The process of
selling a solution instead of a copier, MFP or printer continues
to be paramount to the future success of today’s office equipment
dealer. With service and supply margins continuing to erode,
increased pressure from low-cost A4 alternative devices, and
customers reducing operating costs by reducing print volume,
dealers must have a plan to change their business models or their
dealerships could be in jeopardy.
Solutions sales increase close rates and provide higher margins
(2009 Imaging Systems Dealer Distribution Strategies report) but
they also extend the sales cycle, which can adversely affect the
sales rep’s ability to regularly meet monthly unit quotas. Perhaps
a larger issue is the fact that once a rep begins discussing
solutions, the hardware becomes a commodity and the customer may
be faced with situations where they can essentially buy the same
solution from multiple dealers. Is there a great difference
between running eCopy ShareScan Suite on a Ricoh compared to a
Canon MFP? Customers using eCopy’s hardware terminals will not
find much of a difference. If you get to the point where you’re
selling a solution that’s identical to your competitors’ you’re
likely going to wind up selling price, which will destroy your
margins.
What about embedded solutions? Does anyone know if ShareScan
operates and functions exactly the same on an embedded OSA enabled
Sharp MFP as it does on a MEAP enabled Canon device? Recently, we
read about an award that Konica Minolta received for their
embedded eCopy ShareScan solution. The award mentioned the
positive aspects of the solution in general, but did not indicate
there were any advantages over similar embedded solutions from
Konica Minolta competitors. Our question is, “Is Konica Minolta’s
embedded ShareScan solution any better or more effective than
embedded ShareScan solutions from competitors?”
In truth, Konica Minolta’s solution could be better and could
offer better functionality or some unique capabilities, but
realistically, the solution may operate very similarly, or even
identically, to ShareScan on a Canon, Ricoh or other MFP. We
haven’t read any reviews or reports on this subject yet. This
problem is not unique to Konica Minolta and eCopy. Most third
party solutions available from one MFP vendor are offered by at
least one competitor.
So what can the sales rep do to truly differentiate their brand?
The first is a return to basics. Providing your customer with
credible third party research like customer survey results,
reliability data and even productivity can help eliminate
competitors. Visiting a website like www.industryanalysts.com can
provide reports like these. In addition, there is no shortage of
awards and reviews from a variety of sources that you can use to
prove your hardware’s advantages.
Beyond this, sales reps should focus on the customer’s workflow.
Workflow is that scary dark word that everyone uses, but few truly
understand and incorporate into their sales approach. Most of your
customers likely still operate the same way they have for years,
yet technology has changed drastically. Add to this the fact that
your customers are continuing to be asked to do more with less.
With so many companies reducing staff during this challenging
economic period, your customers are being asked to be more
productive than ever, yet most probably haven’t changed their
workflow.
You can help them with this transition. It’s not about how many
pages a month your customer prints; it’s about how, when and why
they print them. For example, pitching a solution from RightFax
could help your customer reduce paper, postage and printing costs.
But saving your customer money by reducing prints or postage is
only part of the savings. You need to show your customer how the
solution streamlines workflow by removing steps from their current
process. This requires that you dig down much deeper into an
account than simply understanding how many pages each month are
printed, mailed, faxed, etc.
MPS is the solution du jour. Everyone is talking about it.
Everyone is pitching it. And everyone defines it differently. But
is anyone including true workflow enhancement as part of his or
her MPS solution? Xerox and HP are, and their respective
acquisitions of ACS and EDS leave no doubt that they are targeting
documents long before they ever get to the printer. They will help
the customer create, access, store, save, backup, print and
distribute their documents rather than just selling a printer or
MFP as they have done in the past.
Solutions do not need to come only from approved partners of your
MFP or printer line. Spend some time online and you will find
thousands of solutions, many of which are free, that help your
customers do more with less or leverage investments they’ve
already made.
For example, the iPhone offers Air Sharing, which gives customers
the ability to transfer files from a local computer or online file
server to their iPhone. Another application (“APP”) lets people
print from their iPhone. Software giant Oracle has a large variety
of APPs for the iPhone that help customers with business
intelligence, sales force automation and more. The point is, your
customers already have smartphones, laptops, netbooks and more,
but they probably haven’t yet unleashed the power of these
devices. You can help them to accomplish this.
Workflow improvements can come from a variety of places. If your
customer is an Adobe Acrobat customer, you might be able to save
them a great deal of money with respect to license fees by
converting them to Nuance PDF Converter, especially if they’re
using Acrobat versions that are more than a generation behind the
current version. If they can’t take advantage of the upgrade price
because their Adobe Acrobat version is too old, the cost
difference can be hundreds of dollars per license.
If they are using Adobe Acrobat Standard version, you may be able
to upgrade them to Nuances’ Enterprise version for half the cost.
In this case, not only are you saving them money, but taking the
time to understand how this upgrade can provide a variety of
time-saving features that, once implemented, can remove steps and
streamline your customer’s workflow will tie you closer to the
customer and turn you from a copier salesperson into a workflow
consultant.
By bundling a product such as PDF Converter – a product you may
not even carry at your dealership – you can help your customer
leverage technology and do more with less. Just because your
customer has always done something a certain way doesn’t mean
there’s not a more cost effective, more productive way to get the
job done.
Take the time to find out what software versions your customers
are using. Find out what the limitations of these investments
might be and look for solutions that might improve customer
productivity. Your customer may not want to discuss renewing a
lease on their MFP, but if you can alter their workflow with a few
tweaks and bundle the MFP as part of a solution that reduces costs
or improves worker productivity, the solution will pull the device
into the sale.
True workflow analysis and improvement is the easiest path to a
solution sale. Simply discussing document management with your
customer may not have the impact that a presentation identifying
actual bottlenecks or areas where you can remove steps from their
current processes will have. While dealers are struggling with the
best way to market solutions instead of boxes, the successful ones
will build strategies around truly helping their customers improve
workflow. Your customer doesn’t have time to focus on technology.
They need help from an expert who takes the time to understand
their document workflow and what improvements to it can yield both
in terms of cost savings and improved worker productivity, which
continues to become more critical than ever.
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.
