{"id":63750,"date":"2025-02-13T14:50:58","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T22:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/?p=63750"},"modified":"2025-02-13T14:51:00","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T22:51:00","slug":"diversification-destination-toshibas-larry-white-shows-shortest-distance-to-profit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/the-week-in-imaging-twii\/editors-blog\/2025\/02\/diversification-destination-toshibas-larry-white-shows-shortest-distance-to-profit\/","title":{"rendered":"Diversification Destination: Toshiba\u2019s Larry White Shows Shortest Distance to Profit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Larry White, Toshiba<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of what magazine or analyst report you read, webinar you log into, or manufacturer conference you attend, they all have reached the same conclusion when it comes to growth opportunities for the office dealer space. That common denominator is diversification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, is your core product not selling well, or starting to decline? Simply sell something else. Yet we never include the fine print: the investments in people and infrastructure, training, identifying a technology partner for said product or service, etc. Subject-matter experts aren\u2019t cheap. And there\u2019s no guarantee that within a year (or even two) you will be making a profit. This is not a problem for a $50 million dealer. But this may be a different story for a $10 million dealer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What all dealers need is to have the president and CEO of their manufacturer drop in and give it to them straight. The chief execs do a good job of meeting with their reseller partners. However, Larry White elevated diversification messaging to an art form at the Executive Connection Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona, back in January. White, of course, is the leader at Toshiba America Business Solutions (Toshiba), but he knows how to use a bipartisan tone. In about 15 minutes (well, 12 if you whittle out his entertaining brand of self-deprecating zingers) White zipped through his diversification pitch with examples of how Toshiba and its direct branches have been able to spur growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are a few of the growth pillars White cited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Receipt and label printers: <\/strong>This is an area where Toshiba has grown by 166% since 2017. Thermal barcode labels have exploded in the ecommerce era. White didn\u2019t hide the fact that Toshiba struggled with it (\u201cWe failed sideways too many times”) and the company didn\u2019t have the track record of Zebra, perhaps the best-known manufacturer of label printers. The OEM was confident thermal printers would align with their business model, but when that didn\u2019t work, White pivoted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe changed our concept,\u201d White noted. \u201cWe have a really good enterprise sales group. So, we had those reps call some of the big accounts, and we had success with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toshiba attacked the business verticals that have the greatest need for barcode printers\u2014namely, delivery services and retail environments\u2014and emerged with some of the biggest names in retail, shipping and logistics across the United States.. The thermal barcode label space is fragmented with many providers, lending itself to transactional relationships. There was a huge need for fleet management, and Toshiba capitalized on it. Instead of employing the rip-and-replace strategy, Toshiba managed the incumbent hardware and gradually replaced those units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Managed print as a service (MPaaS): <\/strong>If print volume is dropping 3% per year, as many have suggested, then White sees Toshiba’s MPaaS growth of 24 \u00bd% as outpacing the print loss by nine percentage points annually. But the beauty of the Encompass MPaaS is how Toshiba has leveraged its patented \u201ceTAG\u201d system to mitigate one of the most time-intensive elements of managed print\u2014inputting all of a client\u2019s fleet into its database\u2014to increase efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have to send anybody out when we take over a fleet,\u201d he added. \u201cImagine the amount of efficiency that creates and the cost it takes out of MPS. It\u2019s been very good for us, very profitable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Solutions business:<\/strong> For Toshiba, this is the header for its digital signage, software services and professional services business, an area that has grown 74% for Toshiba. With the migration of on-premises software hosting to the cloud, the manufacturer enjoys deferred revenue growth of 22.5%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to software and digital signage, White notes that Toshiba doesn\u2019t \u201ctry to be all things to all people. We\u2019re very specific in the partners we choose and how we sell the product.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regardless of what magazine or analyst report you read, webinar you log into, or manufacturer conference you attend, they all have reached the same conclusion when it comes to growth opportunities for the office dealer space. That common denominator is diversification. In other words, is your core product not selling well, or starting to decline? Simply sell something else. Yet we never include the fine print: the investments in people and infrastructure, training, identifying a technology partner for said product or service, etc. Subject-matter experts aren\u2019t cheap. And there\u2019s no guarantee that within a year (or even two) you will be making a profit. This is not a problem for a $50 million dealer. But this may be a different story for a $10 million dealer. What all dealers need is to have the president and CEO of their manufacturer drop in and give it to them straight. The chief execs do a good job of meeting with their reseller partners. However, Larry White elevated diversification messaging to an art form at the Executive Connection Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona, back in January. White, of course, is the leader at Toshiba America Business Solutions (Toshiba), but he knows how to use a bipartisan tone. In about 15 minutes (well, 12 if you whittle out his entertaining brand of self-deprecating zingers) White zipped through his diversification pitch with examples of how Toshiba and its direct branches have been able to spur growth. Here are a few of the growth pillars White cited. Receipt and label printers: This is an area where Toshiba has grown by 166% since 2017. Thermal barcode labels have exploded in the ecommerce era. White didn\u2019t hide the fact that Toshiba struggled with it (\u201cWe failed sideways too many times”) and the company didn\u2019t have the track record of Zebra, perhaps the best-known manufacturer of label printers. The OEM was confident thermal printers would align with their business model, but when that didn\u2019t work, White pivoted. \u201cWe changed our concept,\u201d White noted. \u201cWe have a really good enterprise sales group. So, we had those reps call some of the big accounts, and we had success with it.\u201d Toshiba attacked the business verticals that have the greatest need for barcode printers\u2014namely, delivery services and retail environments\u2014and emerged with some of the biggest names in retail, shipping and logistics across the United States.. The thermal barcode label space is fragmented with many providers, lending itself to transactional relationships. There was a huge need for fleet management, and Toshiba capitalized on it. Instead of employing the rip-and-replace strategy, Toshiba managed the incumbent hardware and gradually replaced those units. Managed print as a service (MPaaS): If print volume is dropping 3% per year, as many have suggested, then White sees Toshiba’s MPaaS growth of 24 \u00bd% as outpacing the print loss by nine percentage points annually. But the beauty of the Encompass MPaaS is how Toshiba has leveraged its patented \u201ceTAG\u201d system to mitigate one of the most time-intensive elements of managed print\u2014inputting all of a client\u2019s fleet into its database\u2014to increase efficiency. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to send anybody out when we take over a fleet,\u201d he added. \u201cImagine the amount of efficiency that creates and the cost it takes out of MPS. It\u2019s been very good for us, very profitable.\u201d Solutions business: For Toshiba, this is the header for its digital signage, software services and professional services business, an area that has grown 74% for Toshiba. With the migration of on-premises software hosting to the cloud, the manufacturer enjoys deferred revenue growth of 22.5%. When it comes to software and digital signage, White notes that Toshiba doesn\u2019t \u201ctry to be all things to all people. We\u2019re very specific in the partners we choose and how we sell the product.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":53137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[80,1650,82,1638],"tags":[349],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63750"}],"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=63750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63755,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63750\/revisions\/63755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}