One of my predictions for 2009 was that Panasonic would drop it's copier line. Well, on Feb 12, a letter was sent all to all but a handful of Panasonic copier dealers that they were no longer a Panasonic Dealer but rather a Panasonic Reseller! The prediction has not come true yet, however this is such a major shift from traditional distribution that it may be the Swan Song for Panasonic's Copier Division.
A member of the Sharp P4P Hotel pm'd me some of the talk that's going around. Info came from a tech web site called techsconnected.
Here's some of the chatter:
"There had been rumors circulating that Panasonic was in dire straits. Some..................
"All of these I discarded, because Panasonic just recently.................................
"There was also a rumor going around that Panasonic was going to .............................
"Either he'd been lying to me, or he was just as blindsided..............................
More
"I just got off the phone with DSM, (former). Apparently Panasonic cut ........................
"If you have an existing Parts account, you'll keep it. Whew. That was my biggest ....................
"Machines and supplies (and supply items like drums, developer, PM kits) will be purchased ..............................
"KeyAccount program will still exist, deals ......................................
"Unknown if dealer co-op will ..............................
"Tech Support is shifting to the distributors. This is frakking .................................
"I don't know what Nick Miyake is .......................................
More inside the P4P message boards
-=Good Selling=-
A member of the Sharp P4P Hotel pm'd me some of the talk that's going around. Info came from a tech web site called techsconnected.
Here's some of the chatter:
"There had been rumors circulating that Panasonic was in dire straits. Some..................
"All of these I discarded, because Panasonic just recently.................................
"There was also a rumor going around that Panasonic was going to .............................
"Either he'd been lying to me, or he was just as blindsided..............................
More
"I just got off the phone with DSM, (former). Apparently Panasonic cut ........................
"If you have an existing Parts account, you'll keep it. Whew. That was my biggest ....................
"Machines and supplies (and supply items like drums, developer, PM kits) will be purchased ..............................
"KeyAccount program will still exist, deals ......................................
"Unknown if dealer co-op will ..............................
"Tech Support is shifting to the distributors. This is frakking .................................
"I don't know what Nick Miyake is .......................................
More inside the P4P message boards
-=Good Selling=-
3 comments:
this is going to be just the tip of the iceberg. I doubt that in 5 years there will be more than 6 manufacturers out there
All the Copier Manufacturers are being run by Foreign companies. Look at who is on the board or CEO's and you will see mostly people from a foreign country. I can see that they do things different in their country. They are all banding together to try and survive. But the end is just around the next bend. Do they have enough American Money to keep things going? They are all posting losses, trying to buy large companies and buy market share. Remove one company and replace it with their company products. So much for free trade.
What about the small busines man that pays most of the taxes and cares about how he runs his company, and takes great pride in what he does and how it is done. That is the person that the goverment sould be looking out for not the corparate giant. We need to take more pride in what we make in America and what we produce and not farm out all our products to countries outside the USA. We need to produce our own products right here in the US.
OK, what do my fellow dealers think? Would you sell a machine in your territory knowing that you may have a problem getting tech support and parts? I know my profits don't come from selling the equipment, but from after-sales support, the last thing i want is to piss off customers due to problems getting supplies and parts. (cough IKON cough cough) Who do you think am I now going to target market this quarter?
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