(Editor’s note: The September feature in ENX is “Diversification in the Supplies and Aftermarket Markets.” That’s the theme for this month too in ENX/The Week in Imaging. Throughout the month we’ll be presenting complimentary editorial that delves deeper into how various suppliers and wholesalers are broadening their product offerings. Our first piece addresses the concerns that some of these organizations must overcome in order to expand their product lines.)
Most everyone we spoke with about diversifying their product offerings admits there’s always a concern about adding something new.
Luke Goldberg
“It’s a question we ask ourselves all the time,” states Luke Goldberg, global SVP, sales & marketing, Clover Imaging Group. “If you become a generalist are you going away from your core competencies? When you look at the Clover Imaging Group, it started as a remanufacturer and collector of print consumables. Then it evolved from there to say we can take this platform of collecting a used consumable, remanufacturing it and then remarketing it, and that applies to other divisions of Clover such as Clover wireless where we collect assets like cellular phones and tablets, our Value Tech division which does repair of these assets for major carriers, but it’s still our core competency because if you can collect the asset, use the foundation for remanufacturing and reengineering, and then remarketing product, you can apply that to different products without going outside of your core competency to too great a degree.”
He adds that everything Clover has done on the services side fits into adding value to the independent dealer and its strategic channel partners, and everything on the product side one way or another fits into the realm of it’s a consumable item, I can collect it, remanufacture or repair and remarket it.
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- David Concors
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- Steve McBride
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- Brent Martin
“We always recognize risk in deviating from our core business, but more importantly we recognize the need to expand our business model beyond ink and toner to more products, services and resources,” adds David Concors, vice president of sales, Supplies Network. “Our goal is to continue to add greater value to the customers who rely on us today and create opportunities to help our partners thrive in a competitive market.”
“There’s always a concern you want to make sure if you’re moving away from your core business that you’re aligned correctly to be able to support that at the same level as your core business,” says Steve McBride, general manager North America, Katun Corp. “That’s why we always align ourselves with some of the major players in the industry, i.e., BEI Services with the software they provide for dealers service departments, Print Audit, one of your top three software [providers] on the MPS side, and Compass to help generate an MPS profit calculator. Again, these are industry leading partners that we’ve partnered with to ensure the level of credibility that we would expect our products to be able to give the dealers [selling them].”
Moving beyond the comfort zone is certainly an issue at Carolina Wholesale with concerns about how much mindshare and resources are being taken away from other areas in favor of 3D printing, one of the new areas the company is venturing into.
“With 3D we feel that this is something long term and different than 2D print,” states Brent Martin, marketing director for Carolina Wholesale. “Even though it has the word ‘print’ in the name and uses consumables, other than that they’re very different. But we see as a distributor it has the razor-razor blade philosophy built around it. It is a logical fit from the technical side for the copier dealer and the long term plan, product and fulfilling on the supply side of it.”
Joe Dovi
UniNet has been diversifying into short-run label printers, a product category very different from what the company has been historically known for. Joe Dovi, COO & executive vice president, says that diversifying into short-run label printers was the right thing to do. Initially, existing staff handled these products, but now they’ve brought on dedicated staff with a technology background that makes them better equipped to run with this new product category.
“It got so busy we had to hire R&D people and sales people that are accustomed to selling and supporting hardware, something we’ve never done before,” reports Dovi. “We’ve recruited people from the copier space and wide format world.”
Suppliers and wholesalers alike may find themselves treading lightly initially when the time comes to think about broadening their product lines, but the rewards of diversifying tend to be greater than concerns over maintaining the status quo.
