Business as usual. That was the prime takeaway delivered in Phoenix during Samsung Electronics America’s Printing Solutions National Dealer Meeting in March. The 1,000-lb. gorilla in the room was HP’s acquisition of Samsung’s printing business, which is expected to be completed later this year.
Matt Smith, Vice President and head of Printing Solutions at Samsung Electronics Americas
Samsung Electronics America may have garnered a reputation as a disruptive player in the printing solutions universe for the BTA channel, but when it comes to the transition of its product and service portfolio to HP, the plan is to make the process as seamless as possible for its loyal clientele. But the end is not in sight for Samsung’s printing solutions division. In fact, Samsung rolled out a number of new A4 technologies in Phoenix, along with a 2.0 refresh of its Samsung Printing App Center. The company is also ramping up its dealer recruitment activities, a clear sign that Samsung’s portfolio isn’t going away anytime soon.
Matt Smith at Samsung Dealer Meeting 2017
Eddie Castillo, Sr. Director of Sales and Marketing for Printing Solutions at Samsung Electronics Americas
Among those on hand for the dealer meeting were a pair of key architects at the fore of Samsung’s technologies initiative: Matt Smith, Vice President and head of Printing Solutions at Samsung Electronics Americas, and Eddie Castillo, Senior Director of Sales and Marketing for Printing Solutions. They recently sat down with ENX Magazine to discuss a range of topics: the HP acquisition and its transition process, Samsung’s voracious technology appetite, its goal to garner 20 percent of copier market share within five years and the targeting of the Millennial generation with current and future offerings.
Tells us about your career with Samsung.
Castillo: I’ve been here for nearly 10 years. I’ve worked as an engineer for 23 years in the industry. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Matt—he brought me over to printer marketing two and a half years ago. I’ve been supporting Matt as we move this business forward.
Smith: Eddie comes from a solution background; he’s been supporting print the whole 10 years—don’t let him fool you. He came from a technical background; he’s been that secret, shiny star by going into enterprise accounts and having us work seamlessly with mobile phones, displays, memory, and all the other stuff inside of Samsung. He’s been working with the other IT technologies.
Smith: I just hit three years at Samsung. Before Samsung, I worked at HP for four years running their channel marketing organization in the Americas. I spent 15 years at Intel as an engineer, started in the ranks designing servers and networking, moved into sales, and got an MBA. I was looking to go someplace that was a little more disruptive, where we could gain traction instead of already having it. I love Samsung’s speed and nimbleness. I got the opportunity to be a general manager and have service, solutions, distribution, and end-user sales, all in one organization. I’ve been doing that for three years, and led the transition from A4 to A3 to high-end A3 that went into a lot of enterprise businesses.
What can you tell us about the value that the Samsung Printer Division will bring to HP?
Smith: Let’s talk about the value that Samsung brings to the dealers. Over my three years of talking to dealers, I inquired as to why they partnered with Samsung. With that question, I get three answers all the time. One, a lot of these print copier guys in the market, they want to augment their print business. They want to get into the IT side of it, to get into the print side but transition to large format displays and monitors, tablets, and phones. Dealers also want a full portfolio. They know there’s a transition going on from A3 to A4. They needed flexibility and we gave them that. Dealers don’t always know how Samsung is going to disrupt the market, but they look at phones, refrigerators, memory—you name it—from an appliance perspective. Whenever Samsung gets into a market, they win.
The other thing is, [Samsung] has really filled in the HP portfolio. They want to go disrupt the $55 billion copier market and that’s what we’re doing. My team is mostly from the A3 copier market. Most of the guys are seasoned veterans with an average tenure of 23 years in the copier market, and a lot of them have the scale and experience of working with these copier dealers and know how to support them. The other thing they value is our nimbleness and know-how in being flexible with the market. At Samsung, when you ask for something custom, unique, and special, we can get it done in 24 or 48 hours.
What will be different about your engagement with BTA dealers after the deal is completed?
Smith: When you look at our goals as an organization right now, our top organizational goals are all the same: a smooth, seamless transition for our dealers to HP. That is job number one. We don’t want any impact, we don’t want them to see any difference from the day before the transaction to the day after it. The other thing we want to bring to HP is the most solid relationships with BTA dealers. We want happy dealers, profitable dealers, and growing dealers; that is what we are expecting to bring over to [HP]. After the transaction, we plan on getting back onto our market-share-grasping nature. Our goal remains to be 20 percent of the copier market in three to five years. We still want to offer IT products and the full portfolio. There’s no question right now that we’re focused on making things as smooth as possible for our dealers. As soon as we get over there and things are working, we expect to get back on the ramp we’ve been on from a growth perspective.
What has the Samsung team delivered to get the attention of the likes of an HP?
Smith: When I look at what we’ve delivered as an organization, we’ve been incredibly successful, potentially too successful, and that’s the reason we’re in acquisition right now. We have jumped from an A4-only OEM to our dealers, to an A3 and A4 full portfolio for the BTA channel. We’ve recognized that to do this correctly, we had to be exclusive to those dealers, we had to have restrictive products for them, and we had to under-distribute the product so that the dealers can make money with us. We’re also focused on the Millennial workforce, providing solutions that enable users to bring their own device to work, that are optimized for tablets, and that deliver the quality, reliability and aesthetics that people are counting on from innovative products for today’s office environment.
I’ve seen a significant shift in the enterprise. When I came here three years ago, we were winning a lot of SMB business. We’ve since been able to get major installations for Mayo, the Miami Dolphins, Roger Williams, Direct Energy—all deals we were able to get with the entire package. All of those things came together for enterprise wins that we’ve enjoyed over the last 12-18 months.
What were some of the major product rollouts at Samsung’s dealer meeting in Phoenix?
Castillo: Some of the innovations we demonstrated at our national dealer meeting are going to be rolling out this quarter and Q3. Hardware such as the M5360RX, a 55-ppm A4 device, which is complementary to our M5370LX. We’re also introducing a new engine our dealers have been craving—a 40-ppm color device C4010MD, printer-only engine. To complement that, we’re introducing an MFP, which is the C4062FX color desktop. These are the three spots in the mid-market print space that our dealers have been seeking. We’ll be delivering at the end of May and the first couple weeks of June. We’re also introducing the SmartUX Printing App Center 2.0 as part of our solution portfolio, which is allowing dealers to place their own applications based on the Smart UX platform that they’ll be able to share and sell to other dealers. Among those offerings, we’re also introducing the Smart UX Printing Kiosk. We demonstrated a Smart G Suite connector, and we demonstrated the Smart OMR solution for education, Smart Security Manager, SmartUX Mobile, and Mobile Dynamic Workflow. We had a lot of innovations at the dealer meeting. All new products and solutions that we’ll position to our dealers to take advantage of in the months to come.
What was the initial reaction to the transaction from the dealer base, and did the meeting help to clarify the future?
Smith: Most of our dealers have been through acquisitions before. They know that while we may not have all of the answers today or tomorrow, we’ll figure things out over time. It’s an opportunity for them as the market changes, that there’s some margin and growth opportunities for them. A significant amount of dealers already have great HP relationships—they love the HP brand, the HP team and they like the scale. Those dealers are getting a lot more excited. There are also some dealers who are cautious. They’re looking at what Samsung did for the BTA dealership, which is restricted product, under-distributed, exclusive, and want to make sure HP is going to follow that. They’re kind of in a wait-and-see mode.
Overall, dealers were able to see and hear from HP executives that were confirming and reiterating the same thing Samsung has been saying from a long-term perspective regarding the portfolio.
What are you doing to ensure and support the smooth transition over to HP?
Smith: It’s all about the four Ps—people, programs, processes, and products. A lot of our dealers know our service technicians, our solutions, our sales and marketing people. We’re working to ensure all dealers have a smooth move over to HP when it comes to these areas. With partner contracts, dealers will know they are HP-enabled with the Samsung portfolio on day one. All of our partners have been given contracts to transfer over so we are in the system and loaded inside of HP on the first day. As for programs, we’ve held them stable and consistent and are working to ensure everyone enrolled in our programs has a smooth transition.
It’s the same thing on processes, the claiming of back-end, claiming our smash, claiming any dollars and marketing development. It’s really the process in which we go through our daily operation. Lastly, with products, it’s about which ones are moving over, how they will be branded, part number changes and how they will be distributed. There’s an endless number of work streams in place to make sure the phone numbers don’t change, the people don’t change, the offices don’t change, the email contacts don’t change. By focusing on the four Ps, we’ll create a seamless transition for our dealers.
As Samsung is still recruiting dealers, what does this say about the future of the product line?
Smith: Dealers continue to show excitement about the future of the product line. Our recruiting efforts have actually increased, as we’ve had a lot of people reach out to us that want to be a part of what’s happening between Samsung and HP.
Eddie Castillo at Samsung Dealer Meeting 2017
The portfolio’s not moving. We’ll continue to invest in the Smart UX platform. That interface, that experience is not going anywhere. It goes back to the original reason dealers chose Samsung: they want access to a full portfolio of products, and that portfolio just got bigger. Our recruiting strategy really hasn’t changed, nor has the message that goes along with it. Now that people feel comfortable that the Smart UX environment is going for the long term, they’ll be behind it.
Castillo: Since word got out about the transaction with HP, more dealers are excited to be part of this whole transaction. It’s helping our recruiting strategy and we’ve seen an uptick in business since the meeting.
Provide some insight as to how Samsung’s product line is embracing the Millennial generation
Smith: This has been our strategy for a long period of time. Ever since we brought out Smart UX, Millennials have been the target of the change. When we go after enterprise wins and the dealer reps we approach, we’re much more successful with the enterprises that are Millennial focused. It’s where our platform is most impactful. Millennials are going to represent a significant amount of the workforce by 2025. They love to bring their own device to work. They want it their way. They want a corporation or an IT to work around them, not the other way around. They are mobile anywhere, anytime. The Smart UX platform allows you to work better with a display, a tablet, or a phone. It’s customizable. Our new A4 are smaller MFPs that allow for a more distributive model, which matches up with that desire to work anywhere, anytime. Our products are part of an optimized workflow.
What are Samsung’s goals leading up to and beyond the completion of the transaction?
Smith: The HP news is a short-term distraction from the goal, but the goal hasn’t changed. We want to be 20 percent of this market in a short period of time. We want to be a unique platform for unique customers around an innovative platform or solution that meets the requirements of this next generation workforce.
Castillo: We’re putting out some bold, aggressive goals that we’re all behind. We’re going to position 20 percent MS within HP and will continue to innovate around the Smart UX platform as we develop unique, customizable solutions for our enterprise customers. I think that is something HP will embrace as we move over.
