There was a time when people would say to me, “Oh, Impact is the copier company that also does IT now?” I heard that a lot. That was the frame; it was how the industry saw us.
But lately, people ask, “You’re a tech company that still sells copiers?” We expanded beyond our foundation. Not because we changed what we do at our core but because we changed what’s possible for our customers. That shift didn’t come from a branding campaign. It came from years of uncomfortable decisions. It came from saying yes to new work before we were completely ready. It came from letting go of things we thought would work but didn’t.
Now we’re working side by side with our customers to reshape how decisions get made, how work gets done and where people spend their time using AI as a catalyst. And that’s taught me something important about intelligent business evolution: The organizations that will thrive aren’t the ones that added AI to their service list. They’re the ones who built the capability to expand intelligently into whatever opportunities matter most.
AI doesn’t transform companies—it reveals them.
The Perception Gap
In this industry, we talk about diversification constantly: adding services, expanding offerings, chasing adjacent categories. And tactically, that worked. It bought time and added revenue.
But it didn’t create strategic capability.
The moment I knew we’d expanded beyond our foundation happened on a Teams call. We were walking through our services with a prospect, and when we got to copiers, they stopped us. “Why do you sell copiers?” they asked. Not dismissively, but genuinely curious, as if it was the odd thing out.
Perception is strategy. If your clients see you as a print provider, they’re not calling you for process redesign. They’re not buying transformation from you. They’re not trusting you to guide them through whatever comes next. And what comes next—what’s happening right now—is definitely AI.
That question hit immediately. This person was looking at us and seeing a technology company that happened to sell copiers. But here’s what they didn’t see: All our broader capabilities made us better partners for everything they were trying to accomplish.
Perception is strategy. If your clients see you as a print provider, they’re not calling you for process redesign. They’re not buying transformation from you. They’re not trusting you to guide them through whatever comes next. And what comes next—what’s happening right now—is definitely AI.
You can’t add AI to an unchanged narrative and expect it to land. Print is still a significant part of our business, and we don’t expect it to disappear. But the trajectory is clear, and smart companies prepare for what the data suggests is coming.
This isn’t just something we felt. It’s something the numbers back up.
Industry Snapshot: Strategic vs. Scattered Expansion
The pandemic and hybrid work have changed where and how people print. Global page volumes are down 30%, A3 fleets are shrinking and dealers are consolidating. Diversification is everywhere. But while services are expanding, the story hasn’t changed.
ENX’s 2023 reporting captured it well: Dealers are branching into water machines, EV chargers and postage meters. But few are telling a different story to the market. They’re still seen as copier providers with more add-ons.
…what matters isn’t the specific tools, it’s that we can build them at all. Because we spent years getting good at data management, process automation and cross-functional collaboration, AI development feels like a natural extension of capabilities we already had.
This industry is trying to solve a relevance problem with inventory.
AI isn’t a SKU—it’s a signal. If customers still associate you with toner cartridges, no AI tool is going to move the needle. Not because the tech doesn’t work, but because it’s not clear you should be the one delivering it.
The difference isn’t what you add to your catalog, it’s whether you’ve built the organizational capability to expand intelligently into opportunities that build on each other rather than just hoping something sticks.
Our Evolution: Building Strategic Capability
Our transformation didn’t start with AI. It began with building the capability to expand intelligently from our copier foundation.
We took on IT services, marketing, cybersecurity and automation. Some bets took years to pay off, and some flopped. But each one forced us to operate outside our comfort zone and build capabilities, not just capacity.
Years ago, we tried rolling out MS Teams. It took three tries to get it right. Each version failed for different reasons, such as adoption, structure and clarity. But we didn’t abandon it, we rebuilt it, each time getting closer to how people actually work. Same story with our intranet, our CRM and our service and project delivery models.
Those failed rollouts didn’t make us weaker. They made us adaptive.
That’s what mattered. Not the tools we chose, but the habit of intelligent change. The ability to make a move, learn something and keep going. We built muscle for ambiguity and iteration, the kind of muscle AI draws on and tests.
Transformation didn’t come from layering services on top of print. It came from rethinking how we learn, collaborate and define success while staying committed to serving our customers’ needs.
What separates us now isn’t the breadth of our offerings. It’s the fact that we’ve lived through real organizational change and came out stronger. We learned to expand strategically, not randomly. Building that adaptive capability meant mastering fundamentals that would later make AI possible.
The Foundational Work That Enables Everything
We had to get good at managing documents before we could teach a machine to understand them. We had to get good at business process automation before AI agents could improve workflows. We had to build managed IT before AI-enhanced monitoring could add value.
Each capability took years to develop, and none worked perfectly the first time. But each taught us about serving customers who wanted outcomes, not products. More importantly, each capability built on the others and made us better at our core business.
What We’re Building Now
Today, we’re applying AI to solve real problems for our customers. We’ve built tools that automatically classify and route documents and emails, AI-powered knowledge bases that meet our users where they’re solving problems and platforms that generate synthetic users for our marketing departments to survey and test ideas. We’ve built systems that grow context around customer engagements to help analysts strategize solutions. These aren’t flashy demos—they’re production systems handling real work every day.
But what matters isn’t the specific tools, it’s that we can build them at all. Because we spent years getting good at data management, process automation and cross-functional collaboration, AI development feels like a natural extension of capabilities we already had.
What We’re Building Next
Right now, we’re developing capabilities our clients don’t even know they need yet: AI agent technology that handles complex multi-step processes, data platforms that synthesize context from dozens of sources and tools that help people make faster, smarter decisions.
The companies in our industry that will succeed with AI didn’t start with AI. They started by getting good at change itself. They built muscle for iteration, tolerance for ambiguity and systems for learning from failure. They became transformation-ready first.
The next identity shift? Moving from service providers to strategic partners who happen to provide services. When you can genuinely help clients think through their biggest challenges, the relationship changes completely.
Soon, we’ll be leading customer engagements with AI tools not as add-ons but as the entry point to transformation. But that’s only because we spent years building the organizational muscle to make that meaningful.
The Real Barrier: Fear and Comfort
The biggest barrier I see isn’t resources or size. It’s fear of the unknown and comfort with what’s always worked.
Most companies in our industry could do this work. They have smart people. They have customer relationships. They have cash flow from existing business to fund intelligent expansion. They choose not to do it because change is uncomfortable and the current approach still generates revenue. It’s easier to add another product line than to question how you learn, collaborate and define success.
But fear and comfort are expensive strategies. They cost you the future while protecting a present that’s already changing whether you participate or not.
Companies that will succeed with transformation aren’t necessarily the biggest. They’re the ones willing to be uncomfortable, quick to learn from failure and committed to building capabilities that compound over time.
Transformation Readiness Is the Real Competitive Advantage
We didn’t adopt AI because we were chasing trends. We arrived at AI because we’d been building transformation readiness for years.
That’s the part nobody wants to hear.
You can’t bolt on transformation. You have to become it. If your business is still organized around legacy incentives, if your teams work in silos, if your story hasn’t evolved, the technology won’t matter. AI amplifies what you already are. If you’re built to solve real problems and work across boundaries, you’ll find traction. If you’re anchored in old narratives, even the best AI tools will sit unused.
This isn’t about whether you still sell copiers. We do, and our broader capabilities make us better at serving those customers. It’s about whether you’ve done the work to become something more capable and whether the market believes it.
The companies in our industry that will succeed with AI didn’t start with AI. They started by getting good at change itself. They built muscle for iteration, tolerance for ambiguity and systems for learning from failure. They became transformation-ready first.
AI is just the latest test of that readiness. Tomorrow it will be something else. The companies that master intelligent expansion will be ready for whatever comes next.
This work isn’t easy. Transformation never is. But it’s the only way to build companies that matter in the world that’s coming. The question isn’t whether change is hard. The question is whether you’re willing to do it anyway.
Because in the end, AI doesn’t transform companies. It reveals them.
