Sharp Tells Dealers May the Irresistible Force Be With You

This story doesn’t take place in a galaxy far, far away, but in Dallas at the Sharp annual dealer meeting, July 15-18.

When you’re #2 or wherever you are on the pie chart, you need to try harder and Sharp is doing exactly that as the company and new Sharp President Doug Albregts took the message of being an irresistible force and an irresistible partner to Dallas and a few hundred Sharp dealer principles last week. Being an irresistible force was more than a theme for the event, it was the message that Albregts hoped dealers would embrace and take home from Dallas.

Some of the ways Sharp will become that irresistible force is by becoming an easy company to do business with (a familiar theme at dealer meetings), revamping and simplifying programs, and exploiting opportunities such as helping dealers drive new business without investing their own capital via an IT-centric strategy built around programs that drive aftermarket revenue to the dealer.

Doug Albregts

The company is looking to get products to dealers faster and more efficiently with customization options. “This should minimize the inventory you need to carry from us,” noted Albregts. “Instead of having your money tied up in Sharp inventory wouldn’t it be better if we could invest those dollars back in the markets you’re trying to sell to. All these improvements equal better efficiencies for Sharp and this in turn will lead to further investment in you and the right steps towards becoming that irresistible partner.”

The star of the show and another irresistible force to be reckoned with was Sharp’s new high-end production devices.

The Polaris Series from Sharp. Check out that paper capacity!

“When Albregts told dealers “We’ve been absent from the high end production space but that ends this week,” he signaled a new era at Sharp, at least on the high-end product front. As anyone who has been following the industry for 20+ years has seen, Sharp hasn’t always been at the head of the curve in certain product categories or trends (digital), but if you take the attitude that this approach has given them an opportunity to watch the market, study the technology, and learn from other’s successes and mistakes, then maybe it’s a valid strategy.

Anyway, it’s better late than never for Sharp dealers to have a high-end Sharp arsenal of products at their disposal. As Rick Bastinelli of Centric Business Systems told me, these devices will be a nice differentiator from the Ricoh high-end products that his dealership also carries.

The new products include the Polaris Office MX-6240N and MX-7040N that output at speeds of 62 and 70 ppm in color and black and white, respectively along with the Polaris Pro for professional printing environments. Those models operate at 65 and 75 ppm. At the upper end of the spectrum Sharp offers the MX-M904, MX-M1054, MX-M1204 Hercules II monochrome devices, operating at 90, 105, and 120 ppm, respectively.  (Check out last week’s News Bytes section for more details on these products.)

If dealers weren’t thinking “triple feed system” after the General Session or after viewing live demos of the new high-speed devices at the Product Showcase, they clearly weren’t paying attention. Sharp claims its triple air feed system offers enhanced reliability in separation, pickup, and transport. As Cliff Quiroga, director product management, explained, “This will separate you from the competition by allowing your customers to reliably feed those paper stocks that are troublesome for traditional roll fed systems.”

These new devices are also cloud ready. “That’s important because more of our customers are leveraging the cloud’s scalability and efficiency to drive down their IT costs,” says Vince Janelli, associate director, applications and partners, who referenced an IDC survey that finds almost half of U.S. businesses are using cloud services today in their IT practice and within three years they predict that number will climb to 90 percent.

“This is true across businesses of all size,” added Janelli. “Clearly this cloud thing is more than just hype.” What that means to the Sharp community is that the cloud will become the primarily delivery mechanism for software and solutions ranging from document management, workflow, MPS, back office, etc.”

As the market makes this transition, Janelli reported Sharp will take the same approach they did with the integrated partner program for its OSA platform and apply it to cloud technology.

“Sharp will foster and cultivate this transition in the marketplace by supplementing our partner program members and their services with our own applications,” he said. “This will give the mainline rep something tangible to sell while also building their awareness and understanding about what is possible with the greater reach of our partner community.”

An important element of Sharp’s Product Showcase for the past few years has been its many partners and there were some 60+ showing their wares this year with quite a few cloud based.

The Product Showcase where Sharp demonstrated its B2B Cloud Portal.

When it comes to cloud-based solutions, one of the highlights of the Product Showcase was Sharp’s B2B Cloud Portal. Although this is something that won’t be officially rolled out until the first quarter of 2013, Sharp has created a unified purchase management system for a suite of Sharp as well as partner program member services along with integration with the current Sharp B2B portal.

This will provide Sharp dealers with what the company describes as near-instantaneous license delivery, essentially allowing them to provision accounts on demand. The key to this is the License Management Console which will allows dealers, in addition to the business administrator in the end user organization, to manage Sharp and third-party SaaS licenses through a single interface.

In addition Sharp previewed two SaaS, including a collaboration and content management service that provides on-the-go access, file sharing, a meeting room experience as well document management capabilities from a variety of platforms, including mobile devices, Sharp AQUOS Board and Sharp OSA-enabled MFPs.

“It will link every device in the office, from digital whiteboards, laptops, smartphones, and MFPs, and provides on the go access and collaboration through shared project folders, teams will be able to work together virtually anywhere anytime,” explained Jannelli.

The second is a remote device management service (SRDM). Designed for dealers and IT administrators, SRDM as a service facilitates the centralized management of Sharp MFPs. On display were several new capabilities including mobile access from Apple iPhone, iPad, and Android devices.

The Sharp AQUOS Board

At Sharp’s 2011 dealer meeting dealers the company unveiled a new strategy for Pro AV products such as their AQUOS Board interactive whiteboards. That strategy continues and seems to be taking hold with some segments of the dealer channel with Mike Marusic, senior vice president, Business Solutions Group, reporting that the company has sold over 1,000 AQUOS Boards this year. The viability of these products was evident on the show floor where they had a prominent location and a surprisingly steady flow of dealers learning more about this emerging product category—emerging in a sense that it is not a traditional product category that the average office technology dealer is accustomed to carrying.

Dallas was also where the SHI hit the fan as Sharp announced a strategic relationship with SHI International Corporation to the consternation of some dealers and the delight of others. What SHI does is provide a portfolio of IT products and solutions to a global customer base. By aligning with Sharp SHI will reportedly build on its reputation within the services industry, and expand its product portfolio to all SHI enterprise partners, including Fortune 500 companies.

According to a Sharp press announcement, SHI’s account sales teams will be provided with relevant background information on Sharp multifunction printers, including Sharp’s light-production models in order to make the best possible referrals to its clients across industries. Effective immediately, SHI customers will have access to Sharp’s imaging and commercial display products. This collaboration will allow Sharp’s independent dealer network to capitalize on a massive convergence of managed print and managed IT services.

“This is a great opportunity for us,” said Marusic who also told dealers that this aggressive approach is very complementary and can have a dramatic impact on their businesses.

“This provides instant access to the gatekeepers,” he added. “What if we can start the sales call with a purchase agreement, billing process, and SLA already in place? With this partnership we look to leverage existing SHI’s over 1,000 sales people to access their existing accounts and penetrate their top customers. It may sound too good to be true but I think it’s a great opportunity and a great relationship. I believe our dealers will find this an amazing tool to reach the corporate marketplace.”

Albregts and Murasic emphasized that Sharp has not turned over their corporate account business to SHI. “This relationship will work just like Sharp made the sale,” stated Albregts. “All service and support will be done by our dealers and the dealer relationship will continue to be with Sharp and supporting the MIF, the only difference is SHI will be billing the customer not Sharp.”

Albregts anticipates this relationship will place thousands of units in Sharp dealer’s territories.

A seminar further explained the dynamics of the relationship to dealers although reports from those attending the seminars reveal that some dealers were less than thrilled by the arrangement.

While a level of uncertainty remains concerning the SHI relationship, there is no uncertainty when it comes to Sharp’s commitment to the dealer channel, which brings us back to the theme of the meeting, “an irresistible force”. As for Sharp’s direct channel, that was not on the agenda in Dallas. “We didn’t talk about direct business on purpose, but we are committed to ensuring integrity between our dealers and branch operations,” said Albregts.

Indeed, the message beyond the introduction of Sharp’s new high-end products, the focus on the Pro AV space, the cloud, and the SHI relationship, was on enhancing their relationship with the dealer channel.

“You win in this industry by building a loyal dealer base, the question is what’s the best way to do that?” asked Albregts. “In my mind you become an irresistible partner and to do that you become an irresistible force. Our competitors are talking a great game but failing to execute any meaningful changes. That creates an opportunity for Sharp. It’s my job to put this organization in a position to exploit this opportunity.”

Compared to other dealer meetings where there was a lot of hooting and hollering from the audience as well as wild applause for announcements that resonated with the dealer’s in attendance that reaction was lacking for many of the announcements made in the General Session. If Sharp is going to be an irresistible force with these folks they’ve got their work cut out for them and that’s something they seem to realize. “We are not presumptuous and know we have much to prove to be that irresistible force,” Albregts acknowledged near the end of the General Session.

Now comes the hard part, making sure that this irresistible force and irresistible partner that Sharp hopes to become truly does happen and remains with its dealers for a long time to come.