ALBREGTS<\/strong>: I started in consumer products with a company called Little Golden Books. I was in sales and marketing roles, which eventually led me to the technology industry in the 90s. Tech companies wanted sales and marketing experience because most people who were selling and marketing those technology products at the time were engineers.<\/p>\n Doug Albregts, Sharp Electronics Corp. President and CEO<\/p><\/div>\n I went to NEC, one of the leading display companies, and worked there for 13 years, which culminated in me being the senior vice president of sales and marketing operations. I had moved to the East Coast and done stints at Samsung and then American Express before I ended up at Sharp.<\/p>\n I was very familiar with the Sharp brand while working for a different Japanese company. I was attracted to the position because I had spent much of my career in display and other technologies, outside of the document imaging space. When I looked at document imaging, I saw that many tech companies don\u2019t have the gross margins that this industry has. The healthy margins at Sharp provided flexibility and the ability to drive different strategies.<\/p>\n Sharp was a leader in many areas. It was first for things like security, and it led the way with OSA (Open Systems Architecture). There was opportunity to evolve the products and more easily integrate software and other things into these products. Sharp was a perfect fit.<\/p>\n What has Foxconn\u2019s investment in Sharp meant in terms of product development and market strategy?<\/em><\/p>\n ALBREGTS<\/strong>: Foxconn is one of the largest technology companies in the world. Foxconn is part of building products for the best technology brand names out there. The company is also an innovator. When it made a 66 percent investment in Sharp, we knew we would have access to a bevy of technologies that we didn\u2019t have access to before.<\/p>\n A key area where Foxconn will help Sharp is the smart office. We already had displays. We already had copiers. We were launching cloud portal type products, and we had other software. What we didn\u2019t have was the technology to bring all of that together.<\/p>\n Case in point, we will shortly introduce a water machine that makes water out of humidity. The fancy part of the package is that it comes with tablet integrated into the product that will connect to the internet and allow us to remotely access the product. It will have a service component. That\u2019s part of the smart office.<\/p>\n For the smart office, we will consider any product that is connected to a network in the office with the ability to communicate back and forth. We are able to drive information from a copier to a display to a water machine to whatever might be in the office. We know as long as we can provide a smart office, there will be less of a threat that we will lose the copier business. The more connected we are in that office, the better chance we have to renew all those products.<\/p>\n How do you see the concept of the smart office benefitting Sharp\u2019s dealer channel? <\/em><\/p>\n ALBREGTS<\/strong>: Some will be more willing than others to embrace it. Sixty-five percent of our revenue is driven through the channel. That\u2019s an extreme commitment. It\u2019s mostly flipped the other way with most of our competitors.<\/p>\n The litmus test for those partners who want to engage with us is this: how much do they want to diversify? How much do they want to change their business and grow with us? A lot of them seem to want to do that because they don\u2019t see the longevity of just staying copier- or document-imaging only. They know they have to diversify their business.<\/p>\n We want to be the go-to partner to help them do that. Our whole goal is centered around facilitation. For example, we moved our entire back end, logistics and credit to Tech Data. It gives dealers a single place and portal to integrate third-party products. It will also allow Foxconn to deliver its other technologies and products, on one invoice to a location, to help diversify our dealers\u2019 offerings.<\/p>\n Will Foxconn\u2019s considerable manufacturing assets help Sharp in terms of costs or product capabilities?<\/em><\/p>\n ALBREGTS<\/strong>: Yes. Foxconn is north of $150 billion in revenue. Sharp is in the high $20 billion range. The company will bring scale, and it is looking very closely at how we manufacture products today and how we can drive a lower cost without sacrificing quality. What\u2019s best is that Foxconn is looking at how we can put more features and technology into the product.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t have a competitive A4 product. Foxconn will change the whole market dynamic by giving us the ability to enter into A4 and lower-end A3 categories, where we didn\u2019t have competing products. We are looking at other product categories and enhancements that I can\u2019t get further into detail on\u2014things that we didn\u2019t have a few years ago. We think Foxconn will provide us with a tremendous advantage. The question is not running into it too quickly and making sure we\u2019re doing all this right.<\/p>\n Have you seen dealer pushback from moving to the Tech Data portal or the Foxconn acquisition?<\/em><\/p>\n ALBREGTS<\/strong>: Whenever you move almost 400 dealers to change anything, it\u2019s never going to be perfectly smooth. It was a little bit rocky to start. We had some shipping problems, moving people over to the new credit arrangement, those types of things. But our damaged shipment rates, for instance, have been cut in half. We\u2019re now shipping out of five locations instead of two. We used to have many out-of-region shipments, but now that\u2019s been improved by having inventory in five locations.<\/p>\n In addition, it took on average about seven to thirteen days to get our product. Now most places in the country are getting it between one and three days. Most dealers\u2019 credit lines have actually been raised as a result of Tech Data doing credit. Tech has over 20,000 partners that it provides credit to. Tech Data\u2019s exposure and risk is much more minimized than ours.<\/p>\n The move to Tech Data now is very well received. Dealers go to one portal. They have access to third-party products, which they couldn\u2019t have accessed before on the same invoice. As an example, if they want to buy Tech Data\u2019s mobile telephony platform and sell subscriptions to that, they can do that through the third-party portal. It has turned out to be a tremendous asset.<\/p>\n The Foxconn investment has brought a sense of relief, because the financial cloud hanging over our head due to Sharp Corp.\u2019s financial difficulties was turned into a big plus quickly. We\u2019ve only heard good things, and we\u2019ve been able to show our dealer advisory council roadmaps of new products that are coming out. They see this as a tremendous opportunity to get access to products and software to do integration that they never had access to before. We want to be a better, an irresistible partner. Foxconn\u2019s reputation only emphasizes that.<\/p>\n What are you focusing on to keep Sharp competitive in the coming years?<\/em><\/p>\n ALBREGTS<\/strong>: Filling out the product line. To have a smart office, you\u2019ve got to have a product line that gives flexibility to that office. It\u2019s not a one-size-fits-all. We found that in the display category. One of the first areas where Foxconn helped us is building out our display portfolio. Now we have a good, better, best strategy around displays. We have interactive, wireless whiteboards that connect to the cloud. You can annotate on these whiteboards and send the information to a copier. You can move it to other interactive display devices that might be on the desktop.<\/p>\n We want to make sure that we have product to fill all the categories. Candidly, in the copier space we haven\u2019t done a good job of addressing all those categories for our dealer base. You can quickly move yourself out of a bid if you don\u2019t have competitive products that fit in every single category. We\u2019ll enable more options in all categories in the smart office space.<\/p>\n What changes are you making to your channel partner program or what additional resources are you providing to help support the smart office strategy?<\/em><\/p>\n ALBREGTS<\/strong>: We\u2019re going to get very, very simple and easy to understand. Dealers need to know what\u2019s available to them to help grow their business and easily understand what their net margin is on copier purchases. I don\u2019t think manufacturers do a very good job of that.<\/p>\n You\u2019re going to see us also provide more investment money up front in our programs. Too much of the onus is put on the dealer to perform and get something in return for that performance, as opposed to an up-front investment. That\u2019s how we\u2019re going to tailor a lot of our programs.<\/p>\n Another thing is that we will incorporate all those products I talked about into our programs and make them available to order off of the Tech Data portal, along with all of the third-party products, which will be included into our programs in some form or another.<\/p>\n We want to drive the ability to grow with Sharp. No matter what product in our portfolio they sell, we\u2019ve got to put our dealers in a position to succeed. Today, our programs are a little too complicated to do that effectively. Our goal is to become number three in the document space and number one in the commercial display market. To get there, we have to invest more, diversify and grow our opportunities.<\/p>\n What do you see as your biggest opportunity and biggest challenge for 2017?<\/em><\/p>\n ALBREGTS<\/strong>: It\u2019s around the smart office. I keep coming back to that because for us it is the space to be. The biggest challenge is, number one, doing it correctly right out of the gate. That\u2019s harder when you have a lot of resources at your disposal and a lot of options and opportunities. Picking the right path is essential in determining our success.<\/p>\n Second, if you look at the Q3 and Q4 IDC document imaging unit sales, they are not very good. We\u2019ve seen a significant decline in the market. One of the biggest challenges is keeping profitability as you keep unit volume up. We\u2019ve made a conscious effort to be competitive but not ride the price down with the downward spiral we are seeing in the market. That\u2019s how we\u2019ve been able to grow our overall profitability. If unit volume continues to decline, we\u2019ll need to upscale the pace of diversifying our business. Otherwise, it could be a very challenging year.<\/p>\n If Sharp\u2019s strategy is focused on the smart office, what market trends do you see driving demand for the diversified product line you envision?<\/em><\/p>\n ALBREGTS<\/strong>: The biggest misconception this industry has is that you can\u2019t make money\u2014or revenue will decline\u2014if page output drops or you sell less copiers. We\u2019ve seen the opposite where companies are doing an effective job of managing information. Even though print might decline, dealers that are managing information flow, information security and access to information are making more money with less print.<\/p>\n Those dealers can move information from device to device and wrap a service contract around that. They can install a wireless whiteboard and pull up information from the cloud and email the file or send it directly to someone\u2019s mobile device instead of printing it out. People are willing to pay for services that help them do those things seamlessly, and they are willing to pay a lot for it.<\/p>\n Print is still important, but we see information flow driving demand. For instance, we know a company that manages the entire ecosystem around HIPAA-compliant forms. Those forms change a lot. Hospitals and clinics would have to print hundreds of thousands or millions of pages, and then the form would change and they\u2019d have to reprint them all. This company did a great job of using software to manage changes in these forms. That contributed to less print, but it drove revenues up an excessive amount.<\/p>\n What is your most important task as a CEO?<\/em><\/p>\n ALBREGTS<\/strong>: The most important task is to align a best-in-class team and put them in a position to succeed. You\u2019ve got to put an organization in a position to succeed, and that\u2019s usually about having the right culture. Culture is having the right people, having the right approach to the market, being consistent, and being ethical in all those things. You\u2019ve got to set the tone from my job. When you hear Sharp Electronics Corp. President and CEO Doug Albregts talk about Foxconn\u2019s investment in the company, he sounds like a kid who has just been handed the keys to the candy store. And why not? He now has the technology, manufacturing prowess and financial wherewithal to fully execute the company\u2019s vision for its future. That is good news for Sharp\u2019s dealer channel partners. ENX recently spoke with Albregts about Sharp\u2019s smart office strategy and how he plans to leverage Foxconn\u2019s resources. He also spoke about the importance of the channel and how he will ensure that dealers will benefit from Sharp\u2019s success. Tell us a little about your professional background. What attracted you to Sharp? ALBREGTS: I started in consumer products with a company called Little Golden Books. I was in sales and marketing roles, which eventually led me to the technology industry in the 90s. Tech companies wanted sales and marketing experience because most people who were selling and marketing those technology products at the time were engineers. I went to NEC, one of the leading display companies, and worked there for 13 years, which culminated in me being the senior vice president of sales and marketing operations. I had moved to the East Coast and done stints at Samsung and then American Express before I ended up at Sharp. I was very familiar with the Sharp brand while working for a different Japanese company. I was attracted to the position because I had spent much of my career in display and other technologies, outside of the document imaging space. When I looked at document imaging, I saw that many tech companies don\u2019t have the gross margins that this industry has. The healthy margins at Sharp provided flexibility and the ability to drive different strategies. Sharp was a leader in many areas. It was first for things like security, and it led the way with OSA (Open Systems Architecture). There was opportunity to evolve the products and more easily integrate software and other things into these products. Sharp was a perfect fit. What has Foxconn\u2019s investment in Sharp meant in terms of product development and market strategy? ALBREGTS: Foxconn is one of the largest technology companies in the world. Foxconn is part of building products for the best technology brand names out there. The company is also an innovator. When it made a 66 percent investment in Sharp, we knew we would have access to a bevy of technologies that we didn\u2019t have access to before. A key area where Foxconn will help Sharp is the smart office. We already had displays. We already had copiers. We were launching cloud portal type products, and we had other software. What we didn\u2019t have was the technology to bring all of that together. Case in point, we will shortly introduce a water machine that makes water out of humidity. The fancy part of the package is that it comes with tablet integrated into the product that will connect to the internet and allow us to remotely access the product. It will have a service component. That\u2019s part of the smart office. For the smart office, we will consider any product that is connected to a network in the office with the ability to communicate back and forth. We are able to drive information from a copier to a display to a water machine to whatever might be in the office. We know as long as we can provide a smart office, there will be less of a threat that we will lose the copier business. The more connected we are in that office, the better chance we have to renew all those products. How do you see the concept of the smart office benefitting Sharp\u2019s dealer channel? ALBREGTS: Some will be more willing than others to embrace it. Sixty-five percent of our revenue is driven through the channel. That\u2019s an extreme commitment. It\u2019s mostly flipped the other way with most of our competitors. The litmus test for those partners who want to engage with us is this: how much do they want to diversify? How much do they want to change their business and grow with us? A lot of them seem to want to do that because they don\u2019t see the longevity of just staying copier- or document-imaging only. They know they have to diversify their business. We want to be the go-to partner to help them do that. Our whole goal is centered around facilitation. For example, we moved our entire back end, logistics and credit to Tech Data. It gives dealers a single place and portal to integrate third-party products. It will also allow Foxconn to deliver its other technologies and products, on one invoice to a location, to help diversify our dealers\u2019 offerings. Will Foxconn\u2019s considerable manufacturing assets help Sharp in terms of costs or product capabilities? ALBREGTS: Yes. Foxconn is north of $150 billion in revenue. Sharp is in the high $20 billion range. The company will bring scale, and it is looking very closely at how we manufacture products today and how we can drive a lower cost without sacrificing quality. What\u2019s best is that Foxconn is looking at how we can put more features and technology into the product. We don\u2019t have a competitive A4 product. Foxconn will change the whole market dynamic by giving us the ability to enter into A4 and lower-end A3 categories, where we didn\u2019t have competing products. We are looking at other product categories and enhancements that I can\u2019t get further into detail on\u2014things that we didn\u2019t have a few years ago. We think Foxconn will provide us with a tremendous advantage. The question is not running into it too quickly and making sure we\u2019re doing all this right. Have you seen dealer pushback from moving to the Tech Data portal or the Foxconn acquisition? ALBREGTS: Whenever you move almost 400 dealers to change anything, it\u2019s never going to be perfectly smooth. It was a little bit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2938],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23090"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23090"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23093,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23090\/revisions\/23093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Doug-Albregts-Sharp.jpg\")
\nThe biggest challenge for me is making sure we have the right people, and that we\u2019re giving them the tools to succeed. When you\u2019re having success, it\u2019s really fun to watch. When you\u2019re not, there\u2019s a lot of soul-searching going on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"