![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Paul-McKinney-L-Mark-Miller-R-June-2022.jpg\")
Along with copiers, MFPs, and production and wide-format devices, Eakes provides end-users with office supplies, janitorial supplies, office furniture and technology solution services. Furniture, office supplies and copiers\/service each account for about 30% of the overall pie, meaning the dealer isn\u2019t top-heavy or overly reliant on any one category. In a rural state dominated by agriculture, the ability to be all things to all customers is everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor Eakes, local really means local\u2014we\u2019re where our customers live,\u201d Miller said of the firm\u2019s 14 locations. \u201cNo other dealers can say that. Plus, with five distinct and separate product categories, we can offer a greater array of products than anyone else. When you combine that super-laser local focus with the offerings, that can really set us apart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That diversity prevented Eakes from entering red ink in the ledger during the pandemic. The company has endured the same supply chain issues across its lines (including a foam shortage that hampered the furniture space) and struggled to meet prior year service and supply agreement revenues. However, most of its clients remained in business, with the exception of large firms in cities such as Omaha, where employees were sent home. Being able to serve the needs of such a wide array of customers meant the dealer didn\u2019t fall victim to certain business verticals that were highly impacted. And while Eakes counts many agriculture-based clients among its book of business, the occasional transportation disruption served as a minor speed bump for the farming community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leadership Dynamic<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Eakes\u2019 corporate dynamic is an interesting one in that Miller represents just the third generation of company leadership and the first outside the family. Howard Eakes was busy repairing typewriters from his kitchen table in the period just after World War II and was succeeded by his sons, Dan and Ron, in the 1980s. The formulated succession plan has proven to be instrumental in the success of the business, according to Miller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eakes is also an employee-owned company, although not an ESOP. Dan and Ron were majority owners when Miller came on board, but since unveiling a financial succession plan in 2015, the ownership group has swelled to include 35 employees (himself among them) as the brothers sold their stock to team members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur people take pride in being owners; they\u2019re invested in the company, and they really take that to heart,\u201d Miller noted. \u201cEvery year, as stock becomes available, we look to get more employees into the group.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jason Tomjack, corporate marketing manager for Eakes and an owner himself, believes the increase in stakeholders has had a salutary impact on morale. \u201cYou can see that sense of ownership isn\u2019t just physical, but emotional, in how you come to work every day,\u201d he said. \u201cThat changes company culture too, when you expand that ownership group out to others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the possible exception of the janitorial business, which stood at less than $1 million at its launch eight years ago and is now a thriving $10 million operation, there were no turning points that catapulted Eakes to its current scale. \u201cIntentional growth has been one that allows us to utilize our shared services model really well,\u201d Miller said. \u201cAnd whether it\u2019s marketing, accounting, purchasing or whichever, we share every service we can among our locations. That, above anything else, allows us to scale quickly. We don\u2019t buy 10 companies a year. We\u2019ve bought 12 companies in the last 10 years because our mantra is slow and steady growth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n M&A Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A trio of deals in the past couple years underscores Eakes\u2019 commitment to fortifying its five business segments. At the start of this year, the dealer acquired a kindred spirit in OfficeNet, a multipurpose dealer with locations in Fremont, Columbus and Grand Island that offers office products, copiers, furniture and cleaning supplies. A year earlier, Eakes obtained Schwarz Paper of Lincoln, which provides office, locker and janitorial supplies needs. A third deal for a dedicated supplies company, Moneywise, provided a presence in Scottsbluff and opened the door for Eakes to offer its full catalog to that dealer\u2019s client base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Miller and company CFO\/COO Paul McKinney orchestrated the deals with the vagaries of market conditions in mind, hoping to offset slowdowns in certain product categories. \u201cWe\u2019ve spent a fair amount of time on strategy,\u201d Miller said. \u201cWe have a great resolve to keep the business growing. Our strategy is built to offset economic slowdowns in our various divisions through organic growth and acquisition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSchwarz Paper served not only our Lincoln market, but the entire state. It was the perfect target for us as we grew our janitorial business. OfficeNet has long been a strategic target as an office supply and Savin copier dealer in three of our biggest markets. And because Moneywise only sold office supplies, we were able to bring in our copier, janitorial and furniture reps and roll up the rest of our product categories into that market.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Miller feels he has a rather robust pipeline of prospects that are being evaluated, with the $1 million to $4 million range being the sweet spot. Given that transactions can be taxing on a company\u2019s support staff, Eakes is strategic on the product categories and markets under consideration. Timing also plays a role and it is \u201cdictated by what we can handle,\u201d he said. While he didn\u2019t give specifics, Miller noted there are candidates under consideration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Buying competitors during the pandemic period is a challenge unto itself, as the trailing three years\u2019 financials have to be vetted to ensure the downturn isn\u2019t masking underlying, long-term issues. \u201cWe spend a lot of time dissecting 2019, 2020 and 2021 financials to make sure we can see what we need to see in terms of real business they were able to generate through the pandemic period,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the strongest growth areas for Eakes over the past year was technology solutions services, which saw a 54% increase in business. Over the years, Miller\u2019s leadership team has discussed the merits of digital solutions and concluded it was difficult to form their own solutions company when it would knock heads against competitors with 20-plus years of experience. Initially, they felt it more prudent to partner with companies that provide MSP services but weren\u2019t active in the copier realm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe would just hang our copiers and printers on the networks those folks managed, and that worked fine,\u201d Miller said. \u201cBut we also began to focus on solutions products we could sell really well, such as PaperCut document management software and faxing solutions\u2014just a few specific categories where we excelled. We decided to create our technological solutions division specifically to take advantage of the fact that we had become pretty good with these products. So we separated that division, identified leadership, gave the reps some incentives and goals, and they\u2019ve hit those goals. It\u2019s been a good business for us the past three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Corporate Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Like many dealers, Eakes has found sustaining its culture to be a task. The pandemic and the Great Resignation have caused millions of Americans to reevaluate their personal careers, needs and goals. Miller sees culture as a moving target with the needs of employees constantly changing. Much emphasis has been placed on employees\u2019 well-being, and the key is delivering the message that a culture-minded business values its people. Still, some of the time-tested values remain intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHoward Eakes\u2019 success was based on hard work, customer care and great people,\u201d he noted. \u201cWhile we\u2019ve added a few more core values, those original three are the basis of our values today. Our people know it, we talk about it and hire for it\u2014it\u2019s part of our DNA. That said, you\u2019ve also got to move with the times to make sure everything else is good with our people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unpacking the industry\u2019s main focal points\u2014supply chain, remote work (not an issue in Nebraska), chip shortages, rising interest rates, inflation\u2014the one area of most concern in Miller\u2019s mind as the pandemic continues to fade is attracting and maintaining high-value employees. Nebraska is currently tied with Utah for having the nation\u2019s lowest unemployment rate at 1.9%. Thus, for Eakes, while culture helps keep employees in their current seats, wooing new prospects from the shallowest of talent pools will certainly task the marketing and human resources departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re really focused on retention and attraction; it\u2019s our No. 1 line item in our strategic plan,\u201d Miller said. \u201cWe\u2019ve worked hard to create better pipelines of people to recruit. We recently updated our full benefits offering and our flexible work policy in terms of scheduling and work location, providing more options than we have in the past. Keeping and attracting great people will be critical to our success.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n OEM Relationships<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the MFP side of the business, Eakes continues to solidify its relationship with Sharp, having won its 16th Hyakuman Kai Award (crystal eagles, which Miller refers to as the \u201cbirds\u201d) in the last 17 years. Miller appreciates that Sharp provides dealer care from the highest level of the organization, and he\u2019s served as the chairman of the Sharp Dealer Advisory Council for the past few years. The byproduct is what Miller calls a two-way street of interaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI get insight into the vision of Sharp\u2019s leadership, and our relationship has really solidified,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the same time, Sharp leadership gets a view into our dealership to help them determine what manufacturers can do to help dealers like us excel. We\u2019ve also had a beneficial relationship with Ricoh; we brought them on a few years ago and they have been great to work with. The addition of Ricoh hasn\u2019t taken away from our Sharp volume, but rather supplemented it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think Sharp has managed the pandemic nicely, as well as any company in the industry, and it\u2019s paid off. It\u2019s not just having product, but good product. Sharp has been a game changer for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moving Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Miller\u2019s strategic plan contains no less than 30 current initiatives, all working toward the same end: slow and steady growth. While he won\u2019t rule out a larger deal, most acquisition opportunities remain in the $1 million to $4 million range to supplement organic expansion. But don\u2019t expect any sudden growth spurts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m the kind of person who sets a lot of little goals in order to achieve the big one,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we maintain our focus on executing those smaller goals, we will achieve the very growth we desire.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The word flat generally isn\u2019t in Mark Miller\u2019s vocabulary. But it was an appropriate description for the financial performance of Eakes Office Solutions in 2021. The Grand Island, Nebraska-based dealer certainly gets a mulligan due to the pandemic, as do all dealers. And frankly, the flat growth was an outlier, as evidenced by the 8% growth Eakes realized in 2020 and projected 12% growth for 2022 once all the receipts have been tallied. Miller, the company president for the past 20-plus years and a 30-year veteran of the firm, has good reason to be confident in Eakes\u2019 durability. Steady growth has been a trademark of the firm since its 1945 inception, backed by 285 employees and 14 locations across the Cornhusker State. A Sharp, Ricoh and HP dealer that has blended organic and acquisitional growth to reach the $70 million plateau, the firm\u2019s true resilience lies in a catalog that\u2019s among the most diverse in the entire office technology universe. The reason is simple: Eakes maintains a presence in other business galaxies. Along with copiers, MFPs, and production and wide-format devices, Eakes provides end-users with office supplies, janitorial supplies, office furniture and technology solution services. Furniture, office supplies and copiers\/service each account for about 30% of the overall pie, meaning the dealer isn\u2019t top-heavy or overly reliant on any one category. In a rural state dominated by agriculture, the ability to be all things to all customers is everything. \u201cFor Eakes, local really means local\u2014we\u2019re where our customers live,\u201d Miller said of the firm\u2019s 14 locations. \u201cNo other dealers can say that. Plus, with five distinct and separate product categories, we can offer a greater array of products than anyone else. When you combine that super-laser local focus with the offerings, that can really set us apart.\u201d That diversity prevented Eakes from entering red ink in the ledger during the pandemic. The company has endured the same supply chain issues across its lines (including a foam shortage that hampered the furniture space) and struggled to meet prior year service and supply agreement revenues. However, most of its clients remained in business, with the exception of large firms in cities such as Omaha, where employees were sent home. Being able to serve the needs of such a wide array of customers meant the dealer didn\u2019t fall victim to certain business verticals that were highly impacted. And while Eakes counts many agriculture-based clients among its book of business, the occasional transportation disruption served as a minor speed bump for the farming community. Leadership Dynamic Eakes\u2019 corporate dynamic is an interesting one in that Miller represents just the third generation of company leadership and the first outside the family. Howard Eakes was busy repairing typewriters from his kitchen table in the period just after World War II and was succeeded by his sons, Dan and Ron, in the 1980s. The formulated succession plan has proven to be instrumental in the success of the business, according to Miller. Eakes is also an employee-owned company, although not an ESOP. Dan and Ron were majority owners when Miller came on board, but since unveiling a financial succession plan in 2015, the ownership group has swelled to include 35 employees (himself among them) as the brothers sold their stock to team members. \u201cOur people take pride in being owners; they\u2019re invested in the company, and they really take that to heart,\u201d Miller noted. \u201cEvery year, as stock becomes available, we look to get more employees into the group.\u201d Jason Tomjack, corporate marketing manager for Eakes and an owner himself, believes the increase in stakeholders has had a salutary impact on morale. \u201cYou can see that sense of ownership isn\u2019t just physical, but emotional, in how you come to work every day,\u201d he said. \u201cThat changes company culture too, when you expand that ownership group out to others.\u201d With the possible exception of the janitorial business, which stood at less than $1 million at its launch eight years ago and is now a thriving $10 million operation, there were no turning points that catapulted Eakes to its current scale. \u201cIntentional growth has been one that allows us to utilize our shared services model really well,\u201d Miller said. \u201cAnd whether it\u2019s marketing, accounting, purchasing or whichever, we share every service we can among our locations. That, above anything else, allows us to scale quickly. We don\u2019t buy 10 companies a year. We\u2019ve bought 12 companies in the last 10 years because our mantra is slow and steady growth.\u201d M&A Strategy A trio of deals in the past couple years underscores Eakes\u2019 commitment to fortifying its five business segments. At the start of this year, the dealer acquired a kindred spirit in OfficeNet, a multipurpose dealer with locations in Fremont, Columbus and Grand Island that offers office products, copiers, furniture and cleaning supplies. A year earlier, Eakes obtained Schwarz Paper of Lincoln, which provides office, locker and janitorial supplies needs. A third deal for a dedicated supplies company, Moneywise, provided a presence in Scottsbluff and opened the door for Eakes to offer its full catalog to that dealer\u2019s client base. Miller and company CFO\/COO Paul McKinney orchestrated the deals with the vagaries of market conditions in mind, hoping to offset slowdowns in certain product categories. \u201cWe\u2019ve spent a fair amount of time on strategy,\u201d Miller said. \u201cWe have a great resolve to keep the business growing. Our strategy is built to offset economic slowdowns in our various divisions through organic growth and acquisition. \u201cSchwarz Paper served not only our Lincoln market, but the entire state. It was the perfect target for us as we grew our janitorial business. OfficeNet has long been a strategic target as an office supply and Savin copier dealer in three of our biggest markets. And because Moneywise only sold office supplies, we were able to bring in our copier, janitorial and furniture reps and roll up the rest of our product categories into that market.\u201d Miller feels he has a rather robust pipeline of prospects […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1643],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50440"}],"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\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50440"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50450,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50440\/revisions\/50450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Howard-Eakes-Kitchen-Table.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Howard-Ron-Dan-Eakes-in-Truck.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Eakes-Adopted-Family-Christmas-2021.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Eakes-Office-Solutions-Grand-Island-Corporate-Office.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Eakes-Sharp-Hyakuman-Kai-Elite-Award-2021.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Eakes-Office-Solutions-Grand-Island-Showroom.jpg\")