![\"kon\"](\"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/kon.png\")
<\/p>\nIt’s been a long month as this is my fourth and last dealer show of the year. And what a show! Konica Minolta has been busy to say the least and their efforts have not gone unrewarded.<\/p>\n
After a nice welcome event the first night, it was down to business Monday morning with the keynote, which of course opened with Executive of the Year (according to our friends at The Cannata Report) Rick Taylor, President and COO of KMBS, starting things off. Rick\u2019s presentations have always been some of the most enjoyable and he did not disappoint.<\/p>\n
Rick got right down to it, providing a crowd of about 325 dealers with a business update. Here are some highlights from the last year:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Total revenue is up 6%<\/p>\n
\u2022 Unit sales are up 9%<\/p>\n
\u2022 Software solutions revenue is up 44%<\/p>\n
\u2022 IT Services are up 59%<\/p>\n
\u2022 Dealer vs. branch revenue is now 52% vs. 48%<\/p>\n
\u2022 Page volume is up (yeah, that was a surprise to me too)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"kon2\"](\"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/kon2.png\")
\nWhile Konica Minolta develops products and services in many areas, business technology accounts for 75% of their revenue.<\/p>\n
Next, President and CEO of Konica Minolta, Inc. Masatoshi Matsuzaki took the stage to continue the story. Mr. Matsuzaki went on to discuss how \u201cKonica Minolta has one of the largest and most loyal dealer networks in the world.\u201d He mentioned some areas Konica Minolta is focused on, including security and SAS. According to Mr. Matsuzaki, \u201cSAS is another area headed for continued growth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rick then came back up to tell us more about Konica Minolta and where they are going. This year will be 10 years since Konica and Minolta came together to create one of the leaders in our industry. He told listeners that Konica Minolta needs to continue to evolve into an information management company. He noted that it\u2019s about identifying opportunities, as he referenced data showing the global economy will grow 40% by 2020, which he acknowledged is \u201can awesome opportunity for all of us.\u201d He then said, \u201cWe are going to stay committed to the core business,\u201d and \u201ceverything we do for the foreseeable future is going to drive print.\u201d<\/p>\n
He did go on to say, \u201cI don\u2019t want to bum anyone out, but there is going to be less print.\u201d Konica Minolta, like other companies (Toshiba marketing display technology, Ricoh and their white boards, etc.), needs to find new opportunities for down the road. He then announced that Konica Minolta is going to become the first vendor in our channel to offer commercial 3D printing.<\/p>\n
Other items of interest from the keynote included:<\/span><\/p>\n It was then Senior VP Kevin Kern\u2019s turn to take the stage with product updates.\u00a0 As Konica was woefully behind schedule at this point due to the length of the presentations (not a bad thing, just not enough time allocated), he blew through his slides so fast my head was spinning.<\/p>\n Kevin began with discussion around Konica Minolta\u2019s EnvisionIT initiative, which is their highly focused vertical market approach to the industry.\u00a0 EnvisionIT began with one vertical market, healthcare, which we initially helped them develop.\u00a0 They now have seven \u2013<\/p>\n Finance<\/span><\/p>\n The vertical markets are approached with solutions \u2013 some theirs, some through partners that address issues like workflow, mobility, customer profitability, new revenue solutions and more.<\/p>\n Kevin discussed their cloud services and their 1,200 cloud servers already in operation.\u00a0 He also talked about new products such as the newer e-Series panel displays, common accessories across models, new options designed to increase hardware margins and a new KM developed A4 platform that will finally put KM user interfaces on this class of product \u2013 a definite shortcoming of their current A4 lineup.<\/p>\n Production products were already previewed at PRINT13 such as high-speed inkjet for transpromo printing, improved light production products with extended service intervals, the new bizhub PRESS C1100 color series at 85\/100 PPM, more paper handling capability and more.<\/p>\n Another area covered was the continually expanding bizhub Marketplace, KM\u2019s version of an App store where customers can find useful solutions and apps to place on their bizhub control panels.<\/p>\n After lunch, Senior Vice President Sam Errigo discussed KM\u2019s solutions in more detail.\u00a0 He spent a great deal of time on EnvisionIT, KM\u2019s cloud services offerings, new solutions partnerships, connectors to new solutions and more depth on the vertical approach.<\/p>\n Following Sam was Executive VP of Dealer Sales, Alan Nielsen.\u00a0 Alan talked about how KM has right sized the dealer channel, cancelling or not renewing 184 dealers over the last five years, bringing the current total to 334.\u00a0 While this is a much lower number than other significant manufacturers, Alan talked about how the dealers they have now are very focused on the KM products and how they\u2019re actually selling a lot more product through fewer dealers.\u00a0 According to Alan, \u201cthis is by far the best performance in our industry.\u201d\u00a0 Their margins are also really good too from what I\u2019m told.<\/p>\n Later, I finally hit the product fair.\u00a0 This was without a doubt the nicest showroom floor I\u2019ve seen to date and they obviously paid handsomely for the layout.\u00a0 It was a definite wow and whoever was in charge of pulling this together should be very proud because it looked fantastic.\u00a0 Like last year, the floor was vertically focused with emphasis on mobile, production and new products that were spread throughout.<\/p>\n So here\u2019s my takeaway from the show.\u00a0 All Covered, the IT company KM acquired about three years ago is gaining traction.\u00a0 KM says 20-25% of dealers are now participating in this program.\u00a0 In case you\u2019re not familiar with it, All Covered provides IT services, including helpdesk to branches and dealers and essentially allows their dealers to sell IT services to customers with very little investment on their end.\u00a0 We spoke to Tom Minor, President of M&M Sales Company in Iowa who told us that he\u2019s had great success in this program and anticipates 10-20% YOY growth.<\/p>\n Nick Pegley, VP Marketing for All Covered told us that they now account for 10% of KMBS US\u2019s headcount.\u00a0 They\u2019re also starting a similar program in Europe, although there isn\u2019t an All Covered type of company to buy, at least not yet.\u00a0 Rather, they\u2019re buying individual IT companies and they currently have four over there.<\/p>\n KM has made 13 acquisitions under All Covered in the last three years.\u00a0 They are in 60 locations in 25+ cities, they run two cloud data centers, have 500 engineers, and revenue last year was $150 million, up from $30 million when they were acquired three years ago.<\/p>\n KM is finally filling in the A4 product line with their own products and the integration with the rest of the KM line should make dealers pretty happy.<\/p>\n Cloud services, both through All Covered in terms of networking, servers and off-site back-up, as well as cloud services integrated into solutions, are a huge area of opportunity.<\/p>\n While I\u2019m not convinced commercial 3D printing will succeed in our channel, the fact is, dealers do have a support mechanism for these products in that they require service, they offer a strong annuity stream and a nice pop for the hardware sale.\u00a0 We\u2019ll see how this rolls out but it should be exciting to watch.<\/p>\n My only complaint from the show was that it was so busy that once they got behind in the general session, they never seemed able to catch up.\u00a0 However, the bottom line is, the only reason they were in that position was they had so much to talk about and that’s a good thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s been a long month as this is my fourth and last dealer show of the year. And what a show! Konica Minolta has been busy to say the least and their efforts have not gone unrewarded. After a nice welcome event the first night, it was down to business Monday morning with the keynote, which of course opened with Executive of the Year (according to our friends at The Cannata Report) Rick Taylor, President and COO of KMBS, starting things off. Rick\u2019s presentations have always been some of the most enjoyable and he did not disappoint. Rick got right down to it, providing a crowd of about 325 dealers with a business update. Here are some highlights from the last year: \u2022 Total revenue is up 6% \u2022 Unit sales are up 9% \u2022 Software solutions revenue is up 44% \u2022 IT Services are up 59% \u2022 Dealer vs. branch revenue is now 52% vs. 48% \u2022 Page volume is up (yeah, that was a surprise to me too) While Konica Minolta develops products and services in many areas, business technology accounts for 75% of their revenue. Next, President and CEO of Konica Minolta, Inc. Masatoshi Matsuzaki took the stage to continue the story. Mr. Matsuzaki went on to discuss how \u201cKonica Minolta has one of the largest and most loyal dealer networks in the world.\u201d He mentioned some areas Konica Minolta is focused on, including security and SAS. According to Mr. Matsuzaki, \u201cSAS is another area headed for continued growth.\u201d Rick then came back up to tell us more about Konica Minolta and where they are going. This year will be 10 years since Konica and Minolta came together to create one of the leaders in our industry. He told listeners that Konica Minolta needs to continue to evolve into an information management company. He noted that it\u2019s about identifying opportunities, as he referenced data showing the global economy will grow 40% by 2020, which he acknowledged is \u201can awesome opportunity for all of us.\u201d He then said, \u201cWe are going to stay committed to the core business,\u201d and \u201ceverything we do for the foreseeable future is going to drive print.\u201d He did go on to say, \u201cI don\u2019t want to bum anyone out, but there is going to be less print.\u201d Konica Minolta, like other companies (Toshiba marketing display technology, Ricoh and their white boards, etc.), needs to find new opportunities for down the road. He then announced that Konica Minolta is going to become the first vendor in our channel to offer commercial 3D printing. Other items of interest from the keynote included: Konica Minolta Inc. is opening three business innovation centers (Japan, US and England) Increased headcount coming in both IT and dealer organizations Online executive management curriculum will be offered to dealers through Bluepoint Leadership and Development KM is combining multiple support centers for a new customer interaction center that will create a \u201cworld-class\u201d customer experience Rick mentioned that dealer trust is a big issue that manufacturers still need to address so he announced that Konica Minolta will work with Business Technology Association (BTA) council Bob Goldberg to review all KM dealer agreements to make sure they\u2019re fair for both parties.\u00a0 He called this the \u201cJust In Case Rick Taylor Gets Hit by a Bus\u201d program and he wants to make sure dealers understand KM\u2019s commitment to them so they can increase their confidence in KM as a partner, not simply a technology vendor. It was then Senior VP Kevin Kern\u2019s turn to take the stage with product updates.\u00a0 As Konica was woefully behind schedule at this point due to the length of the presentations (not a bad thing, just not enough time allocated), he blew through his slides so fast my head was spinning. Kevin began with discussion around Konica Minolta\u2019s EnvisionIT initiative, which is their highly focused vertical market approach to the industry.\u00a0 EnvisionIT began with one vertical market, healthcare, which we initially helped them develop.\u00a0 They now have seven \u2013 Finance Legal Education Healthcare Manufacturing Government Production Print The vertical markets are approached with solutions \u2013 some theirs, some through partners that address issues like workflow, mobility, customer profitability, new revenue solutions and more. Kevin discussed their cloud services and their 1,200 cloud servers already in operation.\u00a0 He also talked about new products such as the newer e-Series panel displays, common accessories across models, new options designed to increase hardware margins and a new KM developed A4 platform that will finally put KM user interfaces on this class of product \u2013 a definite shortcoming of their current A4 lineup. Production products were already previewed at PRINT13 such as high-speed inkjet for transpromo printing, improved light production products with extended service intervals, the new bizhub PRESS C1100 color series at 85\/100 PPM, more paper handling capability and more. Another area covered was the continually expanding bizhub Marketplace, KM\u2019s version of an App store where customers can find useful solutions and apps to place on their bizhub control panels. After lunch, Senior Vice President Sam Errigo discussed KM\u2019s solutions in more detail.\u00a0 He spent a great deal of time on EnvisionIT, KM\u2019s cloud services offerings, new solutions partnerships, connectors to new solutions and more depth on the vertical approach. Following Sam was Executive VP of Dealer Sales, Alan Nielsen.\u00a0 Alan talked about how KM has right sized the dealer channel, cancelling or not renewing 184 dealers over the last five years, bringing the current total to 334.\u00a0 While this is a much lower number than other significant manufacturers, Alan talked about how the dealers they have now are very focused on the KM products and how they\u2019re actually selling a lot more product through fewer dealers.\u00a0 According to Alan, \u201cthis is by far the best performance in our industry.\u201d\u00a0 Their margins are also really good too from what I\u2019m told. Later, I finally hit the product fair.\u00a0 This was without a doubt the nicest showroom floor I\u2019ve seen to date and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1649,1814,1865],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8918"}],"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\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8918"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8924,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8918\/revisions\/8924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRick mentioned that dealer trust is a big issue that manufacturers still need to address so he announced that Konica Minolta will work with Business Technology Association (BTA) council Bob Goldberg to review all KM dealer agreements to make sure they\u2019re fair for both parties.\u00a0 He called this the \u201cJust In Case Rick Taylor Gets Hit by a Bus\u201d program and he wants to make sure dealers understand KM\u2019s commitment to them so they can increase their confidence in KM as a partner, not simply a technology vendor.<\/p>\n\n
\n![\"pic\"](\"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/pic.png\")
![\"pic2\"](\"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/pic2.png\")
<\/p>\n