By
Scott Cullen
(Editor’s
note: The following interview appears in this week’s edition of The Week in
Imaging.)
It’s been six months since Doug Albregts took over
the reins at Sharp as the new president, replacing Ed McLaughlin. Somewhat of a
surprise choice to many industry observers, Albregts’ background is mostly from
outside the industry, but if one drills deeper down below the surface, his
background is well suited to an industry that’s undergoing a tremendous amount
of change. Throughout the course of his career Albregts has spent time in the IT
space and had short stints in consumer package goods and financial services as
well as managing MFP and IT products at Samsung.
What
do you think of the industry after six months, do you feel settled?
Albregts:
I
do feel settled. I think the industry is going through a definite shift not
only from a manufacturer perspective but from a dealer perspective. You see a
lot of companies acquiring other dealers and from a manufacturer perspective you
see companies acquiring IT VARs. And the dealer community is looking to expand
their business into IT services as well.
We’re at an interesting point where we’re seeing a
land grab between IT and the traditional copier space. In terms specific to
printing a lot of companies are looking at ways to save money whether it’s MPS
or in-sourcing printing services, being able to print on demand, and those
types of things. Plus having the ability to capture that demand internally is
another big trend which is paving the way for production products and higher
end products, which is ultimately good for us.
It
seems to be mighty quiet on the Sharp front although I'm sure it's not. What
have you been focused on for the past six months?
Albregts:
One
of the things I’ve done is examine where our business is today in light of
where our business was and where the market is heading. I spent a lot of time
trying to understand our model and what that model should be. First and
foremost I’ll talk about product. We feel for the most part, from the product
side, that we are about to enter into every category we need to be extremely
competitive, not just in features, advantages, and benefits, but at all ends of
the spectrum.
The most challenging part is what role we want to
play in this industry. When you look at that, competitively speaking, a lot of
manufacturers have taken an aggressive stance in not only competing with their
dealers from a direct operation but in IT. Part of that is because they think
the grass is greener, but they also think this is a revenue and profit
opportunity. As a result, what has been lost in the whole equation from a
manufacturer perspective is a focus on the partner.
When you go to our dealer meeting in July part of
our theme and our intellectual property, if you will, is becoming an ‘irresistible
partner.’ We think there’s an opportunity in that. It sounds a little clichéd,
but becoming a good partner goes beyond better communication with dealers. It’s
looking at things like how can we help improve their working capital for
instance. At the end of halves and quarters manufacturers have become very
aggressive in trying to incent dealers to load up on inventory and make bad
business decisions. We’re looking at the entire equation and how we improve our
delivery times and how we improve our dealers’ working capital that transform
the business that’s not only good for the dealer but even better for the
manufacturer as margins start to erode. We’re going to detail a lot of those
things at our meeting in July. It’s that whole idea around ‘irresistible
partner’ and how we change the way we do business. That’s the challenge we see
today.
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-=Good Selling
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