Recently, I attended the Lexmark dealer show in Lexington, KY. Lexmark has done a great job over the last few years improving their communications and I hope this trend continues.
During the two-day event, we spent most of our time with key executives and dealers. We sat through presentations, company and technology updates as well as discussions about current and future strategies. Here’s what I learned:
Lexmark has about 250 US dealers – a fraction of the overall number of dealers Lexmark claims, which is about 1,500 globally. Based on what Lexmark told the crowd, the expansion in the US traditional copier market is winding down. They won’t be opening up new dealers “except when they need to.” I know that’s ambiguous, but they openly discussed “going deeper” with the dealers they currently have instead of simply opening more dealers.
What really impressed me was the list of dealers they’ve signed on over the last several years. It’s a virtual who’s who. Nearly all the major players were in attendance – POA, Milner, Gordon Flesch, Smile, Usherwood, TGI…the list goes on and on. I would wager to say that Lexmark has a greater percentage of the top 10 US dealers as clients (in terms of revenue) than any other A3 or A4 brand – period.
Lexmark acknowledged their success at the Enterprise level and discussed how they want to leverage this to go after the SMB market. They seem pretty focused on not just signing dealers, but grabbing mindshare at the field level. Several programs will help in this capacity, including the release of a demo based sales app that will provide a virtual pitch book to any dealer sales people that want it for their tablets and smartphones. This is very similar in nature to our Sales Dashboard App, which allows a dealer or vendor to put every collateral, video, white paper, etc. at the fingertips of every sales rep.
The main focus with Lexmark continues to be solutions and smart MFPs. A larger percentage of Lexmark’s solutions are designed in house (compared to competitors) and Lexmark remains one of the only MFP vendors to offer solutions integrated throughout their A4 product line.
Lexmark is on a big push to get dealers to carry Perceptive Software, technology Lexmark acquired in 2011. Perceptive has a suite of ECM, document management software and more. One critique I have about this strategy to get dealers to carry Perceptive Software is that Perceptive is highly focused on the Enterprise and the bread and butter of these dealers is SMB. It’s very expensive for dealers to get into this program and there is a level of infrastructure required that a lot of dealers just don’t have.
As it stands now, the products from Perceptive seem a bit too feature-rich for the SMB market. It’s overkill and from what I heard from several dealers, the cost to customers is far too high as well. As this program evolves I am confident that Lexmark will provide a more rudimentary and less costly solution based on the Perceptive offering but at the moment, this product doesn’t seem to fit well with the majority of Lexmark’s dealers.
However, keep in mind that Lexmark does have a number of very large dealers with deep pockets that are already selling Perceptive products with great success. My point is, more can be done to make this product more appropriate and cost effective for the SMB market than it is in its current state.
After the last dealer show, I wrote an article titled “Lexmark Listens.” I could have used the same title for this article. I attend show after show from competitors, but I don’t recall seeing any other vendor pay such close attention to what the dealers want. The program is truly evolutionary, with many changes coming as a direct result of those asked for by dealers themselves. Indeed, if you’re trying to grow your business with dealers, what better way than to build a program around what they want?
I sat through a couple of break out sessions that, like last time, were essentially interactive market research sessions where Lexmark executives asked the crowd multiple choice questions and dealers would respond using a hand held tool. The votes were instantly tabulated and when the executive flipped to the next slide, it had the chart with the results, at which point a discussion would begin, asking why they voted as they did.
Not only do they listen, but also the program’s evolution has been a direct result of this dealer feedback. Lexmark is the only multi channel vendor to my knowledge that provides online retailers with similar, but different models, so that dealers don’t have to hear “I can get it cheaper online.” This now goes beyond simple things like requiring different supplies and parts. Now, many Lexmark dealer channel MFPs offer different basic configurations, better user interfaces and even finishers that can’t be found on retail models.
You can see why an approach like this would gain traction in the dealer community. Other brands such as HP were never willing to commit to this channel at that level and that’s why dealers often use the HP brand to open the door, but then try to sell them another brand.
Lexmark has a nice story to tell. And based on who was in attendance at this meeting, I’d say that story is starting to resonate. They have more work to do, but then again, who doesn’t? The focus on solutions and the goal of increasing mind share at the sales rep level is key. But perhaps one of the strongest parts of their strategy within the traditional dealer channel is that they listen. They still listen.
