Instead of their big annual dealer meeting, this summer, Toshiba America Business Solutions, Inc. (TABS) held two regional summits - one in Las Vegas, Nevada, the other in Jersey City, New Jersey overlooking New York City. We were in attendance at both shows and here are our thoughts.

The summits were the first major dealer events for new Chairman and CEO of TABS, Masahiro "Matt" Yamada. Mr. Yamada joined Toshiba Corporation in Japan in 1985. Prior to taking this new position, Yamada worked in a variety of Toshiba positions including product planning for the U.S. Toner Products Division, President of Toshiba TEC in Germany and most recently, general manager to the Document Systems Business Group at Toshiba TEC in Japan where he oversaw the American and European MFP operations.

During his presentation, Yamada addressed the rumors of the possible sale of Toshiba's imaging group to Canon by saying "We are not on sale," a comment that was repeated regularly throughout the show by various senior Toshiba management. Yamada also told the Toshiba dealers in attendance that the independent dealer is "critical to the long-term success [of Toshiba]."

President and COO Mark Mathews then addressed the Jersey City crowd of approximately 200 (240 in Las Vegas), discussing the challenging economic climate that has seen credit tightening, the slow-down and outright exit of leasing companies, customers increasingly buying out their hardware at the end of their leases instead of turning to new products and a decline in lease approvals. He also drew parallels with the drop in the U.S. employment rate and device page volumes in both color and monochrome printing. For a company where 80% of imaging products are sold through leases, today's conditions are even more challenging.

                              Masahiro Yamada - Chairman and CEO

While Toshiba's CAGR for monochrome machines is down, it's actually slightly up for color products - good news for any company given the state of today's economy, especially when compared to competitors such as Canon, Ricoh and others.

Like Yamada, Mathews also reiterated that Toshiba was not for sale. "The only thing worse than two teenagers at a sleepover is two copier dealers in the same room," joked Mathews as he poked fun at the rampant rumors from earlier this year.

Mathews then jumped into the meat of his presentation and announced TABS' four initiatives:

• Eco Innovation
• Secure MFP
• Encompass Managed Print Services
• Toshiba Exchange

Eco Innovation refers to Toshiba's green initiatives now underway to reduce and eliminate the use of hazardous materials, recycling programs, etc. Toshiba claims that they will improve eco efficiency by a factor of five by 2025 and by ten by 2050. Toshiba feels they are far ahead of competitors when it comes to being environmentally friendly.

Mark Mathews - President and COO

While the initiatives are respectable, it's difficult to say whether this will lead to increased sales as many of Toshiba's competitors are also on the "green" bandwagon, promoting how environmentally sound they are. Will being green sell more products? Maybe - but only if it doesn't cost the customer any more.

Secure MFP is a program that helps Toshiba dealers perform customer security assessments. These assessments identify security in four categories:

• Device security
• Access security
• Document security
• End of life security

Using Toshiba's Encompass Security Assessment, the sales rep uses an assessment program to assign grades within each of the above categories and to help the customer identify and fix potential threats before they become a problem.

And what dealer meeting would be complete these days without a long discussion about Managed Print Services (MPS)? Toshiba's MPS program appears to be far ahead of most other traditional copier vendors. Much of this can be attributed to the fact that Toshiba has been piecing together their MPS program a lot longer than competitors - for five+ years. Whether this is attributed to luck or a keen vision, their experience has certainly placed Toshiba in front of the pack when it comes to MPS.

Toshiba has a turnkey solution that allows dealers to buy clicks at a low price, add their margin, and then resell these clicks to customers. Combine this with the announcement made at the Las Vegas summit that Toshiba was going to offer Hewlett-Packard (HP) laser printers and all-in-one (AiO) devices through a newly formed distribution agreement and Toshiba dealers now appear to hold an advantage over competitors, all of whom have placed a big target on HP products in their quest to market their own respective MPS solutions.

The program offers guidance on compensating sales reps, a simple cost per page model and access to most competitive supplies. Furthermore, the HP partnership means that Toshiba sales people will be able to offer genuine HP supplies for customers that require OEM aftermarket items - a clear advantage in MPS, especially for color MFP/printer customers (non-OEM color supplies are generally not as accurate as genuine products).

It's only a matter of time before customers realize A4 devices cost a fraction of what A3 products of similar speed cost. Think about it. The customer will not need a long-term lease; they can typically buy these products outright, often on a company credit card. Once this shift occurs, dealers who do not sell MPS will find themselves trying to compensate their reps for selling A4 products that do not offer enough gross profit - a trend that will no doubt, lead to the closing of many dealerships down the road. MPS will help dealers justify the sale of A3 products. It can also considerably increase margins for hardware sales. Toshiba has a plan and has made it easy for their dealers to sell this profitable service.

Overall, the show was good. Very little time was spent on hardware - a rarity at shows like these. Toshiba used all the right buzzwords (MPS, security, green) and had a plan for each of them. During a challenging period, Toshiba seems to have a solid strategy, good products and capable leaders. While past shows have left us feeling that Toshiba was more of a follower, the last two have created the impression (pardon the pun) that Toshiba is emerging as an industry leader.

Andy Slawetsky, President of Industry Analysts, Inc. Industry Analysts, Inc., is a marketing and management consulting firm for the office automation industry. Much of the company’s research and testing results can be viewed on their web site – www.industryanalysts.com.