Thursday, April 29, 2010

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 4/26/10


Gathered from Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places!

- More proof of economic recovery for copiers. The Copier Network of San Leandro, CA has noticed an increasing trend for copier repossessions and other general office equipment in the United States due to the tough economic times. As a nationally established asset recovery company The Copier Network has the privilege of foresight to predict the economy’s coming up’s and down’s. However, recently, Copier Network has noticed a slight decrease in the number of repossession assignments, which may suggest the economy is recovering. (Preliminary forecast for Repo assignments in 2010 is to be about 15% less than 2009.)

- Fujitsu battle with its former president, Kuniaki Nozoe, continues. The latest allegation is that Fujitsu’s board allegedly offered the president “hush money” of $2.9 million, if he would resign quietly.

- Fujitsu launched a computer keyboard that is made with biodegradable plastics, called the KBPC PX ECO keyboard.

- Fujitsu announced it will spend $537.3 million to upgrade its data centers to offer cloud computing (possible price of 30 cents per hour)

- Fujitsu hired John Hanley as Application Division Managing Director, who will be tasked with 3 year plan to double revenue from custom customer applications.

- Pitney Bowes announced it will expand its relationship with Riso to sell the Riso ComColor color inkjet systems. These Olympus made models will be marketed through Pitney Bowes offices nationwide (which may be why Riso is apparently closing its own branches in the U.S.)
- Some customers still prefer the TIFF format for scanning instead of PDF:
o TIFF stands for “Tagged Image File Format”
o works well with CAD programs, and geographic info systems
o file structure is simpler
o originally developed by Aldus Corp, in 1986 (which sold out to Adobe)
o bitmap format
o files are very difficult to alter
o suitable for storing many pages of a single fax in a single file
o better compression algorithms to make files smaller

- Clearwell Systems announced it sold an eDiscovery software package to Wyatt Tarrant & Combs, a 200 attorney law firm with 7 offices in South Central U.S. and Colorado.

- Kodak’s CEO, Antonio Perez, stated that he plans on Kodak generating $250 million to $350 million per year in patent licensing revenue. Details:
o Program actually started during tenure of former Kodak CEO, Dan Carp.
o Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975
o Kodak has reported only one full year of profit since 2004 (in 2007)
o Kodak filed lawsuits against Apple Computer and Research in Motion Ltd. (makers of Blackberry) for patent infringement.
o Apple countersued claiming that Kodak is using its digital processing technologies
o Received $550 million from Samsung to settle lawsuit
o Received $400 million from LG Electronics to settle lawsuit
o Has 30 licensing agreements now in place, including Nokia, Sony, Motorola, etc.

- In the court case “Ghods versus Citicorp”, the judge ruled that just because a copier experienced service problem, the customer (Ghods) is still responsible for making lease payments.

- Nuance announced new features for eCopy ShareScan:
o Document Conversion Extender which enables customers to turn paper documents into fully-formatted Microsoft Word, Excel and RTF (rich text format) files
o The OCR (optical character recognition) engine has been improved to offer 50% more accuracy
o The OCR engine is now 30% more accurate than other middleware solutions
o Forms Processing Extender enables customer to route and process paper forms, including ability to extract data and perform automated database look-ups ($995 per MFP)
o Available OCR SDK (software developer kit) & API (application program interface) making it easier for other software vendors to connect to eCopy
o Support for 3D capture for book scanning
o Export to over 100 formats, including eBook and audio book
o Scan-to-redaction allows keywords or phrases to automatically remove sensitive information with results printed to redacted copy or sent to user as redacted PDF file
o Scan-to-highlight results in a paper-search feature that finds and highlights info hidden within stacks of paper, with highlighted document either printed or sent as PDF

- Zoran Corp. of Sunnyvale, CA, which makes print controllers for many MFP manufacturers, announced a new controller called the “Inferno” offering:
o Uses Linux with Quatro RISC processor
o 10/100/1000BaseT ports
o Zoran also makes controllers for DVD players, digital cameras, cell phones and cable TV boxes.
- Toshiba announced it is launching a new series of hands-on workshops to teach its dealers how to sell Managed Print Services and Professional Services. Details:
o Classes held in Washington DC, Dallas, Irvine & Chicago
o Speakers include employees of Toshiba, HP, Lexmark and Strategy Development
o Launched by Toshiba’s VP of Marketing, Bill Melo
o There is no charge to attend

- Toshiba announced that it won four awards in the 2010 BERTL Readers’ Choice Awards:
o Total Solution Provider in the Overall Manufacturer Award Division
o Environment Sustainability
o Workflow Integration
o Output Quality for the Toshiba e-STUDIO5520c/6520c/6530c series.

- Toshiba expects to report a big loss in the financial year just ended:
o expects a net loss of ¥20 billion (US$215 million) for the fiscal year that ended in March
o Sales are expected to come in at ¥6.38 trillion, which is a slight drop from the ¥6.4 trillion that was predicted in January

- Microsoft released results of a survey that showed:
o Most small and midsize businesses (SMB) will be spending more on IT in 2010
o 64% stated that they will spend more, compared with 23% in 2009
o Overall spending expected to increase 16% over 2009 levels
o 19% expect to use cloud based services
o 74% will use more remote workers
o 52% admitted to storing a document on a company server and never finding it again
o 39% state that their company does not have any guidelines for storing documents

- Copier data security in the news. CBS network TV affiliates across the U.S. are airing investigative reports reporting to the general public that many copiers with hard drives that companies have traded in, still have confidential information stored on the hard drive, that may wind up in the wrong hands when the copiers are remarketed to new customers. Sample of customers that inadvertently exposed data when they traded in their copiers:
o Buffalo, NY Police Department (Toshiba copiers)
o Tommy Bahama stores
o Affinity Health Plan of New York
o The copiers involved were all made prior to 2008, which means they were made before most vendors introduced hard drive encryption or disk overwrite features

- Rochester Software Associates (RSA) won “Best of Show” awards during the current OnDemand trade show in Philadelphia:
o RSA WebCRD Web-to-Print software
o RSA KDKPrint SMARTBOARD conversion software (converts Kodak proprietary format to PS or PDF)
o RSA SurePreview previewsa job onscreen as a finishied product using WebCRD

- Cason Research predicts that digital color page volume in North America will grow from 10% of all digital pages in 2008 to almost 50%, more than 325 billion pages, by 2017.

- According to BuyerZone, here is average street pricing of document management software systems:
o $3,000 for entry level system with less than 10 users
o $6000 for small system with 10+ users
o $25,000 to $80,000 for mid-sized system with up to 100 users
o $500,000 for enterprise level (hundreds of users)

- United Stationers Supply Co., a large nationwide office supply distributor headquartered in Illinois, announced it has made a minority investment in NER Data Corp., which refills toner cartridges, offers generic printer parts, and provides a Managed Print Services program.

- Apple Computer has filed a patent application for a color computer monitor that will use special filters to display CMYK, instead of traditional RGB. Unknown when and if product will actually be launched.

- Rosetta Technologies announced it will sell MICR (magnetic image character recognition) toner that supposedly will work in 90, 110 & 135ppm Ricoh production print b/w copiers.

- Ricoh announced that in Australia, it will resell EFI PrintSmith MIS software, which is used by printshops to manage their business. EFI normally sells this product directly to printshop owners, so Ricoh is testing this in one country, and may offer it in the future in the U.S.

- Ricoh gave out some details about its last fiscal year end performance:
o operating profit is 44% larger than originally forecast due to cost cutting measures (massive layoffs)
o operating profit of $697 million

- Equitrac announced it has hired Eric Rodriquez as its VP of Direct Professional Sales, focusing on selling to the legal vertical market. Details:
o Eric started his career at IKON in Chicago
o Then worked as sales manager for C2 Legal
o Founded and become CEO of Ribstone Systems (since he now left Ribstone, some are reporting that Ribstone is going out of business, which would be bad news for all the law firms in the U.S. that bought Canon imageRUNNERs with Ribstone/MEAP embedded)

- Carlson Marketing reported results of a survey regarding building relationships with customers:
o Average company loses 10-30% of its customers every year
o Average company loses 50% of its customers every 5 years
o 50% of buyers claim they’d never do business with a company again if it took more than one day to resolve one of their customer service issues (i.e. billing, etc.)
o Proactively soliciting feedback from customers provides 15-20% more cross-selling and upselling opportunities
o More than 66% of companies that communicate with their buyers via weekly or monthly newsletters increase loyalty
o Buyers who receive regular contact are 4 times more likely to recommend a business to a friend or collegue

- Samsung puts convict back in his job. Even though he was convicted of criminal tax evasion charges in connection with massive slush fund and bribery network scandal, South Korean President lee Myung-bak pardoned Lee Kun-hee, former Samsung chairman. Samsung announced that he was rehired and given his title back.

- Kyocera has hired Peter Cybuck, formerly of Ricoh and Sharp, to lead new data security initiative for future MFPs.

- Kyocera’s president and CEO, Mike Pietrunti, announced that the company is looking to add dealers in Salt Lake City, Denver, Phoenix and Houston. (it lost dealers it had in last couple of years due to acquisitions)

- More data security issues. A vendor survey of more than 200 hospital executives finds instances of health information data breaches and medical identity theft continue to increase despite new federal regulations like the breach notification rule and the Red Flag rules

o Identity Force, a Framingham, Mass.-based vendor of identity theft prevention services, conducted the survey between March 30 and April 13 among members of the American Hospital Association. The company received e-mail outreach assistance from the AHA, which previously endorsed its services. Survey findings include:
 Some 41.5 percent of responding hospitals have 10 or more data breaches annually, up 121 percent from a similar survey done in 2009. Twenty percent of respondents have at least 20 breaches annually.
 Fifty-six percent of respondents believe the health reform law either will not change or will increase instances of medical identity theft. Yet, 71 percent of the hospitals, on average, investigate fewer than 50 possible cases of misuse of identity each year and 34 percent don't keep good patient ID records.
 Only 15.7 percent of respondents believe they are in good compliance with security provisions of the HITECH Act; 48 percent don't know if their vendors and business associates are in compliance.

-=Good Selling=-

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

TWIC Notes "This Week in Canon"


Gathered from Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places!

Canon announced is has authorized Docutrend Imaging Solutions as a full line dealer.

Details:
o Approved by Mark J. Chisamore, Canon U.S.A. channel sales manager
o Docutrend President is Aaron Rubin
o In 2009, Docutrend ranked as the 10th fastest growing solutions provider on CMP Media's annual Fast Growth 100 list.
o Earlier this year Docutrend opened a state-of-the art facility in Totowa, NJ, bringing warehousing and back office operations under one roof.
o Founded in 2002
o Already a dealer for Sharp and Savin

- Canon finally moving copier factory to China? According to Shanghai Daily newspaper, Canon’s managing director, Katsuichi Shimizu, Canon is considering opening up a plant on Chinese mainland to lower manufacturing costs. Besides Japan, Canon currently has factories in Thailand and Vietnam.

- Canon announced the grand opening of new office in Rhode Island:
o Located at 117 Metro Center Boulevard in Warwick (in metro Providence)
o 15 sales and service employees, with plans for growth
o 4,400-square-foot facility includes a state-of-the-art showroom
o Will report to Jeff Fernandez
o Part of a major national expansion which has resulted in the opening of offices in 15 metropolitan areas in the last year

-=Good Selling=-

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

You know what they need to do, so why isn't your team selling?


Couple of weeks ago I put a call out to Leslie Simone to ask Leslie if she would write a "guest blog" for the Print4Pay "MFP Solutions Blog". I had the opportunity to work with Leslie for a short while last year and found her dedication, desire and determination was nothing short of outstanding. So, it's with great please that we post her "guest blog" for all of our readers.

You know what they need to do, so why isn't your team selling?


Your firm has leading edge products, and virtually every business in the surrounding zip codes could use one of your offerings. . . So why aren't your salespeople selling?

To increase revenue and profitability, technology firms all over the globe, in every language, plead with their sales people to “drive more activity, study the products, use presentation materials with clients”. . .and so on. So if the advice is sound, why aren't salespeople doing it? Why are well-intentioned mangers with shiny shoes often unable to alter sales behaviors with costly industry training seminars, and the standard weekly 15-minute-sales-meeting-scolding?

There is a deeper reason that sales people aren't hitting their highest potential. It is their negative traits. Early in my own technology sales career, I knew I needed to be involved in more situations. But I am a perfectionist. At first, I would book 13+ meetings each week, but then not be able to prepare all of the proposals to my satisfaction, I'd feel foolish in front of customers, or arrive late, laptop trailing, calculating last minute solution options in the clients' parking lots. So my larger-than-life perfectionist trait decided that I simply needed to make fewer meetings, and ensure that I rarely lost a situation. Inevitably, I then spent even more time working on bullet-proof proposals and facts. Meanwhile, looking at my impressive closing ratio, our President kept wringing his hands, begging me to make more calls. It wasn't until I identified my perfectionist trait that I actually envisioned a way to successfully alter my behavior, balancing a strong closing ratio, and a healthy sales funnel. I saw that while the good side of the trait had helped me win awards, as I took on more responsibility, that trait that was like a boat anchor, virtually halting my progress. Once I distinguished the negative impact of the trait, I willingly gave up my need to run nine possible scenarios for each proposal--which the client never knew, nor needed. I also became more adept at building relationships, as I focused less on my masterpiece of numbers. By examining and owning my perfectionism trait, I had the freedom to design something that worked for both me, and the organization, to spur each of our success. And then finally regained time for the occasional round of golf. . .

Where have you been thinking that your company has unrealistic demands, or that your employees simply “don't get it?” Summon the courage and heroism to interview your co-workers and ask them which negative trait they see in your way, and then commit to taking it on this month. Suddenly, you'll find that a lot more of your aims are in your control. . . . Good selling!

For additional insight or information about how to increase capacity, improve the quality of work, or shorten the sales cycle, contact leslie@handelgroup.com or visit www.handelgroup.com.

Bio: Leslie Simone, Senior Consultant of the Handel Group, has been working with the Handel Methodology for over ten years, co-hosts a monthly TV segment on topics of interest to professionals in the Northeast, leads crash courses to executives in New York, and consults executives one-on-one throughout the country in developing extraordinary leadership.

-=Good Selling=-

Monday, April 26, 2010

TWIX Notes "Xerox in the News"


Gathered from Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places!

Xerox forecast second-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates as customers renew spending on printing and office services. Details:


o Per-share profit this quarter, excluding some costs, will be at least 20 cents

o Customers are spending more on services to help them manage documents, after curbing budgets amid the recession.

o The rebound, plus a sales boost from the purchase of Affiliated Computer Services Inc., helped Xerox increase sales 33 percent last quarter.

o “People want to hear tangible evidence of decent integration coming out of the chute,” said the San Francisco- based analyst, who rates the shares “hold” and doesn’t own them. “They need to give people confidence.”

o Sales of copier and printer supplies also picked up as corporate spending rebounded from the depths of the recession last year, climbing 15 percent on a pro-forma basis.

o Announced 2,500 job cuts last quarter, leading to an additional $140 million in savings.

o Spent $796 million on research & development in 2009

o Equipment sales decreased 24% from 2008

 22% decrease in color MFP sales

 Paid $1.6 billion to buy equipment, parts and supplies from Fuji of Japan

• Lead time is 90 days

o Paid a total of $145 million to acquire ComDoc (Ricoh dealer with HQ in Ohio)

o Total debt of $9.264 billion

o The first-quarter loss was $42 million, or 4 cents a share, compared with a profit of $42 million, or 5 cents, a year earlier.
- Xerox launched DocuShare eForms, which converts customer forms into digital PDFs.
- Xerox launched a new promo to boost sales of its ColorQube MFPs (aka the “crayon copiers”), that is directed at religious and education verticals. Details:

o National Religious Organization contract

o Catholic Purchasing Services contract

o Educational & Institutional (E&I) contract

o If customer purchases or leases a new ColorQube, and pays an additional $250 base monthly service/supply fee, there is no click charge for any b/w output or “useful” color output

 “useful” color means that less than 1.2% of 8.5”x11” document has some color toner on it

o Full color pages are $0.028 each from click one

o Uses chunks of wax that are heated in cast iron tubs into a liquid, which is then sprayed onto the paper
- Xerox now offering a “Scan to Searchable PDF” option for the following models:

o WorkCentre 7232, 7242, 7328, 7335, 7345, 7346

o WorkCentre 7655, 7665, 7675

o WorkCentre 5632, 5638, 5645, 5655, 5665, 5675, 568
- Xerox announced it sold five production print units to APS Group, a printshop in Uxbridge, England. Sold were:

o Xerox Nuvera 144MX

o Xerox 4112

o Xerox DocuColor 5000

o Two Xerox iGen3 systems
 
-=Good Selling=-

Friday, April 23, 2010

Print4Pay Hotel Weekend Updates for 4/23/10


Below is some of extreme content from the last week that's been posted on the Print4Pay Hotel's forums in recent weeks. It's been busy with at the P4P Hotel forums with over 35,000 page views, and 88 new members.

Most Viewed Threads:

Print4Pay Value Membership
CBS NEWS REPORT ON COPIER SECURITY
Additional Insured?
Check out the New BizHub C8000 Video
P4P Hotels OnDemand/AIIM Show Highlights
The Office Copier turns 50!
Daily Sales Philosophy

Interesting Threads:

Canon U.S.A. Expands imageRUNNER ADVANCE Line with The Introduction of Two New Monoch
Who will be at "On Demand" in Phili?
Weekend MFP Industry Notes 4-23-10
Ricoh closing Irving, TX office
Police data on copiers causes city to scramble

Posted Price Quotes:

Scottsboro, Alabama 35768
Yarnell Justice Precinct
Toshiba Bid fpr Muni

Leads, RFP's & RFQ's:

Lead for Multi-Functional Devices (Copiers)
Lead in Atlanta for 30-50ppm color
A fleet of approximately 500 total networked devices MPS Bid
PA is seeking a vendor to provide Printing Services for use by the District's schools
74 -- Office machines, text processing systems & visible record equipment
SEASIDE RFP
RFP for one HV MFP in Michigan


The Print4Pay Hotel is the world's only business/social site dedicated to people who work in the office equipment industry. Go ahead log on.....become a member of the Print4Pay Hotel!

-=Good Selling=-

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Print4Pay Hotels AIIM/On Demand Show Coverage Part II


Today was the last day of the AIIM/On Demand Show in Phili, while I could only commit to one day, I still have more to blog on for everyone. Can't wait until next year when the show moves to Washington, DC. There will be three shows in one! AIIM, OnDemand and ITEX, this should be a killer and I'll be saving my money for a P4P Hotel Booth!

On my second leg of the event I wanted find out more about Aqueous/UV coatings, how its done, the speed, the cost of the machines and the cost of the consumables. I stoped at KOMPAC, didn't even know they were located around the corner from me. On the low end they had a device where you could hand feed sheets for a UV coating, they use a liquid that comes in one gallon containers, you hand feed the documents in the liquid is dispered onto the paper and then the document/printer piece is subjet to a UV light thus turning the liquid into a solid. Producing a varnished/high gloss document. Cost is estimated at .01 to .02 cents per square foot.

I looked at this technology because of the ComColors, since they can't print on gloss and the print is a dull/matt finish. Lowend price for the one system was 18K and then you could add a sheet feeder to it, didn't bother to price out the sheet feeder. I've heard there are less expensive systems however I did not have the time to vist all of the manufacturers that were there, seems like there are many players in this market from the low end to the high end.

From there I went to look at envelope presses, what's and envelope press you might ask. Well it's nothing more than a glorified laser printer with some enhancements. The boot I visited was from Xante, there they had two oki 9850's. Cost per image per envelope is estimated at .02, I;m thing more like .025-.030

The first was outfitted with a top down envelope feeder and exit conveyor feeder, this system was had a variable resistor to control heat and another for ..............uh, I don't remember,,,I'll get to my notes in a moment. The first Illumia as Xante calls $15,995 and had a speed of 60 envelopes per minute. The other was another 9850 however this was equipment with a fieryor some color matching software and that device was around $20k. How many envelopes do you have to print to get back your investment?? One printer I spoke to the other day told me that he would resell the envelopes for .15 cents each!!! That's alot of money for branding huh!! So, basically you'd have to sell 133,000 envelopes and or have a minimum volume of 2,700 envelopes a month just to turn a small profit! Alas, this product is HOT! Mark my words, every print will have one of these in the next 5 years, whether it's laser or inkjet, this is the last part of a shop going digital!! Oki, took my advise and finally came out with thier own envelope printer a few months ago, Ricoh did not take my advise and it seems to me that right now, Oki is capturing ALL of the consumables in this lucrative market.

Bad things I've heard about these presses, light creasing with corners, really not a big deal, some printers have gone to side flaps. Other is the cost of consumables, especially if you buy from Xante! Again, I mentioned to RISO that they need to take thier technology a step further and develop and inexpensive inkjet envelope press, Riso could do this for a penny and produce evenlopes at a speed of 180-300 per minute!!!

Thats's it for now, more to come when I have the time, end of the month for me!

-=Good Selling=-

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

P4P Hotels Take on AIIM/On Demand for 2010


Well, I excited to say that there was a large crowd waiting to get on the show floor and when I left there was still alot of volume. More than I expected and much more than last year!

I overheard many vendors speak about the volume and the interest from buyers!

My first mission was to find paper, actually paper for my ComColor. I was in pursuit of a 15 oe 18# smooth paper that asborbed ink well and had a high opacity. Actually I thought I'd be coming home with sample paper paks to test the next. How the heck did I know that paper suppliers do not bring samples to hand out anymore!! arghhhhh, hopegully all of my samples will arrive in the few days or so!

If you haven't checked out paper suppliers lately, you really need to, there are some awesome stocks, weights, colors, waterproof, etc.... could help us sell an extra few units a year.

From there I was off to the ComColor booth to see if they had any papers that matched my critera, they did not and stated that they were looking for the same thing I was. I met the Manager of Field Marketing and spoke to some of the others there in reference to my thoughts for the ComColor and where I think it has the best chance of success.

They are looking for different channels to sell the ComColor like paper suppliers, graphic art suppliers and dealers that sell mailing equipment. I agree with the last one and disagree with the others. A statement was made that the old Riso's were sold to mainly churchs and they felt the existing line of RISO dealers did not have the knowledge nor the resources to move the ComColor's. I told them that if they want to move these boxes and or get them mainstream they need to lower the MSRP to the 25k - 30K range, they could do this if they changed the ink cartridge for the 3010 or the 3050 and charged more for the ink. Capturing 100 million pages per month and increasing the color ink cost by only one penny would result in an additional million dollars of revenue per month, thus far offsetting the reduction in price on the units.

With that off I went, I did see an old friend from NJ on the way over to my next stop!

From there I was on a picture taking mission and went to see the new KM 8000 color press. I was amazed at how small the print engine was!!!! With all of the accessories we're talking 20-30 feet in length! Like I said I was on a mission and then traveled to the Canon booth.

Canon as usually had a small army there!! The must have been 100 reps from Canon or more. They had a full layout of solutions for SMB's and had all of thier products there.


more to come.......

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

OnDemand/AIIM Show 2010


Just arrived at the Phili Convention Center, a little over 2 hours from my home near Sandy Hook. Weather is excellent, the show floor opens at 10AM, however Press can go in an hour early!! Thats me!

If you need to reach out to me or want me to eval a certain product, my cell is 732.977.1211 or email me at art@p4photel.com and I'll get the message on my phone, you can also text me at the number above.

-=Good Selling=-

Monday, April 19, 2010

Ricoh Ikon "thingy"


Thought I'd share  some of the threads from the Print4Pay Hotel in reference to the Ricoh Ikon letter and the top spots in Ricoh Americas now being held by former Ikon execs.  If you you'd like to read more go here and become a member of the fasting growing site for copier professionals in the world!

I am excited and energized to lead Ricoh Americas into the future. Since joining IKON eight years ago, I have worked very closely with Ricoh, first as an independent dealer and even more closely over the past 18 months as a Ricoh company. I believe without question that the combination of Ricoh and IKON brings together technology, service expertise, sales coverage, dealer partners and a team of employees that is unparalleled in our industry.



I intend to build on the leadership position we have in the U.S. to continue to increase our market share and deliver the best document management solutions for our customers. Blah, blah, blah...  Matt Espe Ricoh Americas Corp
 
"4. Will your branding change?


For the foreseeable future, we will maintain a separate Ricoh Business Solutions channel and IKON channel to ensure consistency and continuity with our Dealers and customers." P4P
Hotel member

"How will the changes that were announced today affect the RFG Dealer Channel? I work for a Lanier Dealer that was formerly a Gestetner Dealer. One of our primary concerns over the past several years is that RBS & IKON consistently undercut us on price, not only for hardware but also for service & supplies, which is where we make our profit. Additionally.......".P4PHotel member

"What makes you think that Ricoh has any major level of concern about dealer profitability? Maybe behind closed doors their perspective is that dealers are a necessary evil for ......." P4PHotel member

"Now that you raise the subject of Consumables, Ricoh allows IKON to purchase heavily from KATUN. IKON has always been notorious for buying non-OEM parts and supplies at deep discounts, which is one of the reason...... "P4PHOTEL member

"Certainly the service and supplies provide ongoing profits (at least one would hope) but keep in mind that the machine that they sell to you for $8,000 that ....... "P4P HOTEL member

"Regional Vice Presidents (Wholesale) will not have responsibility for IKON, nor RBS. This had been erroneously reported in an Industry newsletter."  P4P HOTEL Member

"It will be interesting to see where the loyalty lies with this group of execs. I can remember shen they brought in Jim Ivy in Feb of ......"P4PHOTEL Member

"was the only part that was profitable. RBS and IKON are a major drain on the company and this is the reason they are about to do the consolidation - to try to stem some of that bleeding". P4PHOTEL Member

Well there's 15 replies to this thread and almosy 600 page views since the story broke. I'm sure they'll be plenty more to come especially after some of the dealers and sales people get back from Ricoh Convergence in Las Vegas this week!

-=Good Selling=-

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Ricoh's PPDM enables and Epiphany for Eric the Office Worker


We all know about Eric the Office Worker right? For those of you who don't, Eric the Office Worker was featured here in three blogs. Eric the "Office Worker" Gets a Supra Wide Format!, Print Audit Green with "Eric the Office Worker" and Ecopy Desktop & "Eric the Office Worker".

Eric the Office Worker seems to have a proficiency for finding time saving software and hardware products in the office.

The last we heard of Eric, he was working for BetaAlpha Corp in Patterson, NJ, since then Eric the Office Worker has honed his job skills and landed a sales job in Frostburg, MD with DigDug Systems. DigDug has been around for almost 30 years and has four locations with about 80 employees.

Eric's job is to visit existing clients and seek out new clients to buy or lease heavy duty construction equipment.

In previous blogs Eric the Office Worker had been at three other firms in the past couple years and in two of those firms he instituted the use of Ecopy and Print Audit 6. If there's one thing that excites Eric, it's software that'll help him to cut the paperwork, save time and improve his efficiencies!

Being somewhat nosey and curious Eric had peeked over his cubical the other day when the new Ricoh copier was delivered, as a matter a fact he even asked his manager if he could sit in on the tutorial. Eric had been an old hand at copier technology and with his previous experience and thought he might be able to pick up something new. Giving it sometime Eric had thought... gheesh, this copier just got this new machine and all it does it print, copy, scan and fax??? What good is this he thought?

Just when Eric was about to retreat back to his cubical, the salesperson mention the "special function" key, with that Eric took notice and moved just a little closer to the system. The salesperson then directed the operator to enable the PPDM key, the operator did so and with that Eric moved a little closer to the system.

Just to cut to the chase go here for PPDM video

What really WOWED Eric is the fact that he could now walk to Ricoh multifunctional copier with hard copies and with the touch of a few buttons he was able to increase his productivity with a few of these key features!

• He could now walk to the copier and scan documents back to MS word or MS Excel, along with that he was able to enable a data capture on his lead forms, meaning he would scan the lead forms and the data would be extracted and captured into and Excel file, thus saving him countless hours of data input.
• Eric would also be able to scan his business cards with data capture, another huge time savings.
• But the greatest time saver for Eric was the ability to create fill able .pdf forms from the scanner, yeah Eric had all of the sales forms but they were either in an Excel which was a pain the butt to fill out because who ever made the forms had locked down certain cells and he couldn't change them, and then the pdf's were not fill able. Try doing this on ecopy without the fill able forms and this is a very mundane task.

Eric was elated with the initial PPDM demonstraion  and was excited that he was able to personalize his experience at the multifunctional copier and save countless hours with forms, MS word docs, MS Excel docs and fill able forms. Matter of fact the first item Eric did was to scan his leases, sales orders, maintenance agreements, lease documents, bill of ladings, return authorizations into fill able forms and then loaded them in his notebook. Eric also took a copy of his companies’ power point presentation and turned it into an audio presentation for his clients.  BTW, another great feature that Eric likes is the ability to convert a file to .pdf while just right clicking the document. No more opening the application and then coverting the doc to pdf! Awesome.

Hey, we all know Eric the Office Worker is a fictional character for this blog, however since Eric and I were turned on to PPDM, we really didn't have an idea how this technology would help us save time nor how to present it to our clients. My works of advice, if you have PPDM or something like it, lead it with it!  It's worth your time to become and expert with workflow solutions that will enable your customers to save countless hours with the mundane task of processing paper.

-=Good Selling=-

Friday, April 16, 2010

Print4Pay Hotel Weekend Updates for 4/16/10

I'll be off to the Print on Demand/AIIM show next week, hope to have some great content for everyone. Also will try to find the time to tweat from the show floor.

Below is some of serious content from the last few days that's been posted on the Print4Pay Hotel's forums in recent weeks. It has been busy with over 30,000 page views, and 67 new members.

Most Viewed Threads:

Print4Pay Value Membership
FedEx Office, Canon U.S.A. and HP Collaborate to Redefine Retail Printing
New Xerox Wide Format Device Offers High-Speed Precision Printing;
New Toshiba 2020C A3 Color Coming to America!
Daily Sales Philosophy

Interesting Threads:

Ricoh Ranked Among The Top in U.S. Copier Market
AutoStore for Ricoh iPhone app
Relators and Leasing
Ricoh closing Irving, TX office


Posted Price Quotes:

Scottsboro, Alabama 35768
Yarnell Justice Precinct
Toshiba Bid fpr Muni

Leads, RFP's & RFQ's:

Lead in Indy!
RFQ for 6 MPF's in Texas
Maintenance Agreement for 47 Copiers
Easten Pa City needs Color Multifunctional Copier RFP
Color Wide Format RFP in Ontario
SEASIDE RFP
RFP for one HV MFP in Michigan


The Print4Pay Hotel is the world's only business/social site dedicated to people who work in the office equipment industry. Go ahead log on.....become a member of the Print4Pay Hotel!

-=Good Selling=-

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Top 7 Print4Pay Hotel Blogs


Since there's not a lot goin on in the industry lately....well wait a big annoucement did come from Canon that they had struck and agreement to supply FEDEX/Kinkos stores with Canon devices! That's a nice deal, especially with Canon now having access to the Oce Wideformat devices. What's next Staples, Office Max?

Here they are:

Too often in sales we get caught up in the day to day work of research, solutions, speeds, feeds and analysis and forget some of the basic sales skills that we learned.  Selling Copiers and MFP's "Get Back to the Basics"

Just last night on cable news, I listened to a report that service companies are enjoying the recent decline in the economy because more businesses and consumers are ...MFPs, Refurbs, Repos and Pre-Owned

"Eric the Office Worker" is now working at Acme Buy. "Eric the Office Worker" is a Customer Sales Rep, and helps customers fulfill their orders as the customers visit the Acme Buy Showroom. Ecopy Desktop & "Eric the Office Worker"

Thought about this the other day in car, made myself pull over and jotted down a few notes for everyone. I've complied a laundry list of points that I have adhered to in order to maximize Gross Profit. Selling Copiers " How to Maximize GP"

 I ask you, what do customers hate more when they are dis-satisfied with Office Equipment Leasing Companies? Yep, it us the sales people that put them into a bad lease. Most reps who have been in the business awhile know about some of the pitfalls of a good equipment leasing company and a not so good one. Top Copier Equipment Leasing Companies for Office Dealers

 The last eighteen months in the New York Metro Area has truly been a "Season of Changes" to remember!
Top Copier Equipment Leasing Companies for Office Dealers

 Most multifunctional copiers can be programed to count letter size paper as one click of the count meter (they are default from the factory this way), plus they can also be programmed to count 11x17 as one click (not the default program from the factory). MFP "Wars" Single click 11x17

-=Good Selling=-

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Could RISO Corp be For Sale?


News came in an email to me that RISO just laid off David Murphy (VP Marketing), Don Michelucci (VP, Direct) and others in the Direct Division. I was told it was a reduction in workforce.

Just today, I heard another Rumor that RISO has closed all of their technology portals and techs were now running Direct Branches! The later with the technology portals and the Direct branches comes from a reliable source, but ya never know.

Personally, I think the new ComColor is an awesome box and has a place in todays market and I also believe that this is the printing technology of the future.

Does RISO have the financing and the clout to succeed and bring future models to market, such as a 50, 60 or 70ppm device? I'm no expert, but what I can tell you is that I've probably sold 4 duplicators over the past 2 years, compared to selling at least 10 or per year in the past. The furture is not in the Digital Duplicator!On the other hand how many companies can afford to dole out $50,000 for a ComColor, seems to me its a pretty hefty price to pay for "News Color".

If RISO was bought by the likes of Canon, Ricoh, KonicaMinolta or Xerox, I'm sure they could get the manufacturing costs down and make the ComColor more affordable. I beleive the street price of the systems need to be in the $25,000 range. It's all about the ink, it's the consumables that carry the day and keeps the profits flowing. right?

Another note is that RISO had bought back some of thier stock in June of 08. So, what's RISO to do?

With Memjet on the horizon of commericalizing it's first generation of print componets can the likes of Xerox, Ricoh, KonicaMinolta and Canon can take a wait and see approach or do they need to make a move and buy RISO?

-=Good Selling=-

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Tweating about Copiers "People Need a Life"


I've been using Tweat Deck for about a year now, one of the features I like about Tweat Deck is that I can set up multiple searches. My searches include "copy machines", "Ricoh", "Xerox", "Copiers", "Canon", "print audit" and "konicaminotla", plus I have a column for all of the people I follow. Gee, do I need to get a life......well kinda, I find tweating an awesome way to get information out to my followers and p4p members el pronto!

I'm always impressed with how many people tweat about copiers, damn copiers? There's nothing else to tweat about??? I'm not talking about press releases, or interesting information on copiers, but how many people are actually trashing copiers!

Here's a few that caught my eye this week:

Just looked at both copy machines...we are 40,000 shy of 2 Million prints so far! Whew thats a lot!

Screw copy machines. I'd rather re-type and print. :|

Blahhhh I hate copiers. They just drive me up a wall. Aha.

When all our fancy printer/copiers break, our 9-year-old HP 5Si saves the day.

Selling copiers is my middle name "xerox" that would be..just call me "xeriod"

Anytime anyone needs something double-sided, I'm the one that has to do it. Why are copiers seemingly so hard to figure out??

Copy machines are the devil

I graduated college so that I can replace toner in the copy machines at work.

There you have it, the week in tweating about copiers, yeah you're right I need to get a life also!!


-=Good Selling=-

Monday, April 5, 2010

5 Most Active Topic from the Print4Pay Hotel


5 Most Active Topics

Matt Espe named CEO of Ricoh Americas Corp by Art Post (with 21 posts and 1,027 page views)

Ricoh Ikon Letter by Moderator (with 7 posts and 199 page views)

The Effect Currency Evaluations have on the MFP industry by SalesServiceGuy (with 10 posts and 206 page views)

Additional Insured? by Randy (with 8 posts and 96 page views)

11 days till… David meets Goliath; a fight that may define the end of IKON OFFICE SOL by Art Post (with 2 posts and 225 page views)

=Good Selling=-

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Cold Calling MFP Sales Tips


I posted this almost two years ago and thought I'd tweak a few things that I'm trying to do in the field.

Some of us like and most of us of don’t like it. It’s the COLD CALL, I like to call it GOLD CALLING!  It's usually the day from hell or the day to have find some GOLDEN accounts. If you've been doing it as long as I have, you've had success and have found some of your best accounts this way!

I must say the most daunting task is to open a door where you can’t see what is on the other side, will there be rejection or jubilation! Most times it will be rejection. Get use to it, its part of the job and comes with the territory. Attitude, Attitude and more tude will help you overcome the rejection and plow ahead. You always must keep in mind that you are there to give them a better solution or a better way of doing things, and if they are not interested then that’s their loss!

What, I hate most is a NO SOLICITING sign on the door. I think it’s rude and vulgar, every single one of these companies sell something to someone. Full speed ahead right? You may want to think twice about this and send the owner or CEO a fedex letter or package. That will get their attention.
Here are a few tips to get you going.

Tip: If someone won't provide you with a business card, get out your phone and take a picture of the company name on the business directory.

Make Quality Cold Calls

Make a plan to visit those companies you'd like to do business with. Before you’re on your merry way, do some research on those companies via the Internet. Find out the name of the CEO, CFO or the principal, find out what they do and who they do business with. When you're in the office, ask for help. “Can you help me? I like to know who is the person who takes care of your copiers or documents”, then ask for additional help such as “When I speak to him or her, can you help with some additional information so I can be prepared when we speak” Your main objective is to get the “right” name and you also may want to ask what the best time to contact that person is.

Send Literature

As soon as you get back to the office, send an opening letter and some literature. Be specific when you are going to call that person such as naming the date and the time of the phone call.

Follow up call

Remember that date and time that you gave them for the follow up call. Use it to your advantage and stage your call at the precise time you said you would. Even if you don’t get through, the message will leave a big impression that you followed up when you said you would.

Create Interest in the first 5 seconds

Hello Mr. or Mrs. Smith. Our company specializes in the cost reduction of wide format blueprint systems. Depending on what equipment you have now, and your objectives you may want to consider taking a look at our cost saving devices.

ABC (Always Be Cold Calling)

Over the years I have found Cold Calling to be the best way to find new business. Try some vertical market cold calling next time. For instance let’s say you want to focus on the AEC market. Do the research on the Internet in your territory and pick out ten firms that you think would need your services. Vertical Market Cold Calls are awesome, the more you do, the more you’ll become proficient in their needs and applications.

Tip: Ask the receptionist for help, state that you're new and your objective is to just get the name of the correct contact person.


-=Good Selling=-