they’re down, how much does it cost their organization? It’s diving into the critical needs of each client.” Verticomm has a specialty niche in the architecture, engineer and construction (AEC) space, but also serves accounting firms, law firms and medical facilities. “Really, we serve anyone with an end point,” Wanner said. “These days, everything is so network and cloud driven, or server driven, that the heart and blood of the organization is based off the laptop and/or the apps that they’re running. Without those apps running functionally, they’re losing money and not growing their organization. If I can’t access my email or phone system, that’s a huge cost to an organization that can be missing out on a deal.” Wanner notes that with the movement toward private cloud, it will be interesting to see the future of the cloud versus on-premise proposition. He speculates that perhaps a hybrid solution, with servers located on-site and applications hosted in Verticomm’s data center, could be an option. Another is partnering with companies for storage, with Verticomm managing missioncritical application servers. “I have a suspicion that, over the next three to five years, we’ll see a pretty big change in the direction of what’s to come,” Wanner said. “Right now, everyone’s trying to get their hands on cloud offerings and service offerings based around that.”
A Cloudy Future?
While the forecast for cloud-based services continues to grow—Gartner recently projected that by 2020, all new entrants into the software world are going to be SaaS-based—a survey by Service Leadership yielded that best-in-class MSPs only have 3.3 percent of their total revenues coming from cloud resale. Thus, 20
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www.enxmag.com | August 2018
the question of whether dealers should be pushing their clients toward the cloud as opposed to an on-premise solution pales next to the importance of drilling down to the needs of the client, notes Greg VanDeWalker, senior vice president of IT Channel and Services for Collabrance and GreatAmerica Financial Services. “We can go to our dealers when they’re selling to a customer and say, ‘Here’s a cloud option,’ or ‘here’s an on-prem solution that we’re going to finance, so no matter which option you pick, there’s no up-front capital expense,’” he said. “You consume both of these monthly, so what’s best for your business? Maybe the features of the cloud are better, so go that route, or maybe features of on-prem are better. Perhaps the on-prem solution is cheaper and more preferable, even though they’ll forego some of the features of the cloud. “It’s about what’s best for the customer. Who’s going to manage the application—the end-user, the vendor or the MSP? That’s where it gets not as clear cut of a decision as I think sometimes the companies that market or sell cloud paint it. There are financial implications, there are technology implications, security, as well as ongoing maintenance implications of onprem versus cloud. It depends on which provider and offering you’re looking at, and just because it works for the cloud one time, that doesn’t mean it’s going to work all the time.”
IT’S ABOUT WHAT’S BEST FOR THE CUSTOMER. WHO’S GOING TO MANAGE THE APPLICATION—THE END-USER, THE VENDOR OR THE MSP? THAT’S WHERE IT GETS NOT AS CLEAR CUT OF A DECISION AS I THINK SOMETIMES THE COMPANIES THAT MARKET OR SELL CLOUD PAINT IT. Greg VanDeWalker, Collabrance Still, VanDeWalker is quick to point out that the cloud is gaining more traction. Voice solutions have decidedly found a home in the cloud. And Salesforce, the ubiquitous San Franciscobased CRM platform provider, has established a position of cloud dominance, with numerous third-party platforms building plug-ins to its platform. Moving forward, VanDeWalker sees much strength in the XaaS universe as end-users clamor for consuming solutions on a monthly basis at a fixed rate. That acceptability, particularly on the IT side, will continue to grow. In the end, customers are looking for that tailored solution and cost certainty—without out-of-pocket costs—that will enable them to shift their focus on where it belongs: growing their own business. “As consumers, we do monthly payment solutions with cell phones, solar panels, Netflix…why not do that with everyday business technology,” VanDeWalker added. “That’s where we’re seeing the adoption of the monthly payment model really taking hold fast.” ♦ We Saw It In ENX Magazine
Erik Cagle
DealerBriefing Spotlight News
Consistent Growth, Satisfied Clients and Employees: The Tale of Marco’s March to the Top
F
rom the typewriter to the cloud, Marco has experienced the full range of technology waves throughout its 45-year history. The St. Cloud, MN-based dealership has grown to a dominant position within the office technology stratosphere, acquiring 37 dealerships since 2005 to push its annual revenue toward the $400-million plateau. You’d be hard-pressed to find any Smith-Corona models on the Marconet.com website these days. The megadealer, backed by a nationwide workforce of 1,200, boasts facilities in nine states, but employs a national scope that serves in excess of 32,000 customers. It counts Konica Minolta, Sharp, HP, Canon and Toshiba as its primary copier and
MFP providers, and relies on the tech offerings of giants such as Cisco, Microsoft and Tech Data. Renowned for its acquisition proclivities, Marco has positioned itself as an IT services provider, accounting for nearly half (45 percent) of its annual revenue. The M&A portion is complementary to Marco’s organic growth, providing cross-selling opportunities for IT services to its new books of business. We spoke with Jeff Gau, CEO of Marco, along with Jennifer Mrozek, executive vice president of Business Development & Operations, to gain insight into the firm’s strategic M&A path, its obsession with customer and employee satisfaction, and its partnership with private
equity backer Norwest Equity Partners—all of which have played a vital role in continuing Marco’s heartland (and national) dominance. How was business in 2017? GAU: We continued to see nice double-digit growth at 16.5 percent, with profitability up over 20 percent. Managed IT services, recurring services and average top- and bottom-line growth all grew about 20 percent. We did three acquisitions last year, which is kind of low for us. It wasn’t by design; it’s just how they fell during the fiscal year. One of those was BusinessWare Solutions, the largest IT deal we’ve done to date. It has integrated well for us and set the tone for a strong 2018. Our key strategy is we buy copier companies and layer IT services over it, so cross-selling is vital and has been a key driver for our organic growth. What does Marco pride itself on?
Jeff Gau, CEO of Marco, and Jennifer Mrozek, executive vice president of Business Development & Operations 22
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www.enxmag.com | August 2018
We Saw It In ENX Magazine
GAU: I like the fact that we have a 10-year compounded annual growth rate of 20 percent. It’s helpful in attracting good people and customers to our organization. Our track record is strong and validated. We’re scorekeepers; we had our best client-satisfaction index since we first implemented it in 1994. We ask our customers 12 simple questions, one of which we call the ultimate question: If you had the opportunity, would you recommend Marco? Ninety-three percent of respondents said yes. continued on page 24
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Consistent Growth, Satisfied Clients and Employees: The Tale of Marco’s March to the Top also look at whether they’ve effectively expanded into managed IT services and the size of their offering. Those recurring revenue streams are important. Long-term customer relationships and a lack of customer concentration— those are all things we’re looking at with dealerships. We look at every opportunity and determine a value based on its operations.
A buzz of activity encompasses Marco’s client services center
We send out 500 surveys every month and have an 80 percent return rate. This validates our quality service. We’ve also measured employee satisfaction for the past 30 years. This year we had about a 90 percent return rate, with more than 1,000 survey responses to 100 questions. This lets us know how we’re performing, what we’re doing well and the areas where there’s room to improve. We can validate what other people only claim. We have a 93 percent recommend rate from customers, and an employeesatisfaction index of over 90 percent. In the last few years, Marco has captured some best-workplace awards, including ones for millennials and women, and in a national ranking of midsized companies, we came in at number 14. That validates our strong culture. We’ve also done a good job transitioning our company to IT services. A lot of companies are talking about it when they should be doing it. I haven’t seen a lot of strong players in this area, and few can boast that IT accounts for half of their revenue.
companies have higher values than copier companies; we’ve seen strong multiples in that space. We’ve also seen manufacturers diversify into managed services, medical devices or other categories. There are more buyers now. Private equity has entered the industry and has emerged as one of our biggest competitors for acquisitions. MROZEK: As soon as you provide a range of five to seven, everyone thinks they should be a seven, but it’s not necessarily the case. There are a lot of components necessary for a dealer to fit into that range. We do look at quality of revenue streams, lengths of contractual relationships with customers, and whether a dealer bundles agreements or keeps service and hardware separate. We
What is the ideal dealer profile for a potential Marco acquisition, in terms of geography, sales and service capabilities? GAU: There was a time when we sought smaller dealers in contiguous markets. Now, with the backing of our private equity partners, we’ve integrated 37 acquisitions. Writing the check sometimes is the easy part; integration is the tough part, but we’ve gotten really good at it. From a geographic expansion standpoint, we see the U.S. as our market. I don’t know that we need to be in Manhattan anytime soon, but we’d like to be in the state of New York, in the right markets. We have a lot of flexibility from a geography standpoint, and we like dealers with multiple locations. Once we get that initial movement into a state, like we did with Michigan, we can then do multiple acquisitions. That includes IT companies. We focus on copier dealers because that model offers contracted services, and we can layer our IT services over that marketplace. We’ve
How would you characterize the M&A landscape for the office technology industry? What are some of the variables and drivers behind the activity we’ve witnessed during the past 24 months? GAU: We’re seeing the highest multiples—around five to seven—paid to dealers since 2005, when we started making deals. Sizeable managed IT 24
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CEO Jeff Gau (seated, center) alongside Marco’s cast of millennial employees continued on page 26 We Saw It In ENX Magazine
Consistent Growth, Satisfied Clients and Employees: The Tale of Marco’s March to the Top
Marco’s headquarters in St. Cloud, MN
done about a dozen IT acquisitions and will continue down that path. Right now, I would say the market’s hot. There’s no deal that would be too small, even for a sub-$1million dealer, especially in an existing market that would make sense for us. On the other hand, we have the resources, skill sets and size to do a deal in excess of a couple hundred million dollars. Our strategy has broadened a lot in the last 36 months, and we’re poised to expand the direction we’ve been taking. What makes Marco an ideal M&A partner and what qualities does it bring to the table? GAU: We’re not a manufacturer or a pure-play private equity firm. We’re a dealer with strong financial backing that’s been running successfully since 1973. We pay cash up front. Our IT capabilities are quite strong and we’re one of the most respected resellers in the IT space, just like we are in the copier space. One of the things we do well is bring a mature IT process to the market. We’ve validated our culture and people like to be a part of us. People like growth companies as opposed to stagnant companies. If you’re a pure-play copier company, you probably don’t have high growth. Owners sell for a variety of reasons. One of them is they’re making a decision on whether to invest into IT services or not, or maybe they’ll transition it to 26
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a family member. Those things have to line up well and be pretty solid in order to run the next generation of their dealership. For sellers like that, we can build career paths for their people, not just jobs. They like that we have a good track record of taking care of customers. MROZEK: We consider ourselves deal makers. We have a growth strategy that includes acquisition and we’ve gone through this process 37 times. Quite often, we get comments about how easy we are to work with in putting these deals together. Much of it comes from our past experience. We know all of the legal issues and what items are important to sellers. Those are things that we address up front. We’re a good partner in putting a transaction together, which can be a very stressful process for the seller.
Can you provide some general details regarding your vetting process? GAU: Every deal has its own personality. Given that sometimes dealers aren’t making a lot of money, they feel they have to get their company ready to sell. That can be overemphasized. Sometimes, we’ll evaluate a dealership that isn’t knocking the cover off the ball from a profitability standpoint. But maybe they’ve got strong client relationships, perhaps even started a managed IT process, and those investment costs may have mitigated their profitability somewhat. We give fair consideration in every potential deal. We probably won’t pursue a sub-$1 million dealer in the middle of nowhere, but we did the Michigan move with one small and one larger dealer, almost at the same time. In the past, when we got to the stage where we signed a nondisclosure, 80-85 percent of the time we completed the deal. We also look at companies that have an element of recurring services. Sometimes a dealer will have a furniture company, office supplies company or some other auxiliary business, like water. We’re not necessarily interested in those elements, but when we’ve bought portions of dealerships, we’ve helped dealers find buyers for those non-core segments. However, we added a shredding business that was a part of the St. Louis company we acquired. Shredding fits much of the criteria that we have for recurring revenue and contracts. We did a good job with it and expanded it into a new market.
Attendees gather for Marco’s Technology Tradeshow: Taking Technology to the End Zone. The event was held September 14, 2016 at U.S. Bank Stadium, home of the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings continued on page 28 We Saw It In ENX Magazine
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Consistent Growth, Satisfied Clients and Employees: The Tale of Marco’s March to the Top support people help create the culture. Many of the sales and service positions are held by people who live in the territories in which they work, and it’s also important to maintain the support personnel. We’re able to do that through acquisitions, and by having growth paths available for employees who support our entire organization. We have 50 or 60 requisitions open at any point in time for opportunities within the company, which makes it easier for us to keep and retain those people. What was your dealership’s biggest win last year?
Marco’s spacious lobby
Marco was acquired by Norwest Equity Partners in late 2015. How has this relationship buffered Marco with its M&A strategy? GAU: We have a strong relationship with them and they view us as one of their top portfolio companies. We’ve added about 270 employees, bought 12 companies and almost doubled in size since they acquired us. Good numbers make for good relationships. I have a boss now, (Managing General Partner) Tim DeVries, who I respect and admire. We’ve heard nothing but good things about them. I was a little nervous about the move at first, but it was an excellent tool for us to transition our business and continue to grow. MROZEK: They’ve assisted us in formulating structures of deals to help get them done. We have strong backing and support from them, and we also have access to capital resources in order for us to execute on our acquisition strategy, probably even more aggressively than we did previously. What do you look for in your employees and how do you recruit and retain good ones? GAU: We recognize that many companies have great cultures, and we don’t buy good companies with the intention of breaking them. A part of effective integration, attraction and 28
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retention is making sure you bear that in mind. We’ve learned that during our acquisition journey. Everyone claims to have a strong culture, but most of the time they can’t prove it. Our pursuit of validating culture through the survey process we’ve done for 30 years, and our process of surveying customers, are keys to attracting and retaining good people. We have two people dedicated to extracting our performance information from the field, which helps us prove or improve our customer satisfaction. MROZEK: We spend a lot of time spreading the word of our culture internally. Most recently, we developed a program called the Gold Standard. It’s a branding initiative for employees to understand the makeup of Marco’s culture, which is really our focus on customer relationships, employee relationships, community involvement and support of our vendors. We do a lot of internal activities to educate employees about our commitment to those aspects. I also think we proved the importance of those items through the acquisition integration process by doing our best to retain as many employees as possible. We’ve created an operational platform that allows us to add people in many of the locations we acquire. We prefer to retain people in these branch offices that we obtain; these
GAU: Our integration of BusinessWare Solutions worked out really well. It became one of the best acquisitions that we’ve done, in a really difficult space. Another is our cross-selling initiative. One of our top strategies in fiscal year 2017 was to improve our crossover. It sounds really easy to cross-sell from the copier division to the IT division, but it’s actually hard. We measure that by percent of customers who buy both categories from us. I think our success in the execution of our cross-selling strategy was another strong sales win for us. Marco’s Foundation Rebate Program has donated more than $1.6 million to nonprofit clients since its inception. Can you talk about the salutary effect it has on strengthening business ties while supporting the communities you serve? GAU: Being a good corporate citizen has always been important to us. People like doing business with a good corporate citizen and we’re recognized as that across all our markets. If you were to ask the community, Marco would rank at the absolute top for corporate philanthropy. We pay our people while they’re volunteering on the clock, and that’s putting your money where your mouth is. So all things being equal, why not do business with a good corporate citizen? That’s our philosophy. Who do you see as your biggest competition, and how do you differentiate your company from them?
We Saw It In ENX Magazine
Selling your business can feel far off and even intangible, but given the factors in today’s market, it’s a pretty good time to start thinking about it. Jeff Gau, CEO Read Jeff’s blog on valuations and other market insights at marconet.com/BusinessSuccession
Is it a good time to sell? Let’s talk. Call Jeff Gau at 800.847.3051
GAU: It depends on the product category and who we’re competing with. We recognize our customer is the IT decision maker, and we’re an IT services company, so we get the upper hand almost always when competing with a copier dealer. Conversely, if we’re competing for a managed IT services win, I think our biggest competitor is the customer’s internal IT department, which generally doesn’t like to outsource. Overall, I think our biggest competitor overall in the IT space is a company like CDW in most of our markets. What are your goals for the next 12-18 months? GAU: We’re seeking to do between eight and 12 acquisitions—that’s half of our growth strategy. We have a track record of growing about 20 percent compounded annually each year, so we’d like to keep that around 20-25 percent. The cross-selling strategy is a huge opportunity for organic growth. Right now, only about 15 percent of our copier customers who are IT customers buy both categories from us. It’s incredible
how small that number really is. For us, continued execution on that cross-selling strategy is critical. We’re continuing to work on the culture piece and not wreck the cultures of the firms we acquire. IKON is a prime example; they produced a lot of good people in our industry, but
CEO Jeff Gau delivers a presentation during Marco’s Technology Tradeshow
We Saw It In ENX Magazine
along the way, they lost sight of their culture. That organization doesn’t exist today. We’re very diligent about it and will continue to invest in resources to ensure we maintain a strong culture. How do you view the industry changing in the future and what are you doing to adapt? GAU: Our model and our go-to-market strategy is strong. We really don’t need any more products and services. One of the strengths of our business is we’ve been able to adapt and execute. I’m not looking for a new model. I just want to continue to accelerate the execution of our business plan. I feel good about that, as do our investors. Outside of work, what do you do for fun? GAU: I like golfing, though I’m not as good as I used to be. I enjoy traveling, and the industry provides a lot of good opportunities. I love spending time with my four grandchildren. We enjoy the normal Minnesota things; the state has about 10,000 lakes. We’ve had a lake home here for 23 years, and it’s my happy place. ♦
August 2018 | www.enxmag.com
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Erik Cagle
Business Profile
From Marketing to MPS and Technical Service Prowess, Clover Services Group Offers a World Beyond Toner
W
hen you’re the world’s leading remanufacturer of toner cartridges, such a designation can cast a large shadow over other product and service capabilities within your catalog. Clover Imaging Group isn’t in need of an AmEx or other calling cards to garner recognition in the ecosystem of remanufactured toner cartridges and supplies. But the global giant (which falls under the umbrella of Clover Technologies Group) felt its wealth of offerings in marketing, print management and technical support could benefit tremendously from enhanced exposure to the dealer and OEM community. Thus, when ITEX 2018 rolled around last May, it served as the official coming-out party for Clover Services Group. According to Luke Goldberg, the executive vice president of global sales and marketing for Clover Imaging Group, creating the stand-alone division helps to differentiate Clover Services in the minds of customers while crafting a cohesive marketing message to the
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industry regarding its commitment to helping customers grow. In Clover Services, Goldberg believes his team has assembled the most diverse and wide-ranging third-party line of solutions that has ever been assembled in the marketplace. “Clover has endeavored to build out the most comprehensive services-andsolutions portfolio for our customers and value-added resellers, whether they’re independent dealers, OEMs— whatever channel they reside in—so that we can add value and help our customers grow beyond just our capabilities in collections and remanufacturing,” said Goldberg. “That’s a new direction we started in earnest during the last number of years, building out that servicesand-solutions portfolio to help support our customers to help keep them vibrant, profitable and sustainable for years to come.” The global parent Clover Technologies Group (CTG) is a billion-dollar operation that operates in 60 countries, with five manufacturing plants in Mexicali, Baja California (which serves the U.S. market); Serbia; Vietnam; Brazil and Ithaca, MI (an inkjet facility). Both Goldberg and Clover Imaging Group are viewed as thought leaders on the subject of remanufactured cartridges and legal ramifications surrounding new-builds and other possible patent-infringing manufacturing practices. We Saw It In ENX Magazine
Luke Goldberg
The Clover Services Group division is designed to cast more light on each of the three service-based sectors within the organization’s toolbox. These services are:
Amplify
The custom content digital marketing services arm of Clover Services, Amplify enables dealers and resellers to better position their own product and service dossiers through online content that enables them to engage a target audience with original and relevant content. These assets can take the form of blogs, videos, white papers and position papers—all content specifically crafted for the dealer, sans recycled material. On a more granular level, the content is verticalized for dealers and aimed at attracting specific personas within a given organization, such as a health care CEO or a legal CFO who the dealership seeks to target. “Ultimately, we want to help that dealer convert website visitors to leads, and to nurture those leads from consideration to continued on page 32
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227818A | Clover Services Group, and its logo is a trademark owned by Clover Technologies Group, LLC, and may be registered in the United States and other countries.
From Marketing to MPS and Technical Service Prowess, Clover Services Group Offers a World Beyond Toner
conversion. And ultimately, we seek to create brand advocates,” said Goldberg. What drives the Clover Services value proposition in this area is its hundreds of years of collective experience in the imaging space, which provides the grounding for the tailored content. A digital marketing firm, particularly in a large city, might charge a premium over the Amplify rates and not boast the same level of understanding of the dealer’s business. That might require months for the firm to get up to speed. Amplify can be leveraged based on the needs of the client, with or without a recurring commitment. Goldberg points out that dealers can select a blog package of six or 12 per month as a recurring service, or embark on a full-bore website redesign as a one-off project. Or the dealer could seek help in building personas for social media channels.
It includes data collection agent tools from Print Fleet and FMAudit, user management tools from Print Audit that address user behavior and rules, along with document management solutions. One of the newer areas Axess is developing is archiving and scanning solutions for the legal vertical. Axess is a full-suite approach to the training, monitoring, and management of MPS to the dealer’s customer base. “We encapsulate all that knowledge through the software side to the training side,” Goldberg noted. “We go in and vet ourselves with dealers, and we train their teams and help create print policies. We help them undergo that evolution between simple device management to user management, then finally to document management. Everything we’re doing is to facilitate the dealer becoming stickier with their customer and adding more value, ultimately to decommoditize the page.”
TechLink 2.0
The third pillar of the Clover Services foundation is the service and training elements for the imaging space. TechLink offers service training for A4 devices, as the dealer universe (especially the BTA channel) is highly adept at servicing A3 hardware. The A4 training is provided either on-site or via webinar. A subset of TechLink is its troubleshooting and triage training to help dealers become more proficient in
ULTIMATELY, WE WANT TO HELP THAT DEALER CONVERT WEBSITE VISITORS TO LEADS, AND TO NURTURE THOSE LEADS FROM CONSIDERATION TO CONVERSION. Luke Goldberg AND ULTIMATELY, WE SEEK TO CREATE BRAND ADVOCATES.
Axess Professional Services
Goldberg views Axess as the tonic to treat the rash of ineffectual managed print services that focus primarily on device management. Axess aims to provide the full gamut of true MPS, including the services, software, training and support that manage the entire life cycle of the document, through scanning, capture, workflow BPO and archiving. 32
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first-call effectiveness, the hallmark of quality service that can mitigate service costs by ferreting out issues over the phone. “A new aspect of TechLink is not only doing the training on the printer service and repair, it’s training to triage and troubleshoot in advance, so maybe they don’t have to dispatch a technical person,” Goldberg said, noting that Clover also can white label the entire
technical service interface for both for dealers and OEMs, handling the help desk engagement. TechLink also offers dispatch and service functions which can fortify dealers who don’t have technicians in a specific region, enabling them to meet service-level agreements on a national basis. Clover Services Group has also partnered with BoxScore to provide a real-time scoring and feedback tool on service dispatches. BoxScore sends out a brief qualitative and quantitative questionnaire to dealer clients, and the answers provide dealers with critical feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of their service component. Goldberg notes that Clover is constantly on the lookout for new services, content, programs and software that can help flesh out each of the three pillars, including a new document management tool that was in the works as of press time. He wouldn’t rule out adding a fourth pillar in the future that addresses other aspects of a dealer’s business. “If we cover those three pillars, we go a long ways toward solving the dealers’ pain points, honing in on them and creating new revenue opportunities as we overcome their issues,” he said.
Moving Toward XaaS
Clover Services Group speaks to the movement toward offering Everythingas-a-Service (XaaS), and Goldberg feels dealers must continue down the path of becoming more service-oriented providers to forge those long-term, sticky relationships with end clients.
We Saw It In ENX Magazine
continued on page 34
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CLOVERSERVICES.COM Ready to start a project? amplify@cloverservicesgroup.com 877.908.9203 227218A | Clover Services Group, and its logo are trademarks owned by Clover Technologies Group, LLC, and may be registered in the United States and other countries.
From Marketing to MPS and Technical Service Prowess, Clover Services Group Offers a World Beyond Toner
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“In terms of Everythingas-a-Service, we want to engender that in the imaging space as well, transcend the multiple decimal points surrounding the cost and help our dealers be more viewed as full-blown services and solutions providers versus just print providers. We’re going to facilitate those transitions. Print still might be a central aspect, but certainly it will not be the only aspect of the overall value proposition”, said Goldberg.
While Clover’s services can act as a complement to the toner cartridge and parts side of the Clover menu, driving revenue for both (with dealers who buy both reaping service discounts), Goldberg is also looking to entice clients who don’t have a need for their A4 cartridges and parts. In fact, one of the measures for Clover’s stand-alone global services is tied into helping dealer customers sell anything in their portfolio by building a standout marketing program for them. In other words, dealers don’t need to buy Clover’s toner in order to take advantage of the Clover Services Group world of service components. “We’re only two months in, but the response has been great,” he said. “To this day, we still get a lot of ‘I didn’t know you guys did that’
EVERYTHING WE’RE DOING IS TO FACILITATE THE DEALER BECOMING STICKIER WITH THEIR CUSTOMER AND ADDING MORE VALUE, ULTIMATELY TO DE-COMMODITIZE THE PAGE. The ITEX 2018 debut was just one stop in the Clover Services marketing campaign, and Clover has plans for a strong presence at dealer groups and OEM events. A core group of Clover Services Group sales reps are tasked with creating a funnel to ensure they are getting in front of the right dealers and groups, and the marketing team is focused on bringing to light what Goldberg believes is an unprecedented collection of services to the dealer market. We Saw It In ENX Magazine
remarks. Hopefully, a year from now, the Clover Services Group visibility will be even greater. Clover just isn’t the biggest, most-technicallycapable manufacturer and reverse-logistics provider in the industry. We have the most comprehensive and highestquality suite of services and solutions that anyone has, all aimed at driving mutual growth. This is one of the bestkept secrets in the industry, and we’re trying to let the cat out of the bag.” ♦
Erik Cagle
Channel Insight
Tomorrow’s Tools, Today: Konica Minolta Already Delivering on its Vision of the Future
L
aura Blackmer is nothing if not practical. The senior vice president of Dealer Sales for Konica Minolta Business Solutions, who recently celebrated her six-month anniversary with the manufacturer, employs a laser focus on an objective that is simple, yet challenging. Blackmer wants to provide the dealer channel the full assortment of technologies offered by Konica Minolta—some of which have futuristic undertones— without overwhelming them. At the same time, Blackmer’s other primary objective is to provide dealers with a clear and uncomplicated path that will enable them to easily bring these technologies to market in an expedient manner. It certainly helps
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that Blackmer feels Konica Minolta boasts the optimal people, processes and programs to make this practical approach a reality. Blackmer joins the fold at an exciting juncture in Konica Minolta’s history, given the twin acquisitions of Muratec and TLS.NET that have fortified the OEM’s vision of transforming into an IT services and managed services business. ENX Magazine sat down with Blackmer to discuss a number of key points that are driving the Konica Minolta conversation, from production and industrial print to the Workplace of the Future and the Workplace Hub. How all of these technologies can be translated into dealer success stories is foremost in her mind. Tell us about your career path leading up to current position at Konica Minolta. BLACKMER: I began with National Cash Register right out of college and spent less than two years there before being recruited by HP following the launch of the HP LaserJet. They were looking for someone to sell to the reseller community. That got me interested in working with channels. I held a number of positions in my 19 years at HP, and more than 90 percent of my time was spent in a channels role, either directly supporting resellers and managing sales teams regionally, or handling major accounts. I left HP to work for a startup based in New York City. Kevin Gilroy, who was previously with HP, asked We Saw It In ENX Magazine
me to run his channel and sales business. After that, I stayed at home for a couple of years with my children before joining Intermec in a U.S. channel sales leadership role. I did that for three years, then was recruited by Sharp, which was my first entry into this industry. In December of 2017, I joined Konica Minolta and recently passed my sixmonth mark. How would you characterize your first six months at the helm of channel sales? BLACKMER: Konica Minolta is a great company with fantastic leadership, excellent people and products. What’s impressed me the most is that Konica Minolta has figured out the future to some degree, particularly those products, services and solutions that are going to be important in the next five to 10 years. Learning about the products and strategies surrounding them has been tremendous. It’s the classic case of flying the 747 while you’re painting it. When I first came on board, (President and CEO) Rick Taylor gave me a bit of a marching order to get our pricing and development programs where they needed to be. We just launched new programs for both, retroactive to April 1. It’s really designed around making sure we can go to market quickly and be easy to do business with, which is a constant mantra for manufacturers. Now, I’m looking ahead toward the mid- and longterm items. continued on page 38
Tomorrow’s Tools, Today: Konica Minolta Already Delivering on its Vision of the Future Tell us about the feedback you’ve received from the dealer base, and what changes (if any) might be implemented? What is your role in this regard? BLACKMER: Our dealer base has larger players who tend to be more established. I’ve been able to visit 30plus dealers in six months, and we just concluded our dealer trip, where I got to meet another 60. The dealers are excited about products and solutions, such as the Workplace Hub and industrial print. They’ve been asking us to make it easier for them to ingest and bring to their customers. They want to know how they can prepare for these evolutions in order to sell and support a new class of products that they can turn around quickly and become successful. One valuable piece of feedback came from a large Midwest dealer. They like the fact that Konica Minolta’s sales team is adept at figuring out what kind of people, training and marketing they will need, and what customers they should target to bring an industrial print product to market. That dealer closed its first sale within 90 days of having initial discussions, which is pretty amazing considering industrial print has longer sales cycles. Dealers are looking for constructive support in preparing to sell new lines. Last summer, Konica Minolta announced the acquisition of Muratec America. How can Muratec’s strengths as a provider of industrial labeling and finishing solutions translate into success for your dealers? BLACKMER: Muratec was embarking on a new product category in the printing business around labeling. They had done a great deal of research and found a strong vendor. At the same time, Konica Minolta was doing something similar, but at the upper end of the spectrum from a product perspective. These are coming together, and we’re starting to roll out a full lineup of industrial-labeling products that we wouldn’t have had as quickly without Muratec. We’ll offer not just a couple of labeling products on the high end, but a full spectrum that dealers in secondary and tertiary markets—where 38
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Muratec has had a lot of strength—can leverage. Their dealers can get into this business fairly easily and grow into some of the higher-end products. At the same time, some of our Konica Minolta dealers will jump on the industrial side and now have a full breadth of products to go after. We’re pretty excited about that. Konica Minolta’s acquisition of TLS.NET added expanded competence within voice, cloud and IT solutions. How have dealers embraced these solutions? BLACKMER: All Covered has a huge breadth of product offerings from straightforward managed IT services to project business and TLS.NET managed voice, plus they have some strong vertical-specific offerings. That can be somewhat difficult for a dealer to take on all at once, because there are a lot of choice points. Managed voice is an incredibly powerful cloud-based offering that is simple and fits most dealers’ monthly-recurring revenue models. It’s an easy sale to customers who have purchased our A3 devices, MFPs or MPS offerings. Instead of tossing the entire All Covered portfolio at a dealer, we’re focused on the managed-voice aspect, showing them how they can add that recurring monthly revenue while locking tighter into customers. Dealers don’t have to hire specialists or retrain their sales force for the process. I’m hoping we can bring that TLS.NET offering to the dealers and use it as an opening to bring in other All Covered services as they get comfortable with that market. As Konica Minolta continues to cultivate its Workplace of the Future platform, how would you characterize its reception by the marketplace? BLACKMER: It’s not a product or a state where you’ll be able to say, OK, we’ve achieved it. The Workplace of the Future is a focus on the people, the technology and the workspace of the business, along with the pieces that can be brought in to help evolve that business. Managed voice is the Workplace of the Future, as is someone who is using a robust Papercut solution with a workflow.
The idea is that if they start to pull these pieces together at a customer, dealers can help their customers evolve. When I talk to dealers, I focus on the solutions that we’re bringing to bear that, once executed, will evolve them into the Workplace of the Future. There are more futuristic aspects of it, such as the ALICE Receptionist, and the Team conference room management and scheduling tool. The Workplace concept can be overwhelming to the dealer community, so we need to prepare them for these different offerings, and help them change the dialogue they’re having with their customers. That’s when this will start to be a state of mind. I think Workplace of the Future is closer than it might seem, because there are so many pieces we’re already executing on. Can you provide us with an update on the Workplace Hub? BLACKMER: It’s still in beta, but we’ve been getting tremendous, positive feedback. There are two trends happening in the IT world these days. I think Dell coined the phrase “hyper convergence,” which is formerly separate components in the IT space coming together in a single platform that can be managed as integrated components. The other is the idea that first took root in the early 2000s that everything was moving to the cloud; doing software as a service, HR as a service. As with most pendulum swings, that swing to all cloud is not going to materialize—it’s actually going to come back. We’re seeing some critical business components coming back to on-premise, and that’s being driven to some degree by security and the speed to implement. Those two dynamics come together in the Workplace Hub product. For one, it’s a hyper converged product, Workplace Hub an amazing stack of
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Tomorrow’s Tools, Today: Konica Minolta Already Delivering on its Vision of the Future software and tools, and it’s bringing some of those business-critical items back to a business. This is a solid SMB tool and it’s going to have incredibly strong verticals, with versions for the health care, education and potentially legal markets, and it can be sold as a service. That’s a model the dealer community truly understands. As we get closer to its release, we’re spending more time talking about what it’s going to take to prepare the dealer in terms of training and demonstrations. It’s going to fit nicely into the dealer’s existing customer base.
The ECM business, on the other hand, is a great opportunity for dealers. It was a solid double-digit growth category for 2017, and that momentum has continued this year. Dealers have truly embraced the idea of solving customer needs around scanning, back-file conversion and the redesign of general business process. Most customers need some degree of work around their scanning— the whole process they use in their own businesses. The dealers are finding that if they ask the right questions around it, the result is an easy sale. What we’ve
FROM A MACRO PERSPECTIVE, CONTINUED MARGIN PRESSURE IS AFFECTING THE DEALERS AND MANUFACTURERS. IF A DEALER CAN SHOW REVENUE AND UNIT Laura Blackmer GROWTH, THAT’S A GOOD SIGN. In April, Konica Minolta unveiled its marketing planning and analytics platform. Can you talk about the value it adds to dealer portfolios in going beyond hardware? BLACKMER: Last year we announced our Domino Decisions tool, which is part of our production print business that provides a dealer who’s selling those machines the ability to offer their customers a marketing-as-a-service analytics tool. The dealers can sell or offer it for free. It’s a tool for customers who are purchasing production print products and have high marketing output. This gives them some tools that they may not normally have in the course of doing business. This is one of the better platforms on the market. How would you grade Konica Minolta’s efforts in growing the ECM and 3D printing business? What are the keys to success in that regard? BLACKMER: 3D has been a tough, fragmented market. Finding the right applications for it has been challenging for a lot of the manufacturers. We see it as a maturing business, but we’re continuing to invest in it. From an applications standpoint, we’re looking at the verticals that are most likely to embrace it, like the education market. We’re still evolving that business. 40
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done over the past 12 months is provide higher levels of resource for the dealers, especially around areas such as the Square 9 offering, so that they’re not left out there. If they do get a customer that is eager to do some business process reengineering, we can bring resources to bear on behalf of the dealer to help. What changes in the BTA space are influencing your go-to-market strategy, and what influences will play a role in your strategy going forward? BLACKMER: Definitely consolidation. Five or 10 years ago, most dealer purchases were being done by manufacturers. Now, 80 percent of the consolidation is probably either dealer on dealer, with some of it backed by private equity. That presents its own set of opportunities and challenges. We’re working with fewer dealers and many larger ones, and we have to make sure we can craft and support that base. We’ve been able to work closely with these dealers and provide the tools that they need, which has been a strength of Konica Minolta. From a macro perspective, continued margin pressure is affecting the dealers and manufacturers. If a dealer can show revenue and unit growth, that’s a good sign. We have to continue to look for ways to augment our portfolio of
products, and make sure that the dealers are getting as much of the IT spend as they can. That’s why managed IT is so important. Dealers are also looking for opportunities in industrial print that can augment the revenue in their customer base. MPS is a good way to offset declining page volumes, and we’re doing a refresh of our MPS offering this fall. I can’t overemphasize how important that is for dealers to consider industrial print and production print, because those are rich, high-value pages that can bring a lot of cash back into the business. Konica Minolta still has a huge opportunity for unit growth. We have a strong product portfolio and I think our approach to the market is spot on. So we have opportunities to grow our market share and grow this business. What are your goals for the next 18 months? BLACKMER: Now that we’ve focused on our pricing and dealer programs, the next piece I am working on is the people who are working with our dealers on a daily basis. I want to make Konica Minolta a great place for our dealer team to work. We’re investing in learning events this summer that focus on products, solutions, ECM, Workplace of the Future and other financial skills. We’re investing in our team because, frankly, we’re only as good to a dealer as the people they interact with day in and day out. So we’re giving that team as many best-of-breed tools, training sessions and information resources as possible. On the external side, it goes back to some of the feedback I received, which has really helped us get prepared for these products. We’re putting a lot of energy into the Workplace Hub and ensuring that when we bring it to the dealers, it’s got all of the pieces they need to be successful. I want to continue to grow our managed voice and industrial print as well. If you ask Rick Taylor, we’ve got to hit our targets and goals. We’ve already started down the road of executing our strategies, and I’m confident the outcome will speak to those goals. ♦
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Journey Toward XaaS Needs to be Traveled Gradually
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esterday, I heard about a business model, with an amazing growth track, that sells herbs across the United States. They’re not just selling plants—they’re selling an amazing dining-and-food-prep experience by helping clients focus on the things they love to do without worrying about how to maintain herbs. They assure their customers that the herbs will outlast any other company’s product, and for some plants, they’ll never have to purchase another of that kind. Based on each client’s specific order, they dispatch a complete strategy including ongoing weekly recipes and shopping lists with timely instructions to properly care for the herbs. By monitoring every client’s ZIP code, they even send alerts to help customers protect the plants from harsh weather. Who would’ve guessed that an herb company’s business model could lay out the perfect example for office technology? When you read articles from within our industry, many zero in on something that creates strong opinions—what today’s perfect business model is, or what the business model for the future in our industry looks like. I enjoy canvasing such articles and have an extreme interest in the roadmap for the future technology-sales organization. I’ve heard a lot about “flex-tech” offerings and “everything-as-aservice.” I think we’ll get there, but I don’t believe they’ll be as easy to implement as they are to advertise.
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Dealer of the Future
The dealership of the future will have a completely different market to master. It’ll not only have to find new products and services to replace the mature MFP, MPS and IT markets, but it has to sell to a millennial buyer—a buyer who has a completely different view on how business should be done. These buyers are used to a stress-free, no-cost, make-mylife-easier mobile app that does amazing things with a walk-away commitment. They typically don’t sign long-term contracts, and because they know that technology is changing faster than ever before, they expect (and demand) that updates deliver constant improvement to their experience. And as they take on leadership roles, they’ll carry those expectations into your marketplace and measure your performance with those standards. Not too long ago, I was at a technology show in Las Vegas. At lunch, I overheard a large group of vendor sales reps who call on dealer principals sharing how difficult it was to get dealers to change the way they do anything! Isn’t it ironic that the dealer’s business is constantly introducing change to their marketplace, but they themselves, for the most part, fight change? Several times there was a resounding “amen” as they all agreed how stubborn some of their clients were. As they finished up lunch, most were relieved to find out that they weren’t alone and others face this We Saw It In ENX Magazine
exact challenge. They laughed, shook hands and dispersed. You might ask, “What does that have to do with anything?” And I’d reply, “Everything!” If you’re one of those hardheaded, stubborn, unwilling-to-change dealers, I’ve got news for you. As your market competes worldwide and your target prospect takes over from the millennial generation, you’d better find your change gear and shift it, or you’ll cease to be relevant. Which brings us to what “flex-tech” or “everything-as-aservice” (XaaS) from earlier in the article actually mean. Both refer to your “product” offerings. I know a lot of people have a hard time understanding that services are products too, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are. Let’s look at “everything-asa-service” first, and then consider how “flex-tech” might influence it.
What it All Means
“Everything-as-a-service” can literally mean everything. Any process that runs inside a business can be purchased from a service provider who performs those services. But imagine that your company provides it all. The advantage to the end user usually means they’ll get a worry-free experience (like the herb company), and a better, faster and cheaper performanceto-cost result. But saying “everything-as-a-service” is easier than actually executing it. Just look at the challenges traditional MFP dealers have had trying to sell MPS—ring a bell? continued on page 44
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Journey Toward XaaS Needs to be Traveled Gradually Almost always, it’s the dealer who has to interpret and transform the manufacturer’s offerings (purchased one way) to fit the dealer’s offering (sold another way). Compound that with the desires of the millennial buyer, who wants to add it or remove it anytime they feel like it. With that model, how do you create a revenue forecast, or harder yet, a commission structure that actually works? Challenging, isn’t it? When you consider the list below, where would you start? • Operations-as-a-service • Infrastructure/communications • Backup/recovery • Applications/support • Digital marketing/Web strategies/ecommerce • CRM/call center/automation • Sales process/forecast • ERP/finance • HR/recruiting • Integration/software development • R&D/product development • Supply chain Each of these disciplines carries an enormous value to the right client. Yet if you break down the adoption of just one item from the above list, you’ll see how enormous the “everythingas-a-service” product really is. Transforming your company to deliver such value demands an extreme strategy.
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Methodical Approach
I would eat the elephant a bite at a time. You’ll have to analyze every part of your business, and develop your adoption plan into each department. Start with the services that are closest to your current offerings and build that roadmap strategy, making sure you define for your team what success looks like. A great self-evaluation for your company could help you find your first steps forward. Obviously, you must maintain today’s business levels while finding your future. Imagine adding only three of the above categories (that you don’t sell today) to next year’s go-tomarket strategy. Can you see why you can’t wait, and why it’s so important to build out a roadmap? Pushing any three of the list above into your organization’s sales could kill momentum if not done carefully. Now, you’ve decided on “everything-as-a-service” as your destination. Great! Your current business’ success means you should already know what you do well and what you don’t. You understand your weak spots and performance challenges. Early on in the MPS world, there were dealers who modified their website to include managed print services who, if called on, had no chance of executing MPS well. Rather than that approach, set your company up for continued success by fixing the things that are broken today that will support your “everything-as-a-service” requirements for tomorrow. Services can also be regional. When you’re building your roadmap, make sure you consider what products will fit your existing marketplace best. For example, take a rural dealer who wants to do MPS, but has few customers with more than three or four print devices. His desire to sell MPS doesn’t outweigh his market’s reality—make wise choices. The secondary product I believe will be influential is “flextech,” in which technology services are fluid. They grow or shrink in monthly fees and scope based on the client’s shifting need for support. If you attach an “everything-as-a-service” mentality to a “flex-tech” financial model, you’ll see things become more of a challenge. Most sales forecasts consider both net-new business and existing business. The benefits of flex-tech could be a major advantage for attracting net-new business; it doesn’t create the same benefit for forecasting on the client retention side. Imagine every client has the ability to add (a good thing) or shrink (a bad thing) each and every month. Did your stomach just wrench up? Be prepared, because I believe it is coming. With application development as one of the fastest-growing industries across the world, it seems possible that every month will reveal bigger and better business solutions. “Everythingas-a-service” is the delivery model, but it must be backed with perfect execution, or it’ll become “nothing-as-a-service.” I don’t think there’s any question that a services model is where we’re headed. Combine that with a “flex-tech benefit” to create an unbeatable value for your end users and a bottom line value for your organization. The question is, can you deliver it? ♦ We Saw It In ENX Magazine
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Sales & Marketing
Darrell Amy
Define Who You Are: Creating an Effective Value Proposition When talking to a prospect, what answer do you give when they ask, “What do you do?” This simple question can be tough to answer when you consider every aspect of your offering: hardware, software, supplies, and services.
I
n the few seconds of attention we have with a prospect, whether face-to-face, on the phone or through a website, we must be able to clearly communicate what we do and how the prospect could benefit. Otherwise, we lose their attention. Without a clear value proposition, sale reps generally gravitate to their area of comfort by saying, “We do copiers.” As a result, the incredible value of your managed IT program rarely gets shared. At the same time, you don’t want to throw the proverbial hardware baby out with the managed-IT bath water—you can’t alienate your core business. To succeed in managed IT, you need to develop a broader value proposition that clearly explains all of the benefits you bring to clients.
What Is a Value Proposition?
A value proposition is a short statement that expresses what you do and how your clients benefit. Your value proposition should be compressed to one sentence. You’ll probably start with a list or a paragraph, but keep working on it until you edit it down. Eventually, you might be able to condense it down to a few words. This hard work is worth the time, because it creates a basis to invite prospects to learn more.
How to Get Started
When it comes to creating a unified value proposition that includes hardware, services, and/or solutions it’s helpful to consider two things: • What do your prospects want? • What do you really do for clients?
What Do Prospects Want?
When it comes to technology, here are some broad categories of the things 46
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prospects want from a technology partner: • Support o Minimal downtime o Simplicity o A partner who responds to service issues • Productivity o Streamlined workflows o Improved collaboration • Security o Reduced security risk o Reduced compliance risk • Advice o Technology strategy • Personal Advancement o Happy coworkers o Career advancement Start by making a list of the core things your clients want. To focus this exercise, think of your ideal clients—the ones you wish you had a hundred more just like them. Think about their benefits of working with you. If you don’t know what they are, ask them: • What do you like best about working with our dealership? • What are the top benefits you realize from working with us? The answers to these questions will give you insight into what needs to be in your value proposition.
What Do You Do?
This question seems simple, and for years it was, “We sell and service copiers.” Over time, the answer has become more complicated. Many dealerships got into the document management business. Others expanded their hardware portfolios to include production, wideformat, 3D and label printing. Some
moved into adjacent markets like mailing equipment, telephony and water systems. Most developed MPS practices. Write down everything your dealership offers on a whiteboard. What similarities do you see? Look at most dealerships and you’ll find one of two common themes: 1. Service: We service technology 2. Workflow: We improve workflow or productivity These two high-level categories can provide the direction for your unified value proposition. Let’s consider both.
The Service-Value Prop
Your dealership has provided responsive technology service for years. It started years ago with providing copier service. Maybe you even have a dealership that provided service to typewriters long before the copier was invented. Then, you decided to service printers as you got into the managed print services business. Now your service offering includes the entire network. Essentially, your dealership supports technology for local business. However, now you do more than just respond to emergencies—you take a proactive approach. It began with MPS, as you started proactively monitoring printer networks and getting remote meter readings. It continues into managed IT services in which you monitor networks. The unique aspect of your service value proposition is that you identify and resolve issues before they become business problems. This creates a powerful value proposition for today’s businesses. With so much of our daily operations depending on technology, downtime can
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be catastrophic. Proactively monitoring technology along with providing responsive field support when necessary allows your prospects to stay productive. With this in mind, your servicecentered value proposition could be something like: • We proactively monitor and support technology so your company can stay online, productive, and secure. • We focus on keeping your technology online, so you can focus on growing your business. “Oh, that sounds interesting, tell me more.” And now you have the invitation to share your service philosophy and all of the systems you support.
The Workflow-Value Prop
Since the days of copiers, faxes, and scanners, you have been a part of workflow. After all, documents are the vehicles by which information flows through business process. Today’s multifunction systems allow customers to streamline the
flow of information, providing a gateway to move documents between paper and digital formats. Combined with customized apps and third-party workflow and content-management solutions, you have the ability to improve your clients’ productivity. From this perspective, your unique value proposition relates to improving business processes. You might say something like: • We help businesses integrate technology to streamline workflow, improve productivity and increase security. • From paper documents to cloud services, we help businesses streamline their business processes. • We help businesses improve collaboration, increase productivity and enhance security by integrating technology to improve workflow.
Do We Have to Pick?
Your value proposition certainly needs to be clear. However, there is still a way to highlight all you do.
If you use the proactive service as the core of your value proposition, you can continue by showing how keeping systems online results in improved security, productivity and collaboration. If you use improved workflow as the core of your value proposition, you can explain that you back it up with proactive service to ensure the systems stay online.
What’s Your Value Proposition?
This is a critical question to answer. If your top leadership, sales reps and everyone else at the dealership can’t answer it, you’re going to remain stuck in your legacy business, frustrated with the lack of growth in your new areas. As I work with clients to develop their value proposition, it’s amazing to” see the lights come on” when we find something that fits. In many cases, you know you have it because it fits comfortably into conversations with clients and prospects. Take the time to do this and you’ll unlock growth in these important new business areas. ♦
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Ken Edmonds
Service Management News Briefing
Promote for Success: Don’t Ruin Your Best Tech At some point in almost every service manager’s career, the need to promote someone to the position of service supervisor arises. By the time we need to promote someone, we are normally so busy that we don’t have much time to invest in the process.
W
hat happens many times is we find our best technician, and we tell them that they are going to be the supervisor. We then wish them the best as we walk away. Too many times, that is where the process ends. This often results in an unqualified supervisor who has been set up to fail, and we may have ruined—or lost—our best technician. There are a number of reasons this is not an optimal approach. First, just because someone is the best technician, it doesn’t mean he or she has the needed qualifications to succeed as a supervisor. The individual may not even desire to be a supervisor, but may take the position expecting the training and support that will lead to success. Without that training, the tech is now in a position that they may not like and aren’t qualified to handle.
Making the Selection
Ideally the process should start long before the need is critical. In working with the technicians, you should find out what their career goals are, and have developed a plan to help them achieve those goals. You should also investigate who the team looks at as a leader in non-technical areas. The best technician will usually be the one they look to for technical issues, but someone else may be their choice for non-technical ones. After you’ve made an initial assessment of the candidate’s desire and how the team views the individuals under consideration, you could have a further discussion with your potential candidate or candidates and verify that
they are interested. While letting them know that there is no immediate need for a supervisor, you could start grooming them for the future. In addition to observing how well the candidates interact with their fellow technicians, you need to observe how well they deal with customers, especially when problems arise. Do they have the ability to react calmly when the customer is irate? Also, how efficient are they at managing their time, as that skill will become critical as a supervisor. Starting the process early will let you see if your candidates show interest, and if they start taking the initiative to improve their knowledge and skills. This will tell you a great deal about your choice. If you didn’t get the process started before you have an immediate need, you should still make your selection on factors outlined above. Doing so will improve the probability of the new supervisor succeeding.
Training is the Key
The training process should start as soon as you have a clear candidate, and should include formal training in the skills needed. While there has never been an industry-specific course for a supervisor, that situation may change in the future. Until there is industry-specific training available, look for general supervisortraining programs. By searching the internet, you will find a variety of websites that provide information on supervision, customer relations and time management.
I would also recommend developing a list of books you have read that helped you learn your craft and suggest the candidate read those same references. You can also pose problems, whether real or simulated, and ask the candidate how to resolve them to assess their critical-thinking skills. Keep in mind that the training program can’t stop once someone is promoted into the role. They will need ongoing support and additional training. I would also recommend training them so that, if needed, they could step into the role of service manager. I can imagine the loud “no” in your mind—why train someone for your very position? But managers have the responsibility to train their replacements. One thing that limits the ability of service managers to advance their career is that they have not accomplished this simple task. If you have a trained candidate in the ready, then the company can promote you and not suffer because they have to hire to replace you.
Be the Mentor They Need
In a company that works properly, every manager should serve as a mentor to direct reports. As a mentor, you will want to continue to help those who report to you so they can succeed at their current positions, while also grooming them for advancement and advocating for them when appropriate. By following this process, you will likely make the best choice in selecting a supervisor. You will have given them the skills and training needed to succeed in the new role. Providing the ongoing continued on page 50
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training and support the new supervisor needs will result in the best probable outcome for the department and the company. This may seem like too much work—it would be much easier just to grab a warm body and put that person in the job. That rarely ends up being the case. When you have a properly trained supervisor, and you delegate the appropriate responsibilities to that supervisor, you will find that you have more time to deal with the important issues affecting your department and possibly reach out to accept broader responsibilities in the company. ♦
Printer Tech Tip Solving a 50.7 Error with Clicking or Gear Grind Noise on the HP CP6015/CM6040MFP
Y
ou may run into a problem in which the fixing alienation gear could break due to a larger than expected number of alienation cycles (i.e. switching between power save and printing many time each day, power cycling often, etc). This occurs especially later in the product’s lifespan. If this gear fails, the fuser will cease to alienate, the printer will make clicking/ gear grind noises, and a 50.7 error will be displayed. So how do you fix it? You’ll need to replace the fuser alienation gear (RM1-3247 or newer). Just follow these steps to remove the gear: 1. Open the right door. 2. Remove the fuser.
5. Slide the fuser drive gear from the shaft.
3. Remove one screw and remove the black sensor cover.
6. Slide the fuser alienation gear from the shaft (note: the replacement gear may be black instead of white). ♦ 4. Remove one e-clip.
This Printer Tech Tip is contributed by LaserPros (www.laserpros.com). Email any questions to marketing@laserpros.com We Saw It In ENX Magazine
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Display Advertisers Index All Leasing Services................ 57 Phone: 1-866-727-3750 Fax: 1-949-727-3850 www.alscopiers.com Arlington.................................... 7 Phone: 1-800-887-3040 Fax: 1-847-689-1616 www.arli.com/nxt BEI Services............................... 4 Phone: 1-307-587-8446 www.beiservices.com BTA........................................... 49 www.bta.org/BTANewYork CET Group.............................. 27 Phone: 1-508-802-9959 www.CETGroupco.com Clover Imaging Group...... 31, 33 Phone: 1-866-734-6548 www.cloverimaging.com Copier Exchange International............................ 44 Phone: 1-972-416-3000 www.ceicopiers.com Docukit..................................... 39 Phone: 1-562-274-9203 www.docukit.com Escalera.................................... 50 Phone: 1-800-622-1359 www.escalera.com 52
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www.enxmag.com | August 2018
Future Graphics...................... 19 Phone: 1-800-394-9900 www.fgimaging.com HP............................................... 3 hp.com/go/pagewideclaims Hytec......................................... 51 Phone: 1-800-883-1001 Phone: 1-407-297-1001 Fax: 1-407-297-4310 www.hytecrepair.com IDS-International Digital Solutions................................... 15 Phone: 1-888-372-3700 Fax: 1-562-921-1167 sales@idswc.com ImagineIT................................ 50 Phone: 1-585-872-5802 Empties@ImagineRecycling.com Intercom Exporting Inc.......... 50 Phone: 1-800-960-1119 www.intercomcopiers.com ITC Supplies............................ 43 Phone: 1-877-933-5558 sales@itcsupplies.com Marco....................................... 29 Phone: 1-800-847-3051 www.marconet.com/ BusinessSuccession
Mars International.................. 41 Phone: 1-973-777-5886 Fax: 1-973-777-5889 www.marsintl.com Mps&IT................................... 45 Phone: 1-888-823-0006 www.MPSandIT.com/fusion Nation-Wide Repair Service.... 45 Customer Service:1-866-655-8676 Technical Support: 1-800-798-1814 www.nwrsinc.com www.fusionimagetech.com National Copy Cartridge........ 25 Phone: 1-619-562-6995 www.nationalcopycartridge.com Nectron International Inc......... 9 Phone: 1-281-240-2222 Phone: 1-800-456-4678 Fax: 1-281-240-0468 www.nectron.com Ninestar Technology Co., LTD................................... 56 Phone: 1-800-817-0688 www.ninestartechonline.com NuWorld Business Systems............................... 10-14 Phone: 1-800-729-8320 Fax: 1-800-829-0292 www.nuworldinc.com
We Saw It In ENX Magazine
AUGUST 2018
Display Advertisers Index Quick Quality Cabinets.......... 39 Phone: 1-888-831-3030 Fax: 1-800-418-2525 www.qqcabinets.com
Static Control............................ 2 Phone: 1-919-774-3808 Phone:1-800-488-2426 www.scc-inc.com/allpage
Panasonic................................. 34 Info.panasonic.com/networkscanners
Ross International................... 41 Phone: 1-973-365-9900 Phone: 1-800-240-ROSS Fax: 1-973-473-8800 www.ross-international.com
Supplies Network.................... 23 Phone: 1-800-729-9300 www.SuppliesNetwork.com
Pinnacle Sales, Inc................... 17 Phone: 1-440-734-9195 www.psi-ohio.com
Salesmaker Carts.................... 39 Phone: 1-800-821-4140 Fax: 1-800-418-2525 www.foldingcarts.com
OES-Solutions......................... 37 Phone: 1-877-637-1240 www.oes-solutions.com store.oes-solutions.com
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Supplies Wholesalers......... 58-59 Phone:1-866-817-8795 www.SuppliesWholesalers.com TonerCycle-InkCycle.............. 21 Phone: 1-877-894-8387 www.inkcycle.com Toshiba..................................... 60 Contact National Distributors ACM Technology 1-800-722-7745 Collins Distributing 1-800-727-0884 IDS 1-888-372-3700 Supplies Network 1-800-729-9300 UniNet...................................... 35 www.uninetimaging.com Visual Edge Technology............ 5 www.visualedge.com World Of Fax........................... 55 Phone: 1-800-634-9329 Phone: 1-866-FAX-PARTS www.WorldOfFax.com www.CopierPartsStore.com
August 2018 | www.enxmag.com
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AUGUST 2018
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