Last week’s bounty of news surrounding acquisitions and organizational shuffling is a constant reminder that change is always afoot in the office dealer stratosphere. For some organizations, 2024 planning occurred well before last December, and industry players are already guiding their chess pieces to put themselves in the most favorable position.
But speed is not always essential to business strategy, so take note of the shifts that are occurring while resisting the temptation to jump into the fray. In part two of our annual trends and predictions theme of using the previous year as a guidepost, we’ve compiled the observations of the industry’s most august performers. It’s true that the best business plans are never finished.
As 2024 unravels, the industry will see the continued diversification of products and investments in driving sales and marketing alignment, according to Frank Cucco, CEO of Impact Networking. The continued evolution of the sales process through digital marketing versus traditional marketing should garner more momentum.
“We feel an SDR program and lead generation will be key for companies that are successful in the future,” he noted.
It is important that dealers’ printer lineups meet the demands of both SMB and enterprise clients. Fernando Maroniene, senior director of product marketing for Brother International, notes that hardware is only one piece of the puzzle. Dealers, he said, need to augment it with professional support, understand the newer needs of clients, and provide an appropriate response, regardless of whether it goes against how businesses used to operate.
“Increased security and workflow solutions, for example, as well as a balanced approach to the fleet managed by professional services to remove the burden of managing document workflow for the end customer,” Maroniene said. “Dealers should also offer value subscription programs to support their end customers, which is slowly but surely becoming an emerging requirement from customers. In addition, custom-tailored solutions that are built to match customers’ specific needs and requirements benefit the integral tripod; businesses, dealers, and channel partners and should be a part of this plan.”
Click Talk
We’ve all seen the numbers as to the decline of print volumes, but Carter Hertzberg, president of Nauticon Office Solutions in Gaithersburg, Maryland, offers a compelling observation regarding dealers in the east and west. Circumstances may well see the coasts generating an increase in clicks.
“This is owing to the slow but steady return to work in the markets that were hesitant to return in the first place but seem to have established a fairly reliable trickle of workers spending incrementally more time in the office,” he noted.
The best way to protect sensitive information and maintain customer trust is to not pull punches when it comes to security investments, notes Clark Bugg, vice president of North America channel sales at Lexmark. As ongoing data breaches would indicate, not everyone has received this message.
“Channel partners must secure hardware and cloud infrastructure to prevent data breaches, ensuring transparency in addressing vulnerabilities and implementing robust security measures like encryption,” Bugg said.
Another proponent of amping up one’s security protocol/offering is J. Mark DeNicola, CFO/CSO for Centriworks of Knoxville, Tennessee. He believes all companies should incorporate some flavor of cybersecurity. He also feels technology can play a more pivotal role.
“Dealers should devote resources to developing a plan to utilize AI in various aspects of the business,” DeNicola added.
Hybrid Helpers
Even with its detractors, it is clear that hybrid work will continue to gain influence with businesses going forward. Jennifer Healy, senior director of marketing strategy, communications, programs and enablement, deal and partner channel for Ricoh USA, pointed to IDC estimates that 60% of workers are now in the office three days a week.
“Hybrid work remains a big opportunity for dealers to expand market share both in content management and document workflows,” Healy said. “Device management and service are important, but dealers must transition from being a trusted print provider to a value-added consultant. Sustainability is a new trend we are seeing in RFIs and RFPs as we see a shift in the decision makers and influencers and worth some focus.”
