{"id":3368,"date":"2013-01-10T15:14:26","date_gmt":"2013-01-10T15:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theweekinimaging.com\/?p=3368"},"modified":"2013-03-04T18:44:25","modified_gmt":"2013-03-04T18:44:25","slug":"back-to-basics-and-shifting-focus-in-a-changing-technology-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/feature-articles\/2013\/01\/back-to-basics-and-shifting-focus-in-a-changing-technology-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to Basics and Shifting Focus in a Changing Technology World"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Andy Slawetsky<\/p><\/div>\n

When Andy Slawetsky, president of Industry Analysts peers into his crystal ball for the coming year what he sees is a continued shift towards A4 products. \u201cThey\u2019ve really ramped up in capability and robustness and have become a great alternative to A3 which is making it considerably more challenging for our channel. Nobody uses A3 paper anymore, nobody uses ledger, so where\u2019s the hook and how do you stay viable in this business?\u201d<\/p>\n

Slawetsky has a lot of questions, but he also has answers for dealers looking to remain relevant amidst the A4 trend. \u201cGo to your service capabilities and your product comparisons. As much as we like to say the machines are all the same, they\u2019re really not. Manufacturers put considerable R&D into their user interfaces and the machines do way more now than they ever have. It\u2019s getting back to basics in some respects. There\u2019s still room for \u2018My machine is better and here\u2019s why.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He also believes dealers can remain relevant by focusing on educating customers about how they can remove steps from the customer\u2019s processes and making them more efficient. \u201cWe\u2019ve been so focused on solutions and everybody is trying to push those so hard, dealers and resellers have gotten away from traditional selling practices,\u201d states Slawetsky.<\/p>\n

As far as challenges in the coming year one that jumps out at Slawetsky is the fact that companies are printing less or at least trying to print less. That will likely cause some disruption in the channel from other competitors and their new business models. \u201cWe\u2019ve heard that there are VARs out there using seat licenses\u2014\u2018print all you want, we\u2019ll help you print less, and we\u2019ll just charge you for the number of people you have printing and print as much as you need to,\u2019\u201d reports Slawetsky. \u201cThere are other types of programs like that will be a challenge for the traditional dealer to work with because how do you sell against that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Also key for dealers and resellers is the need to focus on more services. Slawetsky specifically points out Konica Minolta\u2019s All Covered program, which has been successful and well received as well as Ricoh\u2019s CHAMPS program. \u201cThese are things manufacturers are doing to help their dealers be more competitive and grab other business,\u201d notes Slawetsky.<\/p>\n

Another area where some manufacturers are helping their dealers broaden their focus is in display technology. That, Slawetsky believes, has the potential to be big. Sharp has been touting it for a few years now, Samsung is playing there too, and now Toshiba is making inroads there as well. \u201cIt\u2019s all about finding complementary services to help you remain a relevant supplier to your customers,\u201d opines Slawetsky. \u201cYou can\u2019t just be a copier\/printer company anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Industry Analysts has some initiatives in the coming year to help its clients be successful. Expect to see an enhanced focus on new-hire training programs for new sales reps. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to work with the manufacturers to either do their co-op program or integrate some of our training with what they\u2019re doing,\u201d reports Slawetsky.<\/p>\n

Industry Analysts started their brand-agnostic training program about three months ago and so far it\u2019s been going great. It addresses the high turnover rate among industry sales reps, especially young reps.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe turnover in this industry is just as crazy as it\u2019s ever been,\u201d observes Slawetsky. \u201cDealers have two ways to go, either hire somebody with industry experience or hire somebody that\u2019s brand new and unmolded. That\u2019s the guy we want. We teach them what it means to be a copier rep, how to cold call, the acronyms in the industry, what\u2019s gross profit, how to do demos, pre-closing, CRM, and what kind of information you need from a customer to start building a database to make sure you\u2019re an option for that customer.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Andy Slawetsky, president of Industry Analysts peers into his crystal ball for the coming year what he sees is a continued shift towards A4 products. \u201cThey\u2019ve really ramped up in capability and robustness and have become a great alternative to A3 which is making it considerably more challenging for our channel. Nobody uses A3 paper anymore, nobody uses ledger, so where\u2019s the hook and how do you stay viable in this business?\u201d Slawetsky has a lot of questions, but he also has answers for dealers looking to remain relevant amidst the A4 trend. \u201cGo to your service capabilities and your product comparisons. As much as we like to say the machines are all the same, they\u2019re really not. Manufacturers put considerable R&D into their user interfaces and the machines do way more now than they ever have. It\u2019s getting back to basics in some respects. There\u2019s still room for \u2018My machine is better and here\u2019s why.\u2019\u201d He also believes dealers can remain relevant by focusing on educating customers about how they can remove steps from the customer\u2019s processes and making them more efficient. \u201cWe\u2019ve been so focused on solutions and everybody is trying to push those so hard, dealers and resellers have gotten away from traditional selling practices,\u201d states Slawetsky. As far as challenges in the coming year one that jumps out at Slawetsky is the fact that companies are printing less or at least trying to print less. That will likely cause some disruption in the channel from other competitors and their new business models. \u201cWe\u2019ve heard that there are VARs out there using seat licenses\u2014\u2018print all you want, we\u2019ll help you print less, and we\u2019ll just charge you for the number of people you have printing and print as much as you need to,\u2019\u201d reports Slawetsky. \u201cThere are other types of programs like that will be a challenge for the traditional dealer to work with because how do you sell against that?\u201d Also key for dealers and resellers is the need to focus on more services. Slawetsky specifically points out Konica Minolta\u2019s All Covered program, which has been successful and well received as well as Ricoh\u2019s CHAMPS program. \u201cThese are things manufacturers are doing to help their dealers be more competitive and grab other business,\u201d notes Slawetsky. Another area where some manufacturers are helping their dealers broaden their focus is in display technology. That, Slawetsky believes, has the potential to be big. Sharp has been touting it for a few years now, Samsung is playing there too, and now Toshiba is making inroads there as well. \u201cIt\u2019s all about finding complementary services to help you remain a relevant supplier to your customers,\u201d opines Slawetsky. \u201cYou can\u2019t just be a copier\/printer company anymore.\u201d In the meantime, Industry Analysts has some initiatives in the coming year to help its clients be successful. Expect to see an enhanced focus on new-hire training programs for new sales reps. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to work with the manufacturers to either do their co-op program or integrate some of our training with what they\u2019re doing,\u201d reports Slawetsky. Industry Analysts started their brand-agnostic training program about three months ago and so far it\u2019s been going great. It addresses the high turnover rate among industry sales reps, especially young reps. \u201cThe turnover in this industry is just as crazy as it\u2019s ever been,\u201d observes Slawetsky. \u201cDealers have two ways to go, either hire somebody with industry experience or hire somebody that\u2019s brand new and unmolded. That\u2019s the guy we want. We teach them what it means to be a copier rep, how to cold call, the acronyms in the industry, what\u2019s gross profit, how to do demos, pre-closing, CRM, and what kind of information you need from a customer to start building a database to make sure you\u2019re an option for that customer.\u201d  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[82],"tags":[95,96,104,105,208,224,314],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3368"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3368"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3764,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3368\/revisions\/3764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}