San Antonio — Following the passing of his mother, Oscar Sanchez traveled back to his home country of Spain in order to spend some much-needed time with his father—10 days, in fact.
Sanchez, the president and CEO of Kyocera Document Solutions America (KDSA), used some of that time to share insights into the office imaging and printing business with his father—the declining print volumes, supply chain constraints and a myriad of other economic and production issues. Sanchez was, as any son talking shop with his father, deeply candid.
The elder Sanchez was perhaps not the best audience for a woe-is-me recap of the business world—after all, he had left school as a youngster, lived in the streets of Spain for a period and was forced to work for food. Obviously, adversity took on a different meaning in his mind. Thus, when the business overview was finished, the father admonished his son and expressed disappointment in him.
As Sanchez addressed the crowd of more than 850 attendees representing 225 dealers during Kyocera’s REIMAGINE dealer conference, held June 1-3, he used this story to underscore the fact that there’s no sense in wallowing in the difficulties of the day: price increases, supply chain, inflation. Excuses, he said, will solve nothing. Instead, it is critical to appreciate the changes that are happening within the business community and to stave off the urge to resist them.
Sanchez led a parade of keynote speakers on the opening day of the dealer gathering at the JW Marriott San Antonio. The Texas conference represented the first major manufacturer dealer event since the start of the pandemic. In the interim, Kyocera has witnessed a complete overhaul in its leadership group, with Sanchez—who became president and CEO in late 2018—serving as one of the longest-tenured executives with the OEM. From products to new faces and a recast business environment, the REIMAGINE concept permeated every aspect of the event.
“To be in the company of so many of our partners after three years apart has been a real pleasure, and we couldn’t have hoped to do it in a better way than with REIMAGINE,” Sanchez noted.
He wasted little time in outlining the major talking points of KDSA’s future strategy, which will enable it to evolve and adapt to the demands of the recast business climate:
- KDS seeks to become the easiest company to do business with. “We’ll do whatever it takes to become more efficient and we won’t stop until it becomes agreed upon by all of you.”
- Continued innovation on the hardware front, backed by the most competitive A4 lineup in the industry.
- KDSA’s production inkjet offering started from a base of zero two years ago, and in that short span, the OEM has been able to establish market share.
- Professional services, with DataBank hosting KDSA’s ECM solutions in the cloud. DataBank President and CEO Matt Charlson later provided a preview of the DataBank Cloud.
- A managed IT division is being developed that, by year’s end, will offer white-label solutions for dealers that cannot make an investment in their own managed offering.
- An e-commerce solution for lower-margin products, with KDSA assisting dealers in creating an online presence.
- The emergence of the subscription economy.
Another first-day keynote was delivered by Don DuVall, the vice president of channel sales who, in only his 55th day with the company, embodied the new-look KDSA. He announced the rollout of the Dealer Engagement Program—complete with a Dealer Engagement Council—that will include regional roundtables and provide insight into trends and KDSA solutions that can address them.
“We have the goal to become your primary partner, but we know we have to earn it,” DuVall added.
DuVall was followed by Frank Zupa, vice president of customer operations, who outlined four critical initiatives—logistics transformation, customer services transformation, sales operations and technical services. To that end, he provided an update on the exchange warranty program and a novel approach to inter-territorial sales via the new Inter-Territorial Network.
New devices highlighted Jose Estebanez’s presentation, as the vice president of corporate marketing outlined 22 products that are on tap, as well as support for dealers seeking to launch e-commerce platforms and subscription services. On the latter count, Kyocera launched a $95 a month unlimited plan a year ago.
The closing keynote added electricity to the room as former NBA superstar and Hall of Famer Magic Johnson bounded about the audience, taking selfies with attendees and regaling the crowd with tales of his battles with on-court nemesis Larry Bird. The basketball great is an accomplished motivational speaker, commanding a reported $150,000 for appearances, and he did not disappoint.
Johnson spoke of his quest to overcome the non-believers in his life and to make his corner of the world a better place. For example, Johnson and his wife, Cookie Kelly, have provided scholarship awards to 10,000 children. A part-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers as well as other sports franchises, Johnson has leveraged his basketball stardom to unprecedented heights and has done much to funnel his fortune to the nation’s underprivileged.
The second day of the conference opened with a panel discussion: New Face, New Direction. A host of KDSA execs fielded questions from the dealer audience on topics ranging from minimum advertised pricing (with the scourge of undercutting on Amazon) to the future of Copystar (still a question mark) and its position on acquiring dealers (KDSA is not a buyer of dealers).
Kyocera also offered attendees a wealth of educational sessions, touching on topics including attracting and maintaining sales talent, leveraging the subscription economy, adopting e-commerce programs, the cloud and increasing sales through digital marketing. Between sessions, attendees were able to peruse the technology fair and receive granular information on the new and current technologies offered by KDSA and its partners.
During the final day’s executive roundtable for analysts, Sanchez told the industry press that while the A3 market remains in decline overall, KDSA has increased its market share to 10%. On the subject of supply chain disruption, he revealed that the company has $53 million in backorders, $40 million of which is tied up in shipping containers. Prior to the pandemic, KDSA’s backorder average was around $100,000.
