If it’s early Spring it must s time for Kyocera Document Solutions America’s FY15 Pan-American Dealer Meeting. This year’s event was held, where else but Las Vegas at The Venetian, one of my favorite hotels. Kyocera seems to work from a template with these events and deviate too much from one year to the next with the agenda and the general content, particularly in the General Session. It is a business meeting after all and why mess with a formula that works?
The theme of this year’s meeting was “Empowerment! Commitment to Partnership,” emphasizing the two–way relationship between Kyocera and its dealers. As Kyocera Document Solutions America president and CEO, Norihiko Ina told the General Session audience, “We empower our dealers, and they empower us.”
Some of my more cynical colleagues from the analyst community may quibble about the lack of content at some of these events, but if one delves deeply enough, there’s plenty of content to go around even if it isn’t always the groundbreaking product announcements that used to take place at these events in past years. With that in mind, I’d like to share with you my 10 impressions from Kyocera’s FY15 Pan-American Dealer Meeting.
It’s absolutely, positively all about apps – Kyocera introduced a dozen apps last fiscal year. At this meeting they introduced a dozen more that will be rolled out over the next fiscal year. Based on my conversations with an unscientific sampling of three dealers at the meeting, the challenge Kyocera has is convincing some smaller dealers to embrace these applications even if they’re nothing more than an enabler to sell more Kyocera hardware. Based on the demos I witnessed of some of the new apps at the Technology Fair, these are some credible enablers.
Some of the more notable app introductions include DMConnect, a Kyocera-developed document management system connector that enhances Kyocera’s DMS Link (an app that links Kyocera MFPs to a user’s existing document management system) by providing more than 20 new features along with enhanced Active Workflow Technology and Survey Assistant, a business application based on Kyocera’s Teaching Assistant app, which is big in the education market. However, Survey Assistant can be applied to any market, not just education, and polls an audience and provides feedback as well as detailed analytics and reporting. Also new and improved is Kyocera’s Print Optimization suite, a group of applications designed to manage print queues and provide device monitoring across all products within small businesses all the way up to the enterprise. Kyocera also expanded its PinPoint Scan, enabling scanning to mobile devices across all platforms for smart phones and tablets.
A vertical market focus – The focus on vertical markets was one of the central themes at the General Session and within the Product Showcase where vertical market stations devoted to healthcare, education, finance, legal, and manufacturing were set up to demonstrate vertical applications using Kyocera hardware.
Going back to the apps, some of Kyocera’s most popular business apps have been packaged together to simplify sales into key vertical markets. There’s a total of 12 packages available with six designed for the more basic customer workflow requirements that can be sold by new sales reps as well as six Pro packages for more advanced dealerships and more complex customer workflows.
What’s most notable about these apps is that Kyocera’s intent is not to duplicate the solutions and services provided by its third-party partners, but to complement their offerings and provide its dealers’ sales and pre-sales teams with the most appropriate, cost-effective resolution to a customer’s business needs.
A continued focus on Total Document Solutions – This may not be the most novel business initiative in the office imaging industry, but it is one that Mr. Ina and other Kyocera executives referenced repeatedly during the General Session. Noting that Kyocera offers unique hardware, not only A3 MFPs, but also A4 MFPs, and printers based on Kyocera’s long-life technology as well as business applications based on Kyocera’s HyPAS solution platform and third-party solutions, Mr. Ina said, “Our unique capability enables us to offer balanced deployment to your customers.”
“The TDS message is more than a marketing sound bite, more than a program; it is an evolving, business way of life for us at KDA and a growing number of you,” added Peter Hendrick, vice president of marketing. “And still an important step in transforming your business from a box-seller to a more consultative role with your customers.”
To date, over 115 dealers from across the Americas have made a commitment to empower their sales and support staff by fully embracing this business initiative. Kyocera will continue to support its dealers with basic MPS training and infrastructure needs all of which, Hendrick said are still a core component to being a certified Kyocera or Copystar TDS Provider to their customers.
Meet ADIMO – This is Kyocera’s solutions sales approach, referenced numerous times during the General Session and focused on in depth during a two-hour General Session presentation. ADIMO stands for Assess, Design, Implement, Manage, and Optimize. “We can say that, when combined, this is the “Kyocera Total Document Solutions initiative” we provide to our customers,” explained Mr. Ina.
Upward revenue mobility in most Pan-American markets – Kyocera’s U.S. distribution channel is doing something right because it’s grown by 5 percent during the past fiscal year with much of that growth attributed to sales of color units according to Mr. Ina. The company enjoyed similar 5 percent growth in Brazil and Latin America and 6 percent growth in Mexico. No specific numbers were provided for Canada although Mr. Ina reported that the last fiscal year started off slow, but ended on a positive note. Interpret that as you will.
Social media initiatives – Expect to see an expansion of Kyocera’s social media efforts, notably on Facebook, Linked-In, and YouTube during the current fiscal year. “What my team and I have learned quickly about this B2B social media world is that there is a fine line between engaging and entertaining,” said Hendrick. “KDA’s social media effort is not in place to entertain. It speaks more about us, the more human side of our brand, the socially responsible side, and how our technology helps deliver a resolution to customers’ document imaging challenges and needs.”
Looking at some of those earlier initiatives by the numbers, Kyocera has received more than 112,000 views for what Hendrick called “our most important document campaign on YouTube” while Facebook likes have grown to over 12,000. He added that communicating Kyocera’s core competency, combined with the dealer’s core competency in their local market, is more important than ever. To get dealers engaged in social media he recommended they do a few simple things, including going to Facebook and “liking” Kyocera’s Facebook page and sharing relevant content with employees and customers. In addition he asked that they subscribe to the Kyocera channel on YouTube and leverage the many videos there.
Product fare – It’s not a dealer meeting without new product introductions and this year Kyocera expanded its A4 black & white MFP lineup with four new models in the Ecosys M3560idn Series. Also announced was A4 MFPs operating at speeds up to 62 ppm. The new MFPs have a 7-inch touch-screen control panel with an identical tablet-like home screen as found on Kyocera’s A3 devices. Dealers were also treated to a preview of new color A4 MFPs and printers along with the Ecosys M6535cidn Series and the Ecosys P7040cdn Series.
Enhancing the warranty program – This announcement by Terry Knopsnyder, vice president of engineering, received big applause from the dealers and eliminates the need for dealers to return defective parts for warranty credit. To place a parts warranty claim, dealers log into Kyocera’s Order and Tracking System, fill in the appropriate information as in the past, and the system immediately validates the warranty and prompts the dealer to attach any necessary paperwork and accepts the return request. The request will then be verified by a Kyocera customer service agent and a credit issued in approximately 48 hours. This initiative eliminates waiting for packages to be delivered, physical inspections of parts, and UPS return-freight charges.
Focus on R&D – Not content to remain complacent, President of Kyocera Document Solutions Katusumi Komaguchi reported that the company has continued to aggressively invest in R&D regardless of the economic situation. The company has been focusing more on optimization of R&D locations, globally in recent years, including a system for all software for lower end products to be developed at the R&D center in the Phillipines. In the future, hardware for the lower end products will be developed in emerging countries as well so the development team in Japan can focus on developing high-end products. The plan is to open a new R&D center in Kyocera’s Vietnam factory, which opened last year.
Future hardware and software introductions – Mr. Komaguchi reported that as the document business becomes more complex, he believes Kyocera’s mission is to provide a variety of hardware and software to satisfy the broadest variety of customer needs. Expect to see more sophisticated A4 MFP in the company’s product portfolio in the future as well as an effort to increase the competitiveness of current hardware models. He added that Kyocera is in the process of improving software by modularizing HyPAS so that dealers can respond to a variety of demands from their customers more quickly by combining modules. As MDS becomes a key services offering, Komaguchi noted that he believes demands from customer will go beyond device optimization and management of printed documents and that vendors such as Kyocera will need to be able to manage workflow and ECM in the future. “We will actively develop strategic collaboration with the third party vendors in addition to our own development in order to support you in these areas as well.”
