There’s no denying that Mason Olds is a confident man. Canon U.S.A., Inc.’s executive vice president of sales was flush from the sterling performance his company had unveiled to hundreds of dealer partner attendees—many of them from the sales, service and solutions end of the business—during last month’s Dealer Summit in Nashville, Tennessee.
That Canon holds a commanding market share in many key segments didn’t elicit a self-congratulatory tone for the agenda. Like a racecar in the pole position, the open air in front of Canon is being leveraged to gain even more separation from the rest of the pack. The breakout sessions/workshops across four learning disciplines (sales, production, service and solutions) spanned between six and nine hours apiece—all designed to help dealers (and Canon) add a greater cushion against the competitors in the rearview mirror.
In this segment of Two-Minute Drill, ENX Magazine sat down with Olds to get his take on a range of topics concerning Canon and the pack that’s nipping at their heels. From diversification to AI and other influencers impacting the reseller market, Olds underscored the value of Canon in keeping reseller partners moving forward with sustainable profitability.
Talk about the guidance you’ve been providing to dealer partners for the past six months.
Olds: We see the market recovering from COVID, but as always, it’s a very competitive market. Before the pandemic, the market and enterprise print was going down about 3.5% per year in some years. Our strategy is based on taking on the competition, and our focus remains on leveraging growth opportunities with our independent dealers with the goal of getting back to 2019 levels. We were able to do that with our independent dealers last year. We’re very proud of that. The sales of toner and parts obviously were not back to 2019 levels. So in order to keep the growth that our company wants from us, let’s go after some of the competitors. I think our dealers have been doing a good job of it, as has Canon Solutions America. We keep it simple. We want to be the last company standing. We believe the market will get consolidated more and more, and print will still be a huge market—an attractive market, in a lot of ways. Again, on the enterprise side, it’s a little bit of a shrinking market. Especially in A3, it’s important that you take away from the competition.
The dealers, most of them in their individual markets, never had a huge market share. If it’s a national, private equity company, they may be 5% market share, so for them, it’s realistic that even if print falls, they can get to 15-20% or higher in the market. They’re pretty bullish. We’re fortunate to work with some of the best in our industry. We share them with some of our competitors in a number of cases, and we’ve been lucky in that regard.
What do you feel has kept Canon in front of the competition consistently?
Olds: It starts with good products. As is the case with ours, many OEMs’ products have improved greatly over the years. Our great service support is a second factor. Through service, you actually train the dealers how to make a profit. Another factor is the longevity of our employees. When you look at our competitors, a number of their employees came from Canon, and most went off into other industries and retired. The career longevity you see at Canon is unique to our competitors.
When it comes to partnerships, we also have long-standing relationships. They may not always love us, but when you have a long-term relationship, trust is key. Canon may not be known for being loved, but we are known for being trusted. We’ll take that any day.
In recent years, diversification and digital transformation have been the buzzwords many manufacturers have been citing as keys moving forward. What do you see as being the keys to growth as we approach 2024?
Olds: Every company’s a little bit different. While print is more than 50% of our revenue, we diversified into security cameras, and that’s been a very strong business with double-digit growth in most years. A number of our dealers have had success selling them. That’s been a winner for us. We bought a medical division, Toshiba Medical, and that’s helped us diversify our portfolio as well.
We’re also a strong player in the semiconductor space, with steppers and other types of machines. One differentiator from our competitors is that Canon remains focused on diversification in the print space and hits adjacencies with software. Our CEO did a great job in leading diversification when COVID hit. We’re also a big player in the consumer space; everyone was at home and needed to adjust to the new working environment, which led to strong sales in digital cameras and inkjet printer for their home. When B2B was down, our diversification was key, because those other businesses were booming.
We really started to diversify in 2010 when we acquired Océ, which led us to expand into high-end markets and remains a growth area. Expanding in different markets continued with the security camera and medical companies. We look at it as bigger than DX transformation. That’s the reason Canon’s numbers are better than most of our competitors.
AI continues to garner attention for the possibilities it offers, including ChatGPT and generative AI applications. Beyond current use for predictive maintenance, how do you see AI factoring into new product/service development for Canon?
Olds: Our cameras have used AI for a while, as does our OCR software. Right now, people have a hard time even defining exactly what it is. For now, it’s a bit premature to speak to future products and services, other than the predictive maintenance side. I anticipate there will be other disruptive technologies that can potentially change the marketplace.
Any other advice for dealers?
Olds: It’s important to your audience why you pick to sell a product line. Is it the best for your business? We added a dozen new dealers last year and we’ll probably add a dozen new ones this year. We’re getting strong, quality dealers that are selling competitive lines. Events like the Canon Summit, where we’ve brought in over 500 attendees, a lot of them salespeople provide a path forward through education.
There’s a thought in this industry that it’s commoditized, everything is the same. We don’t believe that. We invest heavily in the value of the Canon product line. We do hear from dealers that the margins keep going down, but these events give dealers the opportunity to go beyond selling commoditized products. We’re challenging the industry to up their game and push in areas like this. We showed many areas at the Summit not fully related to print—certainly not related to A3 enterprise print. It’s important to keep expanding the education process and never give up.
The industry may go down a little bit, but it’s still enormous. I’ve been around long enough to know why it is a great industry. All the efforts that everybody (including competitors) puts into training the salespeople, the businesses, and the consultants, is a model geared for success. The companies that followed them made a lot of money. It is a great American story to me.
Don’t take it for granted. You can somewhat determine your future by the amount of effort you put in. At Canon, we have a saying: If things are tough, you favor the partner and make them successful rather than yourself. In the long term, you’ll be fine as well. I think that’s proven to be the case with Canon throughout time.
