Peer Groups and the Core Value of Benchmarking Enables Improved Performance on the Playing Field

One of the harbingers of spring is baseball season. The sport has undergone a major metamorphosis in the last 20 years, particularly in the way that performance is measured. For years, batters were judged by three primary statistics—batting average, home runs and runs batted in.
Read More

Canon Seeks to Continue Light to Mid-Level Production Stronghold with New imagePRESS C910 Series

Canon U.S.A. Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, announced the new imagePRESS C910 Series. Building on the success of its predecessor, the market leading1 imagePRESS C850 Series, the imagePRESS C910 Series is a true, light to mid-volume production color digital press
Read More

Sharp Roadshow Looks Ahead to Smart Office of Tomorrow

Chicago—Give Sharp a lot of credit. The manufacturer could have used the final leg of its four-city 2019 Dealer Roadshow tour to extol the virtues of its celebrated MFP fleet, which captured the Keypoint Intelligence – Buyers Lab 2019 Copier MFP Line of the Year, as well as
Read More

Don’t Be Shy: Biggest of Peer Group Ideas Can Come from Smallest of Dealerships

It’s not uncommon for dealers who are new to a peer group to be a bit bashful initially. You look around the room and see dozens of grizzled veterans representing big-name dealerships, and the tendency is to sit quietly and let the heavy hitters do all the talking. But don’t sell
Read More

Attacking the Market from a Vertical Perspective: Dealers Offer Advice

Listening is often a lost art form. Sometimes, we get so caught up in what we know and believe without really giving a different viewpoint the attention it deserves. Look no further than the current political climate; we’d be hard pressed to find a juncture in recent memory where
Read More

Forty Years Later, Katun Corp. Continues to Perform Above the Parts-and-Supplies Rim

After 35 years in the industry, Bob Moore has learned several irrefutable truths. First, a provider is only as good as the people behind it, which includes employees, partners and suppliers. Second, no entity can last 40 years without adapting to changing technologies and
Read More

Pushing the Needle Skyward: In a City of Pinnacle Achievers, Copiers Northwest is Another Success Story

With the Seattle Space Needle looming in the backdrop of the company’s block-wide main campus, Copiers Northwest has some impressive technology and retail heavyweight neighbors in the form of Amazon and Facebook, with Microsoft a short distance away and Google soon to set up shop
Read More

Strength in Numbers: Best Practices, Benchmarking and Networking Resources All Point Toward Joining Peer Groups

At the risk of ending up on Bernie Sanders’ newsletter distribution list, we operate under a capitalist system that enables businesses to acquire vast amounts of properties, resources (both tangible and intellectual) and advantages of scale. This can create a distinct chasm
Read More

Dealers Ponder Future Opportunities with Vertical-Driven Markets

In our previous look at vertical-driven business, we examined the art of developing competencies within a given set of market spaces. This time around, we’re asking our panel to provide a glimpse of what the vertical market approach may look like going forward. For CPI
Read More

A Stroll Through the Product Expo at the Konica Minolta Dealer Conference

One of the elements of the Konica Minolta dealer conference, held in Newport Beach, CA, from March 4-6, was the solid array of products manufactured by the OEM and some offerings displayed in tandem with technology partners. We’ve selected a half-dozen points throughout the expo
Read More

The Dealer World’s a Stage for Konica Minolta at Conference Event

Rick Taylor will be the first person to tell you that he relishes competition. The president and CEO of Konica Minolta strolled the stage of the cavernous and intimidating Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, CA, reminiscent of Titus holding court in the Roman Colosseum.
Read More

RJ Young Acquires Managed Provider Automated Imaging Systems of Louisiana

It might be said that RJ Young’s recent acquisition of Automated Imaging Systems (AIS) was 15 years in the making, but only needed 30 days for completion. RJ Young President and CEO Chip Crunk had been discussing the possibility of acquiring the Monroe, LA-based dealership with
Read More

The Vertical-Driven Dealership: Developing Competencies

How does a dealership like Kelley Imaging Systems of Kent, WA—or any dealer for that matter—employ sales reps that have some specialization in certain vertical markets, but can talk the talk of a given market space without having a majority of its business in any one or two
Read More

On the Road Again: Trials and Tribulations of the Business-Weary Traveler

I had the pleasure of attending the Konica Minolta event this week (which we’ll profile in next week’s newsletter).  A rash of recent trips got me to thinking about flying adventures. We’ve all had our shares of canceled, rescheduled and delayed flights, prompting headaches and
Read More

Submit Your Nominations for 2019 ENX Magazine Difference Makers

As an industry, we spend a great deal of timing focusing on the tools and technology that help keep office technology dealers and their clients on the cutting edge of automation and workflow enhancements that enable them to thrive and prosper. But as any top executive will tell
Read More