Ordinarily, when office technology dealers are in the market for a vendor who can provide them with A3 or A4 units, there are numerous household names from which to choose. Oftentimes, the OEMs are known qualities with established track records in a given discipline. Industry peer groups or dealer friends who already offer a product/service can provide instant analysis and feedback to help in your decision-making.
That’s not always the case with ancillary products, especially when the providers are somewhat novel and well beyond the cast of OEM characters encountered in the office dealer space. That’s when the research process becomes more intensive to identify a vendor who can help dealers become acclimated with the offering, bolstered by training and education.
As part of this month’s State of the Industry focus on ancillary products, we asked our dealer panel about the challenges entailed in vetting various providers of a given offering and the variables that led them to select their product/technology partners.
When embarking on business process outsourcing, KDI Office Technology of Aston, Pennsylvania, took a multi-pronged approach to evaluate the provider’s reputation, expertise and ability to support the dealer’s business and clients. Vendor reputation was foremost among the considerations, according to Rick Salcedo, president and CEO of KDI.
“We conducted extensive research and gathered feedback from our peers in the industry to ensure that we were partnering with reputable companies that had a proven track record of delivering high-quality products and services,” he said. “We also evaluated the expertise and capabilities of the manufacturers/suppliers to ensure that they had the necessary resources to provide the training and education that we needed to successfully introduce their products and technologies to our clients. We worked closely with them to develop comprehensive training programs for our salespeople and clients to ensure that everyone had a deep understanding of the products and technologies and how they could be used to drive business results.”
Salcedo notes that throughout the process, the chosen vendors played a significant role in training/educating both salespeople and clients, and worked closely with KDI to identify best practices and strategies for delivering value to its clients.
“Overall, the manufacturers/suppliers that we partnered with have been instrumental in our success in introducing new products and technologies to our clients,” Salcedo added. “We continue to work closely with them to stay up to date on the latest trends and innovations and to ensure that we are providing the best possible solutions to our clients.”
Liquid Assets
Stone’s Office Equipment of Richmond, Virginia, had the advantage of a narrower field of providers when it embarked on bottle-less water systems. Carson Stone, product and solutions specialist, conferred with a number of dealers on the viability of the offering before the dealer reached an agreement to carry the Wellsys line.
“After signing on, [Wellsys] provided sales and service training. Like the copier/printer community, the water dealers are helpful whenever we have questions,” Stone noted.
Speaking of Southeast dealers who have taken on water systems, Kelly Office Solutions of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, added pure water, pure air and pure ice—as well as coffee products and supplies—seven years ago, and the offering continues to gain traction among clients. Brice Renegar, director of the pure water technology division, points out the offering originated when a sales manager at Kelly, who had friends who had successfully moved into the water business, suggested it could provide a growth avenue for the dealer. The tip proved fortuitous.
“[The friend] was really excited about what they were accomplishing with the business,” Renegar noted. “I’ve since had people call me and ask about [the viability of] the business. The best part of it is, it’s not all that expensive, the sales process can be easily learned and you can get into it fairly quickly.”
As ancillary offerings go, it doesn’t get more off the beaten path than janitorial/sanitation (jan/san) products. Nate Schaf, director of marketing for Eakes Office Solutions of Grand Island, Nebraska, notes the vetting process can be challenging when starting out in a new category. He found that it was difficult to get manufacturers to commit to Eakes and its vision. Similarly, Schaf found that companies Eakes had acquired in the jan/san space had an overabundance of vendor partners for specific products.
“Through focusing on best-in-class players in the category, we were able to quickly get past that hurdle,” he said. “Now, we are much more selective in our vendor partners, and they must bring additional value to the table like strong industry reputations, and sales rep and end-user training programs.”
Buy-In
The path many dealers take to onboarding a new offering is to acquire a company that specializes in a given discipline, which generally includes the addition of subject-matter experts. In the case of St. Cloud, Minnesota-based Marco, its 2017 acquisition of DNT in Fenton, Missouri, included a shredding division. Subsequent acquisitions in Pennsylvania and Minnesota helped build upon the dealer’s competency, notes Jeff Olson, director of project management for Marco.
“The manufacturers/suppliers that shred work with have dealt with many of the same obstacles as other markets in the last few years,” he said. “So more than just price, it often boils downs to availability. Regarding training/educating, these factors are not a major part of the decision-making process for shred products.”
Proficiency through acquisition was the same strategy taken by Pulse Technology of Schaumburg, Illinois, which added furniture to its product menu following the acquisition of a Sharp dealer located in Indiana. That allowed CEO Chip Miceli to ramp up much quicker as opposed to forging net-new relationships. Once he had a foot in the door, however, Miceli was able to broaden his offering horizon.
“When we acquired the Indiana business, there were already a number of established furniture brands being sold. Based on their previous success and what we learned as we took over, we kept the same lines and then added one more a little later down the line,” he said of Pulse, which carries Trendway, Hon, and National (Kimball).
