There’s little doubt that Clark Bugg represents everything that we love about Kentucky and its reputation for congenial folks who make you feel right at home. The easygoing, Mountain Dew-swigging director of North America dealer channel sales for Lexmark International knows how to hold court, kicking back to tell a story or two that makes one feel like you’re on the back porch, lifting a cold one and spinning yarns.
Certainly, that’s what makes Bugg so effective at his job, which in this case entailed welcoming representatives from 50 of the manufacturer’s top Business Solutions Dealer (BSD) partners for a summit at the company’s sprawling headquarters in Lexington from June 6-8. Bugg had the audience in stitches from the get-go; the opening night included a dinner and reception in Lexington’s downtown Limestone Hall, where he observed, “This is the old Lexington courthouse, and it’s actually the very first place we ever sued anybody for using reman toner. Just think about the history of it.”
Bugg maintained that pace for the June 7 full-day agenda, noting that the invitees (“we wanted to invite the best”) consisted of the “cool kids.” All joking aside, the emcee gave way to CEO Allen Waugerman, who painted a picture of Lexmark as a family company, inhabited by many longstanding employees. Waugerman himself is a 34-year veteran, having started with then-IBM Information Products Corp. at age 18, working on the manufacturing line. (A leveraged buyout of IBM Information Products Corp by Clayton & Dubilier in March of 1991 spawned Lexmark.)
Evolution by Design
Waugerman noted the company has more than 700 engineers in Lexington. Technology, he noted, has long been at the core of the firm and proclaimed that Lexmark has been involved in the Internet of Things (IoT) for more than 20 years. “We were IoT before it was cool,” he added.
Worldwide, Lexmark has seven million devices deployed in more than 170 countries, with 1.2 million devices under contract in 230,000 locations. The firm’s direct operations predominantly targets the enterprise set; its customers include seven of the top 10 global banks, eight of the top 10 global manufacturers, six of the top 10 largest U.S. health care systems, all 10 of the top U.S. retail pharmacies, nine of the top 10 global retailers, seven of the top 10 U.S. public schools and seven of the top 10 U.S. federal agencies. On top of this, Lexmark boasts an industry-leading 95% customer renewal rate.
Waugerman laid out the three pillars to Lexmark’s strategy, which entails:
- To focus on winning in imaging and continuing to lead in printing and imaging.
- Enhancing print services to better serve customers and partners
- Expanding beyond print with new technologies.
One of the biggest announcements Lexmark had to offer is being kept under wraps. As developments go, it’s of the powderkeg/game-changing variety. Speaking on the subject, Greg Chavers, vice president, North American business channel sales, quipped, “Keep an open mind as we boldly go where we haven’t gone before.”
The mission to explore strange, new worlds (or insert your choice of James T. Kirk-isms) will have to sit in dry dock for now. However, Matt Dollus, vice president of global marketing, and Chris White, director, global product portfolio, followed Waugerman with a look at Lexmark’s current and future product technology roadmap, offering a glimpse of imaging hardware, cloud services, MPS, applied technologies and IoT solutions.
Leveraging AI
Following a break, Vishal Gupta—Lexmark’s chief information technology officer—spoke on the importance of innovation. The subject of AI, particularly generative AI and the wealth of possibilities (as well as threats) that it offers, has been a popular topic across all business verticals. But as Gupta observed, it is hardly Lexmark’s first rodeo.
“We were a very heavy user of AI and have doubled down on its usage the last few years,” he said.
Gupta alluded to numerous examples of Lexmark’s AI applications, including print (predictive maintenance, anomaly detection, smart refresh, toner replenishment) supply chain, sales and back office (supplies forecast, hardware and options forecast, cash receipt forecast and price elasticity). Another application is its Optra Edge integrated hardware/software solution for rapidly creating and deploying remote applications at scale (e.g., disposal site stations, PC drum detection and front cover inspection).
The morning session was capped off by an executive panel discussion that included Dollus; Melanie Hudson, senior vice president and chief commercial officer; Billy Spears, senior vice president and chief product delivery officer; Clay Mooring, vice president and general manager of the Americas; and Kyle Farmer, vice president, global sales and strategy. The panel fielded previously submitted questions that spoke to the company’s vision and overall plan of attack.
Following lunch, attendees were broken into groups for a tour of the technology fair. The afternoon was capped with three 35-minute breakout sessions that covered Lexmark Industry Advantage (led by Larry Early, director, software and industry marketing), full spectrum security (Bryan Willett, CISO), and Lexmark cloud services and analytics (Daniel Hammond, solutions technology consultant, and Greg House, director, Americas professional services).
The full day of meetings concluded with a tour and bourbon-tasting event at Buffalo Trace Distillery in nearby Frankfort.
