I wrote this back in 2012 for a series of blogs titled, The Transition of the Copier Industry. Back in 2012 I focused this blog around the Ricoh eWriter. Today the Ricoh eWriter is nowhere to be found. Why? I have no clue. I thought this product would kick start paperless forms, service tickets, delivery tickets and many other mundane paper-based processes.
The digital copier industry of today is changing and companies like Xerox, Ricoh, Konica Minolta and Canon are making the transition to service-led companies. These manufacturers and their dealers will be the sole provider for documents, whether they are created electronically or printed. The manufacturers and dealers want to help customers with print stream management, forms, email, archiving of documents (electronic and paper). They also want to provide consulting to help businesses increase efficiencies, provide easier work flows and reduce costs.
As an example, I’ll use a Ricoh product – the eWriter. Since I sell their products, I’m more familiar with them. It’s not for playing games, surfing the web or doing your fantasy football at the office (Ricky). The eWriter is a business tablet that is designed to address technology gaps in the digital work flow by replacing paper-based solutions with digital alternatives (I borrowed this from Ricoh). Basically, the Ricoh eWriter will replace paper.
Maybe the best example I can give is my own:
When making a sale, I need to produce a sales order, a maintenance agreement and a lease. I need to print these documents and then have the customer sign them. I then bring them back to the office and print another 10 pages of information to complete the order process. This type of process is archaic. If I had an eWriter, all of my forms would be on the tablet. I would enter the information on the tablet, capture the customer’s signature and transmit the documents to the office. I’m done. Therefore, if I wrote 10 orders per month I could increase my efficiency 4-5 hours every month. In ten months I could write another week’s worth of business!
So why aren’t dealers embracing this technology?
The Ricoh eWriter is just one example of awesome technology that is changing our industry. Other manufacturers have also developed real-time visual communication devices for the office that share video, audio an image sharing. Therefore, if you had one of these in each of your offices, you would be able to communicate in real time with video and audio.
It’s not only about the hardware; it’s also about the services. Dealers and Direct branches can now offer an array of services including Managed Network Services, Managed Print Service, Managed Print Stream (managed print stream seems to be one of the most overlooked solutions in our industry) and Managed Document Services. Our industry is preparing for the eventual demise of what got us to where we are today: Putting toner or ink on PAPER!
The holy grail is how we get to new renewable revenue streams with print volumes on the decline. Of course I have some ideas, but I’ll address these in part four.
