Pirate Mike strikes again and right at the heart of the Ricoh/Ikon transition. Seems also like there are major issues with Ricoh Production Color, now I'm not a player in that market so I can't deny or justify that the statements are correct. However, it seems all too familiar with things I've seen in the past..
This also co-insides with a call that I received from a
Print4Pay Hotel member from the mide-west that stated an RBS branch was closing in leiu of the Ikon branch. I was pretty much floored when I heard that and thought it would be the other way around.
Also heard on the street that may Ricoh corp positions would be filled with people from Ikon. Again, I heard this and it may or may not be true, however I'm sticking with my sources. Whatever the case may be, it seems big changes are on the way.
Here's his blog:
11 days till… David meets Goliath; a fight that may define the end of IKON OFFICE SOLUTIONS
In 11 days I will get close to a hundred calls from around the country on what new changes are being made inside of the Ricoh/IKON group. These calls will come from both the Ricoh and IKON side of the house.
There are rumors of huge layoffs and mass firings in store. Even locally they have kept masses of sales reps that are like 36% of plan. People are being labeled the "Legend of Zero!" which they have earned from not even keeping up with the minimal standards to maintain their job. I can remember at Minolta when if you were not at 100% you were in danger! Guys started looking hard for a job at 80% in our office. If you didn't make 100 grand you were just were not putting on a tie and coming to work! That was then; this is now…
Relative to the changes at Ricoh/IKON there will be huge changes in the structure of reporting and how the local areas will operate. There are probably substantial changes in the pay structure and not much in line for relief for the production sale reps relative to their product portfolio. There is a lot that is unknown, Ricoh has a lot of "purchased entities" in their back pocket and a lot of "intellectual property" that it has yet to release. One thing we know for sure is that they (Ricoh) has yet to make a unified group out of their acquired companies and has yet to create a soup to nuts product portfolio out of them. Like their competition has done.
I tried to sell Infoprint roll fed printers several times when I was employed at IKON and couldn't even get the rep to call me back as I was considered a competitor and they didn't feel they needed me. There was no method of compensation either on these "in portfolio products." It will be interesting to see what Ricoh does with InfoPrint now that the IBM is going to be free of it. Does InfoPrint take over IKON and move forward or is there a bigger role in the Ricoh world for IKON. Only time will tell what Ricoh does in its sandbox and anything else is just speculation.
go here for the rest of
Pirate Mikes Blog
-=Good Selling=-
