It is tough to take full stock of the previous year when its aura still hangs listlessly above our heads. Where did we go wrong, you may ask? We are quickly comforted by the affirmation given to Matt Damon’s lead character in “Good Will Hunting” … it’s not your fault.
If anything, 2020 showed the world, and our little business corner of it, that resilience, ingenuity and unflappable spirit helped salvage the best of an untenable year. That it could have been worse is of little comfort, but worth repeating. We made the best of a terrible hand dealt, and the pandemic was certainly the 2-7 offsuit of poker hole cards.
But the onus is on us to take stock of the lessons learned during 2020 if we are to shake off the business doldrums and ensure we are well-positioned to thrive as full business activity gradually staggers back to its feet. Thus, the question becomes: what did we learn, and how can we benefit from it moving forward? We put that query to our panel of trends and predictions prognosticators.
Dan Waldinger, Brother International: Above all else, the pandemic taught us the value of flexibility. Dealers must be willing to adjust to changing appetites and market trends by continually refining their business offerings. For example, customers are hungry for subscription business models with respect to the acquisition of devices and services. The uncertainty wrought by the pandemic has led to more businesses than ever before exploring operating expense models over the traditional capital expense model. Maintaining the flexibility to adapt to these changing needs and others is vital for dealers moving forward.
Eric Martin, Clover Imaging Group: COVID has necessitated that all businesses evaluate their business model, streamline operations, and look for ways to reduce costs while still maintaining the highest level of service to customers. For Clover, it’s also accelerated new business opportunities across all the lines as dealers look for new revenue streams. Obviously, no one in the industry has experienced the growth they anticipated, but many businesses will emerge rightsized and more profitable than they were pre-pandemic.
Jim Coriddi, Ricoh Americas: We saw the rapid acceleration of digital transformation trends in 2020. Some organizations adapted seamlessly. Others did not. It’s important to study both, so we can better understand what it takes to thrive in the new world of work. Many dealers who were able to quickly adapt to provide the low-touch, high-efficiency solutions customers need have enjoyed significant success. Much of that success can be attributed to months or even years of laying the groundwork by becoming customers’ go-to call for enabling and innovating work experiences. Having that customer-centric, adaptable approach positions dealers to capitalize when customers recognize the need for an accelerated digital transformation. This has been a difficult time in many ways. It has underlined the importance of being ultra-responsive to customer needs, growing to meet them and expanding expertise to back up an expanded portfolio.
Stephanie Kennard, Y Soft: We’ve seen that companies that thought they had concrete change management strategies in place struggle to support a remote workforce. We’ve also noticed that companies learned that the concept of printing is not a necessity. People and businesses limited the amount of printing that they were doing. At Y Soft, when we saw that, we learned that we have to find other ways to stay relevant in the future.
David Concors, Supplies Network: I think the single biggest lesson we learned was how dependent we were on a single freight carrier, namely UPS. The pandemic and the explosion of e-commerce has really created constraints on shipping capacity that go well beyond our industry. Our logistics team has identified and implemented numerous supplemental and regional carriers to help maintain service levels. There’s no shortage of other lessons surrounding strong financial disciplines and an overall conservative approach to our business that proved to make navigating a few stressful months a little more manageable.
Mark Flesch, Gordon Flesch Company: I think the biggest lesson we’ve learned is that we really can effectively work remotely and sell remotely. But we have also lost some connections while working this way. We’ve learned that we are more productive when we are in the office collaborating. We also learned that we have a strong culture, but that culture and connection has been affected by COVID and having fewer of our great employees in our facilities. We can’t wait until we are able to bring more people back into our offices.
Brent Martin, ARLINGTON: Those companies that had invested in digital phone services, cloud-based solutions, and online project collaboration tools were better equipped to navigate through the events that began March 2020. Thanks to our IT and executive team, our company had the infrastructure in place to accommodate the sudden surge of work-from-home employees. We were able to provide a seamless transition to a remote workforce because we kept ourselves current with the latest technology and solutions. The leadership and personnel that make up our distribution and warehouse teams were the heroes within our business keeping the fulfillment of shipments undisrupted by the pandemic. We improved in our online collaboration of tasks through the utilization of tools like Microsoft Teams and Asana. The main steps backward were in the areas of serving our resellers in an environment that would not allow for personal encounters and many partners’ inability to serve their end-users face-to-face for a prolonged period.
Michael Pietrunti, Xerox: There is no doubt the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we work today. It certainly silenced any lingering reservations about the necessity of digital transformation. According to Xerox’s Future of Work survey, 72% of organizations were not fully prepared from a technology perspective for the sudden transition to remote work due to COVID-19, which ultimately impacted productivity. The pandemic expedited the adoption of remote work, which will forever change the work environment as we know it. Our data shows that 81% of respondents have more confidence in remote workers. We will continue to see a distributed workforce play an important role in the future of work equation.
Laura Blackmer, Konica Minolta: We can sell without traveling! Earlier this year, we opened our Customer Engagement Center (CEC), a brand new 18,000-square-foot product showroom at our Ramsey, New Jersey, headquarters. Virtual demos have become such an important part of selling during this time. Customers seem to be more willing to meet via Zoom or other virtual meeting tools than they do in person. We are closing deals on new units sight unseen, and are also working with dealers so they can leverage the opportunities offered by the CEC.
Mike Marusic, Sharp: One valuable lesson we learned, and a direct effect of the pandemic, was that work-from-home is not just a fad, it’s here to stay. As a result, our industry needed to evolve in order to survive. At Sharp, this included launching work-from-home technology bundles, complete with a computer, printer and desktop display to help move forward the remote work environment. We also continued expanding our Synappx family of smart office solutions, with new software to help workers move between the home and the office.
