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Thursday, July 31, 2008

Kyocera in The House...the MPS House?

Kyocera unveils managed service

From an article by Nick Booth, CRN. He is discussing Kyocer's new program with Kyocera’s distribution manager, Alicia Shepherd...

“The printer is the only IT product whose sales model has not changed in 10 years. There are endless options for print applications, so customers will only get the most out of their printing inventory by adopting it as a managed service.” she said.

Welcome aboard.

The number of "players" continue to increase, but...wait...I seem to remember Kyocera sells...hardware, right?

Well, it is the beginning of the month...isn't it?



Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Canon Copier Profit Down 12%

Clippings from the news...


Forbes-

Japan -

TOKYO, July 24 (Reuters) - Japan's Canon Inc posted a 12 percent fall in quarterly profit on Thursday, hit by weaker monochrome copier demand and a firm yen versus the dollar, but the camera and office equipment maker kept its full-year outlook that exceeds market expectations.

April-June operating profit at Canon (nyse: CAJ - news - people ), which competes with Xerox Corp (nyse: XRX - news - people ) and Ricoh Co Ltd (otcbb: RICOY.OB - news - people ) in printers and copiers, dropped to 160.15 billion yen ($1.5 billion) from 181.47 billion yen a year earlier.

Reuters-

Profitability at its office equipment operations has come under pressure as an economic slowdown has meant businesses are putting off buying or replacing copiers, although its high-end digital cameras enjoyed brisk demand.

The company, which competes with Xerox Corp (XRX.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Ricoh Co Ltd (7752.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and Konica Minolta Holdings Inc (4902.T: Quote, Profile, Research) in printers and copiers, is also grappling with the soaring cost of raw materials and the profit-slicing impact of a stronger yen.

"We expect the yen to remain strong and for high raw materials and fuel prices to continue. The operating envrionment is tougher than we had originally thought," Canon Managing Director Masahiro Osawa told a news conference.

Yahoo News -

Canon said its group operating profit dropped to 160.15 billion yen in the April-June quarter from 181.47 billion yen a year earlier. Net profit fell 13 percent to 107.84 billion yen on sales of 1.11 trillion yen, down 1.9 percent.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Excerpts From Espe


IKON has turned around, will it last?


These are some questions asked of Espe after the 3rd quarter conference call:


Amanda Seguin – Lehman Brothers

"...Okay. And then one more follow-up. On the Konica Minolta Danke deal, just wondering if that’s changed, if there’s any update on your relationship with Konica there and the machines in the IKON channel?

Matt Espe

Nope. Konica, we like the 350 and the 550, the equipment is terrific and the relationship is intact.

Shannon Cross – Cross Research

"Hi, good morning."

Matt Espe

"Hi, Shannon."

Shannon Cross – Cross Research

"Couple of questions. Just starting – can you talk a little bit about the competitive environment in the services business as you go out and do some of these bids, the sweep bids and that, you know, with the HP getting a bit more aggressive, Lexmark is probably desperate from a desperation standpoint I would say? And then they are also obviously playing their queue. I’m just curious at sort of what pricing, what it looks like in terms of how savvy customers are becoming in terms of getting all of you to price against each other and then what people are looking for and what sort of drives their decision-making?..."

Matt Espe

"Well, let me try to answer that. That’s a very good question. For many of our customers, this is now round two or three of outsource agreement, certainly round two.

So to your point, the customers are more savvy.

But what we are seeing is, we continue to see extremely high retention rates because the switching costs are high. And we’ve been able to leverage fairly strong product portfolios with very strong workflow solutions at our customer base. As a result, you just tend to get embedded into clerical workflow. So the switching costs are a little bit higher. So it makes it very difficult even for companies – strong companies like Canon – or I’m sorry, Xerox and HP to come in and knock us out.

When it’s a brand new "Greenfield", if you will, it’s a little tougher, but we have very strong references. So it’s – we think we are very well positioned because we’ve got a very broad and diverse product range and we’ve got great leverage with very strong workflow solutions, and we’ve got great process experience in a number of verticals.

Our product line – the equipment lineup is stronger for mid-market than a couple of manufacturers you mentioned. Our experience is broader and deeper, and our ability to sort of refresh the offering during the course of a managed service agreement is very good. And we’ve got a very, very good track record of delivering on precisely what we commit to. And that brings some sustainability as well."


My summary:

- IKON has moved from OMD to Oracle
- Color equipment revenue up 12%, placements up 7% and color equipment is no 38% of total units.
- B/W Office revenue down 11%
- IKON is losing low-end office market to "retail"; is of no concern
- Production up 3% B/W, 6% color
- 39 C7000's and 33 C6000's sold past quarter
- Analogue now at 7% of MIF (Machines In Field)
- Professional Serivices/Total Managed up 4% due to new programs to existing customers
-
Source - Seeking Alpha, here.

Friday, July 25, 2008

It's not Easy Being Green - "Don't Take My DeskJet"

You really can not make this up...I have been performing a few assessments lately, and the cultural impact is most observed when we try to remove the desktop units...

You gotta go here at ComputerWorld "Shark Bait" and check it out.



Thursday, July 24, 2008

Break Into Pharmaceutical Sales By Selling Copiers?




I found this article somewhat interesting. 

 From the article: "...The technology market including copiers is a very different type of sales environment compared to pharmaceutical sales. Since customers can often be one-time purchasers only, salespeople in technology tend to use a more aggressive form of sales in order to secure the orders..." -- Technology salespeople are more aggressive. 

Ok, well, it seems that almost everyone outside of the industry has got all of us salespeople inside the industry all figured out. I haven't looked at a possible client as a "one-time" purchaser in nearly 10 years. 

 More -- "...An overly aggressive drug representative can easily turn off physicians and even lose the opportunity to future appointments. I’ve actually seen this happen to some drug reps out in the field as doctors have candidly told me that they refuse to see certain reps because of their aggressiveness. 

Therefore, some pharmaceutical companies will not hire former salespeople who were in more aggressive selling environments unless they can prove that they can tone their styles down to adapt to the pharmaceutical medical scene..." -- Tone THIS down, I got you're TONE...right...here... "... whether one should try to get some experience selling copiers in order to break into pharmaceutical sales. 

The answer is all previous sales experience dealing with real customers is an asset whether it is dealing with copiers, rental cars, medical equipment, or even retail sales. 

 The key is being able to use these selling skills and adapt one’s style to fit in well with the pharmaceutical sales environment. In many ways, selling technology equipment can be a more challenging form of selling because in many cases, one doesn’t get the benefit of follow-up appointments with customers..." -- I think this guy just "dis'd" me... didn"t he? 

Well, I remember a few years back when a Pharm recruited all the USC cheerleaders for sales positions. It is a brilliant idea and one I would participate in, especially the interviews - but I digress. 

Check this funny blog post about Pharm-Rep watching. But how can anyone from an industry like that make judgments like this? Click to email me.

Contact Me

Greg Walters, Incorporated
greg@grwalters.com
262.370.4193