OEM road shows are proving to be excellent educational opportunities not only for dealer principals, but for their sales reps, and depending on the agenda, their service techs too. Toshiba’s “Together Smarter 2014 Product & Solutions Summit,” which rolled through St. Louis; Charlotte, NC; Philadelphia, and Las Vegas during a three-week span in August, was an excellent example of what can be accomplished in a day and a half. I attended the Philadelphia event on Aug. 14 and 15.
It all began Thursday evening with a two-hour cocktail reception in the exhibit area, an ideal location for networking with attendees and exhibitors, including sponsors such as Square 9, Lexmark, US Bank, Supplies Network, and GreatAmerica Financial Services Corp.
The agenda for the second day included breakfast, lunch, the General Session, eight different breakout sessions, and an afternoon pub crawl through the exhibit area.
The General Session featured brief presentations from Larry White, vice president of sales and Joe Contreras, director of product marketing. Topics ranged from industry trends to Toshiba’s performance this year, to new products and solutions, including production devices, to environmentally responsible solutions, to digital signage, a new interactive selling application, to the Solutions Alliance Program.
White reported that Toshiba’s business is up, and up fairly dramatically, in every channel (TBS, International, and dealer), and in every category. “Machine placements are up and aftermarket is up, which tells us your MIF is up and your print volumes are increasing,” said White.
He also noted a significant increase in the company’s barcode business, resulting from some major account takedowns. Despite the upward growth, he offered a caveat, “All that growth is nice and well, but unless we continue to evolve and innovate, not only what we sell, but how we sell, we won’t continue to have that growth.”
One interesting observation he made centered around a new decision maker that dealers need to be aware of—the CSO (Chief Sustainability Officer). White predicted that as sustainability becomes more pervasive, this position will have more say in what’s in a company’s environment and will likely have a huge influence on what that company buys. Forewarned is forearmed, particularly for Toshiba who places a strong emphasis on sustainability and the environment in its product marketing and product positioning.
White also emphasized the importance of the cloud for storing information, and of course digital signage, a product category that Toshiba is banking heavily on.
Contreras started by discussing the differences between this event and Toshiba’s LEED conference, its annual dealer meeting. “This event goes back to our roots and products and solutions in a small more intimate format that allows for more meaningful conversations with dealers.”
Although LEED offers an opportunity for some of that as well, Toshiba has taken a different approach from most of the other OEMs in that its dealers can invite their end users to LEED. That strategy seems to be working with Contreras reporting that last year’s LEED generated more than $10 million in new business. Approximately 200 customers attended last November’s LEED with Contreras projecting tthat number to grow to 300 for this year’s LEED scheduled for November in Dallas.
Also noteworthy is a new branding initiative: Together Smarter. This is part of a much broader branding initiative and was originally announced internally last year. It is now being rolled out worldwide. “We want to have a consistent platform for all printing groups across Toshiba companies,” observed Contreras.
Later this year Toshiba will roll out the Solutions Alliance Program. The concept behind this is a more simplified portfolio that also defines what it takes to sell certain solutions and what type of skill sets are needed. “Across the board you’ll see standardized pricing levels and consistent Toshiba-branded sales tools across the solutions portfolio,” said Contreras. “And you’ll see us get more strategic with our partnerships.”
Toshiba will have several tiers of solutions partners. At one end of the solutions spectrum is the endorsed category, partners that Toshiba has identified as someone they want to work with, but whose solutions don’t necessarily need to flow through the company. On other end of the spectrum are Platinum Partners, those that are most core to the Toshiba portfolio. “They’ll be the lead products we’ll go to market with and be supported by Toshiba,” explained Contreras. “Those products will be certified to work with Toshiba devices and offer tight integration from a product standpoint.”
One of the first two Platinum Partners is PSIGEN, a provider of advanced capture solutions, including PSI: Capture, a product that integrates with more than 60 ECM type systems and PSI: Fusion, a Web-based capture solution. The other Platinum Partner is Square 9, a provider of document management, ECM, e-forms, and variable data printing solutions. “One of the things I like about their product portfolio is that it is scalable, going from SMB all the way up to the enterprise,” said Contreras. “I also like their commitment to the channel and focus on dealer success.”
The agenda for the breakout sessions was focused on differentiation and creating opportunity to grow revenue. Attendees had to pick and choose between two concurrent sessions that ran throughout the day. I attended Solutions Provider Best Practices hosted by Square 9 rather than the High Volume Monochrome Launch Preview since I was already familiar with the Sharp version of the Toshiba product. I followed that session with the Encompass EcoSmart Program hosted by Contreras although I was torn between that and Sales Velocity with Embedded Solutions hosted by Lexmark.
After an early lunch, the breakout sessions resumed with The Hidden Values of MPS hosted by MSE and 2014 e-STUDIO Lineup. I attended the MPS session since I was already familiar with the e-STUDIO 2014 lineup. Unfortunately, I had to leave early so I missed the e-Bridge CloudConnect hosted by Toshiba, Digital Signage – Blueprint for Success, the final two sessions of the day as well as the pub crawl.
I firmly believe that events like this are not to be missed, especially when done regionally, which allows for more than just the dealer principal to attend. The time and effort companies such as Toshiba and their partners devote to these events provide a golden opportunity to engage dealers, and for dealers and their staff to expand their knowledge of the products and solutions they’re selling or will be selling, and of course to network, something that can never be underestimated.
