The importance of teamwork and strategy behind constructing a winner made for an appropriate theme during the KYOCERA Innovate event, held April 9-11 at the Omni at ChampionsGate Hotel in Orlando, FL. The annual dealer meeting attracted more than 1,100 KYOCERA and Copystar dealers, press, analysts and guests from the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Japan and the Caribbean for a highly-focused look at the new products and strategies driving the KYOCERA business platform.
Noted television sports journalist Hannah Storm served as emcee for the general session presentation. The ESPN personality adeptly weaved in examples of winning strategies in the world of basketball, from the NBA’s Chicago Bulls to the NCAA women’s University of Connecticut team, noting how an adept action plan and leadership allowed these organizations to become champions year after year. They blended star performances with leadership strategies to become respected, perennial winners. KYOCERA, not surprisingly, is embracing that same concept in augmenting its current product and service offerings with bold, new ventures (more on this shortly).
Ed Bialecki, senior vice president of sales, KYOCERA Document Solutions America
Storm introduced Ed Bialecki, himself a former men’s basketball player with Seton Hall University and currently KYOCERA’s senior vice president of sales. Bialecki discussed the Innovate rebranding for the annual meetings, which reflects a shared commitment to delivering meaningful innovation for KYOCERA’S customers.
“Teamwork is an extension of partnership, working together to achieve a common goal,” he said. In doing so, the manufacturer hopes to rack up some wins.
Norihiko Ina, President, KYOCERA Document Solutions.
Norihiko Ina, president of KYOCERA Document Solutions, provided a global overview of KYOCERA’s performance for the fiscal year 2018, which included record sales and higher earnings from the previous year. A3 and A4 global sales increased 14 percent worldwide. Whereas Ina discussed challenges at last year’s event, this time he focused on three areas: maintaining and strengthening the company’s position with MFPs and printers (KYOCERA is rolling out 29 new products in 12 product series); changes in print volumes, KYOCERA’s acquisition of DataBank and solutions for ECM and document BPO; and changes in print demand for the office and commercial spaces. The latter count is well represented by the company’s upcoming release of the TASKalfa Pro 15000c. This inkjet offering is currently in production, with delivery slated for early 2019.
Among the new products that will be unveiled during the fiscal year are the TASKalfa 9600, 11100 and the 13600. This marks KYOCERA’s unofficial foray into light-production printing. After years of providing inkjet printing heads for other manufacturer lines, the 15000c is the manufacturer’s rookie debut in producing high-speed inkjet hardware.
Yukio Ikeda, president and CEO, KYOCERA Document Solutions America
Yukio Ikeda, president and CEO of KYOCERA Document Solutions America, rolled out some numbers for the KYOCERA markets on this side of the pond. Mexico, Chile and Brazil all showed decent growth year-over-year, and Canada posted modest growth. The U.S., on the other hand, broke even with the prior year. Ikeda said the manufacturer plans to redouble its efforts by concentrating on core business expansion, the introduction of the TASKalfa Pro inkjet and Total Document Solutions 2.0—Beyond the Document. Bialecki added that it is their hope that new hardware and software (such as Net Manager), the high-speed inkjet and ECM/document BPO services will act as a catalyst for U.S. growth.
Hannah and Vice President Engineering Terry Knopsnyder came to the stage to perform a knockoff of ESPN’s SportsCenter, dubbed ServiceCenter, a news segment to illustrate the growth of KYOCERA Fleet Services (KFS). Knopsnyder pointed out how KFS has grown its enrollment from 100 dealers to 517, with registered devices exploding from 40,000 to 167,000. For the fiscal year 2019, KYOCERA will be building on its integration with E-Automate, bolstered by supply order and service integration. He encouraged attendees to learn more about KFS and hear about success stories in the program’s educational track.
Danielle Wolowitz, vice president of corporate marketing, took a page out of the Jerry Maguire “help me help you” book by discussing the manufacturer’s quest to help dealers attract new customers, new kinds of customers and to sell more deeply and broadly than ever before.
“Growth is a team sport,” she said. “Selling is now a more complex procedure to grow sales and profits. The educational and legal verticals have demand for these types of devices.”
Danielle Wolowitz, vice president of corporate marketing
Flashing her New Jersey roots, Wolowitz offered up the phrase “I’ve got a guy for that” in stressing KYOCERA’s single-source solution to dealer challenges. She implored dealers to take advantage of KFS, learn more about high-speed inkjet and become certified to offer it, and to learn more about TDS 2.0 and help their customers with document and data workflow, thus deepening their relationships. KYOCERA has “guys” for all of that.
Wolowitz also encouraged attendees to check out the product fair, which was laid out in the shape of a baseball diamond, with KYOCERA’s solution partners stretching across the “outfield.”
Up next was Bill Priemer, president and CEO of Hyland Software, who spoke on the subject of growing your business beyond the document. It was only fitting, as KYOCERA acquired Hyland’s largest U.S. distributor of its software, DataBank, in 2017. Priemer pointed out that 87 percent of organizations recognize the need for digital transformation through the use of hardware and software.
Priemer then pointed to a number of big wins where Hyland’s OnBase has made a marked improvement for clients including Allstate, Best Western and the state of Nebraska’s government. He also pointed out that while there are solutions on the market that perform some of the tasks Hyland offers, but none are aggregated into one package.
Bialecki and others then took turns welcoming to the stage the top KYOCERA and Copystar dealers from each of the aforementioned geographic markets, with more than 20 countries represented and dozens of dealers honored.
Terry Knopsnyder, vice president engineering, KYOCERA Document Solutions America
Wrapping up the morning’s presentation was a guest panel on TDS 2.0 that included Bill Shuey, president of Phillips Office Solutions; Chuck Bauer, CEO of DataBank; Priemer and Ikeda. Shuey discussed his dealership’s foray into ECM and BPI, noting that with the dwindling page numbers, Phillips sought out new and profitable revenue streams. Phillips has a dedicated sales team attacking both current customers and prospects in at least 15 vertical markets, with a focus on Hyland’s OnBase. As a testament to the software’s effectiveness, the dealership boasts an impressive customer retention rate of 97 percent.
One of the highlights of the product fair was unquestionably the unveiling of the TASKalfa Pro 15000c. Visitors lined up 20-30 people deep outside of the enclosed booth for a 10-minute presentation by Fred Morrone, product marketing manager. With an output speed of 150 ppm A4 and 146 ppm letter, the machine can handle media up to 13×19” with a print head resolution of 600×600 dpi. While the media field is somewhat limited at this point, KYOCERA is testing a variety of substrates. The 15000c is ideal for a number of markets including CRDs, in-plants, nonprofits, direct mail/service bureaus and print service providers. While not an office application, interested dealers nonetheless pelted Morrone with a variety of questions surrounding its performance and availability.
The TASKalfa 9600, 11100 and 13600 took a back seat to the 15000c but are notable for KYOCERA’s move into the light-production printing realm. They offer production speeds of 96, 111 and 136 ppm, respectively, with a print resolution of 1200×4800 dpi. They have rated document volumes of up to one million impressions per month and can handle thin, thick, NCR, textured and coated stocks. Scanning speeds are 200 ipm color.
On the whole, while KYOCERA won’t win any medals for being first to market in areas such as light-production printing and high-speed color inkjet, the manufacturer is banking on not being first to the finish line, but perhaps the best. Time will tell as the results pour in from this month’s release of the 9600/11100/13600 and next year’s debut of the 15000c, but if KYOCERA is true to its theme of “It Takes a Team” and can support these new trails into unchartered territories for their dealers by “having a guy,” maybe it can truly carve out a niche for itself and the dealer partners.
