BTA Winter Break 2013 Reveal

Day one is over and thank you for that!

It all started for me last night wondering if my flight out of Newark, NJ was going to be cancelled due to the snowpocalypse that hit the northeast today. My flight was delayed for about 45 minutes and I arrived in sunny and warm Orlando about 11AM.  A quick ride to the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort and then another ride to Rosen Centre Hotel placed me there is time to catch the keynote speaker.

Our keynote speaker was Martin Brodigan CEO of Ricoh Americas.  Martin spoke for about 45 minutes about a services led approach that our industry has a whole needs to embrace.   A couple of interesting points that Martin pointed out where:

Where the Industry is Going:

• The affect is greater than first predicted, with the firms new "Tablet Demand & Disruption" survey showing that corporate printing has declined by 16% due to both tablet adoption and company measures to curtail printing (Morgan Stanley).

A recent survey of 700 US tablet users reveals 46% now print less and 41% argued that printing less was a "main benefit: of tablet adoption.

• The worldwide mobile worker population is set to increase to 1.19 billion in 2013, accounting for 34.9% of the workforce. The U.S. will remain the most highly concentrated market for mobile workers with 75% of the workforce being mobile for 2013 (IDC)
• The average mobile worker carries 3.5 devices (Forbes)
• Employers are now actively promoting the expansion of their mobile workforce and technology is enabling continuous communication with outside employees outside of the office (Telework Coalition)

Martin also made mention that they (Ricoh) had not seen a decline of 16% in printing.  He also went on to point out that partners like Ricoh were responding by offering programs to dealers like the Ricoh CHAMPS program that would allow dealers to go wider and deeper in their existing accounts with business process solutions. Martin then took the time to answer questions from BTA members.

The BTA format is actually pretty awesome,  BTA members, and sponsors are all in the same room which allows BTA members easy access after every break to go and meet with the sponsors of the show.  The education sessions are maybe 1 hour tops and then a 30 minute break, so there is more than enough time over the two day event to network with other members, and to follow up with any business that needs to be addressed.

I was impressed with the amount of dealers that were not from the Southeast, I'm guessing that there were others that thought a trip to Florida in February is not a bad idea.

Over the next few days, I'll be blogging about the top 5 solutions or products from the BTA sponsors that caught my attention.    BTW, if you're not a BTA member, well....you should be. BTA does an excellent job with these events as well as their support for on going education programs for dealers.

-=Good Selling=-