After I published the article on the latest Canon Canonball program designed to take down IKON accounts, I received this off the record comment from a Canon dealer.
They felt that the program they’re offering a little bit late to the table, like too little too late. I think there’s some validity to that. Given all the time they knew ahead of when the actual acquisition took place, I think they could have gotten those programs in the pipeline a little bit sooner and been able to ensure a little bit more brand loyalty. It was a real kick in the stomach, there were basically three events that occurred that Canon had little or no success with. That started with the Xerox acquisition of Global, then certainly Ricoh and IKON, and Konica Minolta and Danka. As a dealer that continues to support Canon as our premier brand, it created a lot of low-hanging fruit for us and there’s no doubt in my mind we advantaged from being able to service equipment out there with loyal users and also there’s no doubt in my mind that the program that Canon put together in some ways helped us in acquiring some of that business.
The assistance they did give us in trying to maintain some brand loyalty definitely assisted us in acquiring some deals we might not have gotten had they not come up with competitive buy out or knock out funds.
