It’s no secret that one area office equipment dealers embarked upon not long into the pandemic shutdown was equipment and supplies that would help provide safety measures for those end-users who were considered essential businesses, along with others who wanted to take precautions for the eventual return to the office.
Adding temperature-scanning devices was an easy play for many dealers, as was various forms of personal protective equipment (PPE). And there was certainly no dearth of providers for temperature scanners, and eventually OEMs to the industry (including Konica Minolta) would offer their own models. In those early months, businesses soon found that while finding manufacturer sources was not difficult, inventories could not keep up with demand. Suppliers simply couldn’t keep pace.
This month’s State of the Industry report on adding ancillary products and services to provide a needed boost to dealers’ bottom lines isn’t focused on PPE and scanners per se. But what scanners and PPE did was force dealers to look outside traditional boundaries for sourcing, a factor that comes into play when delving into other technologies beyond the scope of the traditional OEM menu, such as security cameras. That’s where vendor vetting takes on greater significance.
Wide Net
All Copy Products certainly fits that description. The Denver-based firm onboarded security cameras to its roster in the middle of 2020. For President Brad Knepper, the key was driving input from as many sources as possible to ensure he could put together a broad consensus on providers.
“I look to my peers a lot. If they’re already accustomed to having some success in our industry, that helps a lot because they know what they’re getting into,” Knepper noted. “I’m part of several different groups and CDA, some dealer councils, and we have some subgroups that we created with several dealers. We share a lot of ideas. If one of the vendors does a really good job, we share those messages. If they do a bad job, we share that as well. That vetting process of talking to peers is really important.”
Brian Gertler, senior vice president of LDI Color ToolBox of Jericho, New York, notes limited supply chains created by the pandemic make it difficult when businesses are vying for market share. Thus, diversification of providers can help mitigate getting shut out of a product.
“We try to hedge our bets by offering more than one solution in each category,” he said.
Nailing Specs
Equally as important to vetting the vendors is surveying clients to ensure the dealer knows the exact specs clients are seeking, notes John Lowery, president of Applied Imaging in Grand Rapids, Michigan. That helps the dealer better align solutions that are an appropriate/customizable fit for the end-user.
“Each offering is carefully thought out – how it will impact the customer, any objections that may come as a result, our projections and predictions for future growth of that product line, etc.,” Lowery said. “We always want to be able to service what we sell.”
As a longtime member of the CDA and a Riordan and Associates client, Centriworks of Knoxville, Tennessee, has plenty of member resources to rely upon when vetting for vendors of a new product addition, which was the case in 2020 with telephony.
“We are middle to late adapters, so the success stories and horror stories are pretty much known before we take on a product or service,” notes CFO/CSO Mark DeNicola.
