At first blush, Green Office Partner has all of the markings of a family-owned business that’s been passed down from generation to generation. That’s not the case. Brothers Chris and Todd Gallagher, one-time owners of Cartridge World franchises, founded their Chicago-based dealership in 2011. But the three common denominators of a successful company—listen to and take care of your customers, no matter the cost; do the same for your employees; and have a never-ending focus on operational efficiency—were all imparted by their father.
Joseph Gallagher never spent a day in the office technology business but was a pioneer in management consulting before it became commonplace across all business verticals. Joe’s words echoed through his sons’ minds when the concept behind Green Office Partner was imagined, then realized. That unique business model has cast the Gallaghers’ business as somewhat of a unicorn among the office technology dealer community—a company that eschewed technicians, inventory, parts and supplies to focus on its bread and butter, which is selling MPS solutions to enterprise accounts in 49 states, Canada and beyond.
While the blueprint for the business model is solely the brainchild of the Gallagher sons, the respect for their father and appreciation for his foundational management acumen is evident. Joe Gallagher passed away recently, but his sons continue to build on those core principles. As legacies go, that’s tough to top.
“We’re providing MPS as our core offering; intelligent workflows, document management and adjacent technologies and solutions to the MPS space,” noted Todd Gallagher. “We serve every state but Maine, and we’re in five Canadian provinces. We focus on rapid-growth enterprise accounts, and it’s amazing how far they take us.”
Green Office Partner is primarily a Xerox house; the manufacturer’s network of service offices tends to the break-fix needs of clients. HP, Canon and Epson machines fill out the product roster for the Gallaghers. Their client roster, targeting enterprise in general, is comprised of health care, automotive, financial services, construction, education, manufacturing and hospitality firms. The enterprise route was particularly fortuitous during the pandemic as Green Office Partner’s fortunes weren’t solely tied to those geographies that were hardest hit.
Square One
Upon graduating college, the Gallaghers’ career aspirations had little in common. Chris worked for SAP and Microsoft selling large and complex ERP and CRM solutions. Todd was a political consultant who managed campaigns and served as an adviser to a U.S. senator. Tired of taking the safe route, the brothers exited their respective professions and committed their life savings into a Cartridge World franchise in Illinois. Within three years, their holdings had expanded to three offices.
It’s not that the Gallaghers’ business was foundering—on the contrary, they were ranked number-one out of 700 Cartridge World franchisees. But they found the business concept to be flawed, namely because it was essentially three businesses in one—cartridge manufacturing, a retail storefront and a B2B sales team.
“Cartridge World taught us that overhead is not our friend,” noted Chris. “Around 2011, our clients started telling us that they were looking for a vendor to take on everything. Essentially, they wanted full-scale MPS. We heard them and decided to make a change.”
The Gallaghers sold their three stores and started studying the MPS model. In the process, they picked up key team members with a bevy of experience. And when they hung the Green Office Partner shingle, the term “overhead is the enemy” must’ve resonated with them. The result was a dealer that focused on clients, employees and operational efficiencies. They also let their OEM partners do the heavy lifting in terms of trucks, techs, parts and supplies; in other words, Chris noted, “All the headaches.”
The fact that Green Office Partner isn’t an up-and-down-the-street copier company is a badge of honor in Todd’s estimation. The regional and national enterprise clients are enamored with the manufacturer experience the dealer provides, sans the manufacturer-esque hassles. That also means break-fix partners reflect back on the company, but Green Office Partners is judicious in selecting accountable partners and has an internal “quality and control” team that makes sure the partners deliver excellent service.
The desired outcome is to have both dealer and partner concentrating on their core competencies, and Todd doesn’t want that to change. “Our customer success, help desks, installation and onboarding, quality control, solutions architecture, dispatch, project management and sales teams are simply world-class,” he offered, buoyed by a consultative platform steeped in client satisfaction.
That laser focus hasn’t gone unnoticed with either clients or team members. Green Office Partners has a 98% retention rate with its key clients and was recognized by the Chicago Sun-Times among “Chicago’s Best Workplaces” in 2024 and Crain’s Chicago Business as the number-one company on its “Best Places to Work in Chicago” list in 2023 and 2024.
Dynamic Business
Green Office Partner is fresh off a 2024 marked by solid growth. Todd attributes the favorable environment to a trio of variables: a growing movement of employees returning to in-office operations; a surge in clients increasingly moving toward A4 color devices, further blurring the A3/A4 line; and clients/prospects seeking to reduce their vendor count. All three factors translated into 25% MPS growth for the dealer.
“Green Office Partner’s biggest value is the ability to service regional and national clients on a single platform with real consistency and high client satisfaction,” Todd remarked. “Clients also turned to us for electronic workflows and trusted us with MPS-adjacent solutions and professional services. We’ve also experienced an increased demand for North American cross-border and international markets.”
The 25% growth reflects the continued double-digit MPS increases the company has posted since its inception (the lone outlier being the COVID year). What’s particularly encouraging is Green Office Partner’s print volumes have more than doubled from their pre-pandemic levels.
Aside from the aforementioned variables, the dealer’s diverse enterprise track yields clients focused on rapid growth. “As they expand, we expand with them,” Todd noted. “If one industry retracts, generally another is expanding. We’ve seen a couple enterprise accounts acquired by larger organizations, and because of our offerings’ efficiencies and client satisfaction, we’re expanding into their new parent companies.”
The MPS-adjacent solutions enable Green Office Partner to become stickier with clients, and it starts with an in-depth assessment that’s highly consultative. A less-heralded digital product, electronic faxing, grew its page count nearly 40% from 2023 to 2024. While not a significant revenue generator, it’s an example of the dealer’s “total takeover mentality,” Todd noted. One-and-done deals are frowned upon, as it’s an indication the rep is not selling the whole package.
Production Push
More robust production equipment is an area Green Office Partner is focusing on as well. Its light production business has always been strong, but the full production push has resulted in a year-over-year placement increase. Post-sale revenue is gradually building and volume is fairly robust, and much of it derived from the existing account base. Xerox has been a pivotal partner in helping the dealer grow.
Much of the production business comes from the enterprise accounts with in-house production arms. Green Office Partner does serve mail houses and could build upon its base via in-plant, CRD and commercial shops. But for now, enterprise accounts represent the bread-and-butter opportunities.
“A lot of them are spending thousands and in some cases millions of dollars in outsourcing that work,” Chris pointed out. “It goes back to the expanded conversations with the right people and showing how embellishments can impact proposals. It’s about helping clients understand the problems they don’t even know they have and then solving them.”
Even with the consistency of “hockey stick” growth, as Todd terms it, the brothers didn’t want to become complacent. They discussed finding the ideal vice president of sales who would allow the dealer to go wider in existing accounts while paving the way to net-new business. One year ago, a new VP came aboard; he’s a sales pro with no prior experience in the office technology space but is seasoned in growing enterprise accounts. The newbie is certainly no stranger; 20 years ago, Chris worked for the VP, selling ERP solutions in the Microsoft channel.
The objective in onboarding an industry outsider was to bring in a fresh perspective and new ideas, someone who would complement Green Office Partner’s vision. “The needle has moved because now our conversations are going much deeper with our clients,” Chris said. “It’s about business problems that [clients] are having, not product problems. It’s enabling us to find more problems that we can solve, adding more value to customers. And it’s provided us with a significantly higher win rate.”
Northern Exposure
Being a true enterprise provider sometimes entails addressing the needs of clients with holdings in Canada who desire that “one throat to choke” vendor convenience. That spurred Green Office Partner to open an office in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, thus becoming the first Xerox dealer to operate in both countries. It hasn’t been all smooth sailing; our friendly neighbor operates at a slower pace than U.S. businesses are accustomed to, Todd points out. The national and provincial tax laws provide a significant learning curve, and Canada’s contract laws are decidedly weighted in favor of the consumer as opposed to the business.
The move meant updating the company’s website with a French translation, and the customer support staff there is bilingual. While the original intent was to add options for U.S. enterprise clients, their focus quickly expanded to building net new logos across Canada. As history proved, providers serving the Great White North from a U.S. area code doesn’t sit well with them.
“Perhaps it’s a cultural thing, but they wanted nothing to do with reps in the United States lobbing calls over there,” Chris noted. “We thought we could pull it off, but we couldn’t have been more wrong. The lesson is in order to be successful in Canada, you have to be in Canada.”
Speaking of international forays, Green Office Partner has the distinction of being the first certified North American partner in Xerox’s global multi-channel support program. The dealer’s first major accord was a global pharmaceutical company that desired a single view of operations across France, Finland, Canada and the U.S.—a complex project that provided the client fleet oversight and just one bill to pay.
Reality Bites
On the technology front, Green Office Partner leverages augmented reality to help reduce the time of dispatch and increase system availability, adding another jewel to its client experience crown. It’s standard for every device installed since January 2024 and has drawn rave reviews from clients.
One example is an international airline that inked a five-year accord—a pact that entails 26 of the largest U.S. airports. Downtime and service interruptions can hit an airline particularly hard, given the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) stringent security requirements. Chris noted the FAA has initiated new policies that can lead to steep penalties for service interruptions.
“We leveraged a combination of service expedited via AR as well as device redundancy to meet those demands,” Chris remarked. “The model we designed and demonstrated was the key reason this foreign entity chose us for all its U.S. locations.”
Chris firmly believes that AI is driving the fifth revolution. It’s baked into the dealer’s AR solutions and has proven to be a “game changer,” he said. AI is a subject that, even just a few years ago, would’ve confused customers. More people are taking the time to become familiar with any number of applications that it’s enhancing.
One client Green Office Partner engaged, a national charter school, had an issue that was ferreted out by the dealer’s teacher survey. It found that 36% of teachers spent two hours per month translating and manually sending documents related to homework assignments. The Gallaghers’ AI-addled solution enabled teachers to translate their assignments into Spanish, French, Portuguese and German languages and route the homework in mere seconds.
“We’re seeing a difference in document management, as AI is definitely making the software more dynamic,” Todd remarked. “As we play with it internally, it’s helping our business intelligence and analytics. We’re working smarter, not harder.”
Growth Track
As 2025 garners steam, Green Office Partner will continue to focus on regional, national and international enterprise business. Todd feels they’ll need to keep finding the right personnel who can work within the company’s model and have the skills to approach complex client environments. Building on its MPS proposition and adjacent ancillary offerings will help realize the ultimate goal of being the sole technology vendor for customers. They wouldn’t rule out M&A expansion that can bolster their geographic footprint or offer an innovation or related technology to further enhance the Green Office Partner value proposition.
The 2023 and 2024 top workplace awards underscore the quality and thought the dealer put into cultivating the corporate culture. Joe Gallagher preached the value of tending to team members, and that’s reflected in not only the compensation and benefits but also professional development programs and employee recognitions. The family-first flexibility policy encourages employees to prioritize attending their children’s various activities. Lose your sitter? It’s OK to bring in your child or your dog. Sit/stand desks, a comprehensive break room, workout facilities, holistic therapy and coaching are all amenities aimed at making Green Office Partner a destination employer.
“Chris and I are so energized by the community of people we have working with us, and they’re dedicated to winning,” Todd said. “When we win those awards, our people are proud because they’ve also put a lot of effort into making this an unbelievable work culture. That vibe can be felt by clients, even over the phone. Our clients can feel it’s a wonderful place to work. And for us, it’s all about the people.”
