As a complement to our overview of how office technology dealers are handling the state and federal quarantine measures, we asked members of the manufacturing community how they’re adjusting internally while ensuring they serve the interests of their reseller partners.
Our roundtable panel consists of Scott Maccabe, president and CEO, Toshiba America Business Solutions; José María Estébanez, senior director, integrated marketing communications, Kyocera Document Solutions America, Inc.; Sammy Kinlaw, vice president, worldwide channel sales and OEM sales, Lexmark; Rick Taylor, president and CEO, Konica Minolta; Dan Waldinger, senior director, B2B marketing, Brother International; Mason Olds, senior vice president and general manager, Canon U.S.A.; and Jim Coriddi, vice president of dealer division, Ricoh USA.
How has your company mobilized since the onset of coronavirus?
We are also closely collaborating with clients, helping them transition their corporate offices into home offices with equipment and software solutions to help them continue their jobs unabated. We think it is critical to approach remote offices as an extension of the corporate office, and we’re helping to educate and empower our clients to do this efficiently.
Maccabe: Upon ensuring our workforce was safe, we made sure they had the equipment necessary to work remotely. We also quickly shifted our service and support centers to be able to support clients remotely, and started communicating and enforcing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines across our organizations to ensure the safety of our teams and clients. Our services and IT teams were extraordinary in helping accomplish this objective.
We think it is critical to approach remote offices as an extension of the corporate office, and we’re helping to educate and empower our clients to do this efficiently.
– Scott Maccabe, Toshiba
We are additionally drop-shipping equipment to home offices while providing the same support they would expect at their corporate headquarters. Toshiba is further meeting the unique needs of our community members—for example, we set up printing facilities for education customers to ensure they could meet new distance learning mandates and provide materials quickly to their students. Overall, we are being very agile to meet the evolving demands placed on our business and clients during this time.
Estébanez: Back in early February, we formed the Situation Control Committee (SCC) with key members of our leadership team in order to evaluate the situation and take any action required. Since then, we have taken measures such as ensuring that any coronavirus-related absences would not be counted as PTO. Our workforce is also working remotely, while special previsions have been made for service technicians attending vital services such as health centers and care homes.
Kinlaw: Lexmark began implementing its business continuity plans (BCPs) in January when manufacturing was delayed due to China’s extension of the Lunar New Year holiday. As the virus made its way through other parts of the world, we implemented BCPs accordingly. Early on, our global crisis management team (CMT) began meeting daily to address issues and communicate across the business. Our global team has rallied to ensure we’ve been able to continue to provide hardware, services and support to our customers and business partners.
Olds: Canon U.S.A. has a business continuity program, which was established by a management committee consisting of business leaders across the organization. Led by our President and CEO Kazuto Ogawa, the committee monitors the situation closely, considers all possible actions and reacts quickly to developments.
Beginning in mid-March, a swift decision was made to transition toward a remote-work environment. Safety is the utmost priority for our team members as we continue providing ongoing support to our customers. Our employees go wherever they are needed to provide support, and our customers have expressed their deep appreciation. We delivered more than 400 Canon printers to a hospital system in New York City to meet their needs at COVID-19 assessment and testing sites, and worked with a hospital in Albany to help busy health care workers with printing important documents. We also are assisting schools as they print materials to enable students to learn remotely. Not only that, but many of our employees have been taking initiative in their free time to help their communities by making masks, delivering meals to nurses and doing whatever else they can to assist others.
We delivered more than 400 Canon printers to a hospital system in New York City to meet their needs at COVID-19 assessment and testing sites.
– Mason Olds, Canon
Taylor: In response to the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus, Konica Minolta was very early in responding as an organization to protect our employees and our community. We moved 850 employees out of our U.S. headquarters in Ramsey, New Jersey, and had everyone working remotely before state mandates were in place. Due to the nature of our business, all those employees were already enabled with technology and equipment. It was a relatively seamless transition; we were ready to go and didn’t miss a beat. In the field, our All Covered IT services team has been deploying resources quickly to help get customers up and running with the technology they need as well. The remote worker can be extremely efficient with all the technology we have surrounding the Workplace of the Future.
Waldinger: I’m very proud of how quickly Brother has adapted to this situation, from dropping everything to help our customers get their employees’ home offices up and running, to internal measures like implementing regular online town halls so that any questions can be addressed openly and candidly. Even charitable celebrations like our company-wide Earth Day activities are still proceeding this year, albeit virtually. The Brother community has really stepped up to the plate.
Coriddi: Ricoh continues to take necessary steps to help keep our employees, customers, partners and communities healthy and safe. We continue to work from home wherever possible, and we proudly support organizations in mission-critical sectors, including health care; grocery stores; financial institutions; energy/utilities; education; and federal, state and local government, among others. This includes operating our warehouse facilities and providing on-site customer service with social distancing guidelines and an increased focus on employee, customer and partner safety. We have been leveraging all of our technology and services, especially our workplace services offerings, to stay connected with all of our teams.
How has the virus impacted production, distribution, R&D and product releases, or caused you to change your focus?
Coriddi: Based on our current and incoming inventory levels of parts and supplies, we do not anticipate significant disruptions to supply chain. Many of our suppliers have resumed operations and are achieving near their expected levels of output. We are continuing to work with our manufacturing division and suppliers to minimize any potential delays for new products in the coming months.
Olds: Canon has taken many steps in alignment with our corporate philosophy of Kyosei to support our customers and channel partners. Specifically, Canon Medical Systems Corporation was selected to work with Nagasaki University to start development of a rapid genetic testing system for the novel coronavirus.
While there were some limited effects on production in our Asian factories in the first quarter, we have very few issues with supplies of our products, consumables and parts. Canon continues serving its customers and channel partners through various business groups and our diversified portfolio to help keep them efficient, especially those in essential businesses.
Now, because we need to be ready when it is safe to reopen our work spaces, we already are preparing a return-to-work program with much insight and careful consideration of employee safety. We are looking at density management and how to limit the number of people in the office at any given time and reduce capacities in conference rooms and all common areas. We plan to train our employees prior to their return.
Waldinger: Our production, distribution, R&D and product releases are still generally proceeding as planned, albeit modified to maximize employee safety. For example, we’ve implemented social distancing measures at our primary manufacturing facility in Tennessee. But, we’re still moving ahead with our 2020 roadmap, such the recent announcement of our partnership with Kofax. In fact, much of our current focus at Brother is on collaborative workflow tools (like Kofax), which are needed now more than ever.
Our production, distribution, R&D and product releases are still generally proceeding as planned, albeit modified to maximize employee safety.
– Dan Waldinger, Brother
Taylor: Our global R&D teams continue to operate, in many cases working remotely where possible. We see no real impact on future product rollout, and we have sufficient inventory in our supply chain to maintain our service levels to our dealers throughout the crisis. The overall impact of COVID-19 has not changed our focus, but in fact validates our direction of helping our dealers navigate the digital transformation in our industry. We are more focused than ever on supporting our dealers as we adapt to whatever the “new normal” will be.
Kinlaw: Our regional approach to production has allowed us to continue to provide hardware, supplies and parts without material disruption. We’ve maintained global product availability across our portfolio. We released a number of new devices on April 14, including additions to the Lexmark GO Line, and look to continue with additional planned product and solution releases.
Estébanez: Our production has been limited at our plant in China, though it has continued as usual in Japan and Vietnam, but we do not foresee this to have any impact on our supply chains as things stand. This is an ongoing situation which we are monitoring constantly to ensure fluid communication, but for now, we do not expect any supply shortages or delays to product launches.
Maccabe: Fortunately, our supply chain, as well as our production and distribution centers, are fully operational, and our 2020 products are set to launch this year. Toshiba’s operations team continues to process orders remotely, and our warehouses are shipping products to our loyal clients without delay.
How are you working with dealers and resellers of your products and services to help them during this difficult period?
Kinlaw: We’ve found many of our business partners are looking to shore up their expertise during this difficult time. We’re responding with ways in which partners can better serve their customers and future-proof their businesses. We have had high participation in our Lexmark Industry Advantage webinars, which focus on vertical industry knowledge. There are additional webinars featuring COVID-19 solution and service offerings. This includes explanation of our COVID-19 partner stimulus offers.
Taylor: We are proactively reaching out to dealers to find out their immediate needs and how we can help, while also preparing them to come out strong when we get through to the other side. We have launched a series of virtual events, providing insights into how to better use our technology to help their customers and their own organizations. Virtual learning sessions have also been offered to all our sales teams to help grow their skill sets in selling remotely.
We are proactively reaching out to dealers to find out their immediate needs and how we can help, while also preparing them to come out strong when we get through to the other side.
– Rick Taylor, Konica Minolta
We have held joint sales calls with dealers via Zoom and created virtual demos of our production equipment. We’re hosting tons of online and web-based training for our dealer sales rep community to help our smaller regional dealers keep the funnel full:
- Sponsored two dealer community webinars to give the dealer sales reps skills and techniques for working from home.
- Held two follow-up webinars for Managed Voice Selling and Impractical Prospecting.
- Enlisted BTA’s Bob Goldberg to give our dealers the latest updates on the stimulus packages and changes in the HR/employment programs.
- Our marketing division, Konica Minolta Marketing Services (KMMS), hosted a webinar about how best to market during this time.
Maccabe: Toshiba is offering resellers affordable pricing on home printing products, software and supplies. Our team is delivering end-user webinars outlining steps to maintain business continuity with an at-home workforce while aligning organizations to be more productive when returning to the office. Toshiba also hired guest speakers to help resellers develop strategic plans to weather this storm and understand government stimulus opportunities. Lastly, Toshiba leadership is in constant communication with our resellers by phone and video conferencing to ensure we are doing everything possible to help.
Coriddi: We launched our Business Continuity Dealer Playbook for dealer partners, and have been supporting these initiatives and training curriculum with virtual meetings conducted on a regular basis. Most of the focus has been on sales tools and strategies to drive elements of the business that will accelerate in the “new normal” of the virtual workplace. This includes deployment of portfolio offerings, marketing content, email templates, social media tools and messaging for dealers to use that is relevant to the current needs of their customers.
We are working together to focus on immediate needs, but we are also looking to use this time of uncertainty to prepare for what the future looks like, with relevant education, training, certifications and more.
Waldinger: Our dealers and resellers were two of Brother’s first considerations when these unprecedented times hit. Right off the bat, we knew they’d need help reassuring customers and conveying available resources in a way that cut through the tremendous amount of noise when initial quarantine measures were enacted nationwide. We’ve also been in constant contact with our dealer partners to smoothen supply logistics, as the rush to implement remote work led to bottlenecks that we’ve helped alleviate.
Estébanez: We see our partners as part of the Kyocera family, so for us it’s been crucial to keep in regular contact with them. We send out regular updates via email, and also have virtual meetings with them to provide support and ask them what they need from us during this time. We see this partnership as a two-way street and are keen to support all of our dealers in any way we can.
Olds: We are in regular contact with our dealers—supporting business opportunities, providing virtual training engagements and offering a number of webinars for both customers and dealers on a variety of topics. From a service perspective, highlights include our customer solutions center, which is equipped to support both customers and dealers currently in the field. We also have virtual-presence tools, which help our specialists virtually reach out and see what the field technician is working on through their mobile device. These services are playing a key role in assisting our service partners to maximize efficiencies.
Tell us a little about the messaging you’ve provided to employees, clients, partners and other stakeholders.
Estébanez: We’ve been in regular contact with all of our stakeholders. First, we reached out to our employees with several new initiatives, including setting up a COVID-19 homepage through our Microsoft Teams set-up with the latest news. We’ve also set up a podcast with updates for employees, featuring interviews with guests from Kyocera across the globe. We’ve also reached out to clients regularly with updates on how we’re handling the pandemic.
We see this partnership as a two-way street and are keen to support all of our dealers in any way we can
– Jose Maria Estebanez, Kyocera
Maccabe: First and foremost, we are informing employees, clients, resellers and partners that Toshiba is doing everything possible to help at this very difficult time. We are providing a continuous array of presentations, webinars and blogs to best inform, educate and assist our employees, clients and resellers in successfully navigating the current challenges. Whether presenting expert guidance on working from home, applying for government stimulus opportunities or simply maintaining physical and mental well-being, Toshiba supports all our constituents.
Waldinger: Our first focus for customer messaging was to simplify their choices regarding the Brother offerings that make the most sense in the current landscape. But perhaps more importantly, Brother has practiced what we preach with our motto, “At Your Side.” We want our employees, clients and partners to know they’re not alone in this fight, be it through tips on how to work from home productively, or words of inspiration during these challenging times.
Coriddi: Communicating with customers and dealer partners is always a top priority for Ricoh, especially during these challenging times. To help ensure all parties are aware of what steps Ricoh is taking to help keep employees, customers, partners and communities healthy and safe, Joji Tokunaga, president and CEO, Ricoh Americas, has written a letter to customers addressing these concerns that is posted on Ricoh-USA.com. Additionally, dealers can find more detailed FAQs on the Dealer Portal. Furthermore, Ricoh’s Intranet provides frequently updated resources front and center on its homepage, including various FAQs, important information from the CDC and WHO, facts versus fear myth dispelling, and much more.
Ricoh has also been working with our dealer partners to help navigate through the impact of the current business landscape across different areas of their organizations via tools such as webcasts. One webcast topic was “Leadership in time of crisis” for which we brought in a keynote expert, and included a forum for dealer exchange around best practices. On another webcast, we provided a state-of-the-union-type update, including a third-party perspective, along with direction on the federal CARES program.
Olds: Canon U.S.A. continues to be committed to following all recommended procedures and protocols as advised by the CDC, the United States government and state, regional and local public health agencies. The welfare of our employees, customers and partners is paramount in our minds. We are working hard to support our customers and partners remotely and communicate with them regularly. We also have regular communications with our employees on the status of the business as well as remote working conditions. We will continue these proactive activities as the situation evolves.
Kinlaw: The health and safety of our stakeholders is of the utmost importance, now and always. We’ve conveyed that in writing, but also in our actions. In mid-March, we created Lexmark’s COVID-19 Response page on our website to provide the latest information to our customers and partners. Internally, we are providing weekly video updates from our CEO and members of our global crisis management team, who share how their part of the business is responding to the challenge. Our account managers are also staying in close touch with their business partners to make sure their needs are supported.
Taylor: We are trying to update all our audiences as frequently as possible through all our channels. I’ve been doing unscripted videos to employees just to communicate, mostly about employee situations and also about business. We’ve been transparent and consistent in our message, outlining changes we are making, i.e. reducing spending wherever possible. A lot of written communications have gone to employees, customers and dealer partners, with a page on our website continually updated to reflect any changes to our business. We’ve reiterated our goals: to keep our employees healthy, to keep the supply chain going—all inventory is available as of now—and to keep our All Covered technicians available out in the field.
My message is positive. Work is going to change but it’s been changing. This is the direction we have been going in, and we’ve been investing all our assets in what the business will be like going forward. We have been talking to our dealers and customers about digital transformation for years, and this situation really highlighted the need for companies and their employees to have a flexible work style—not just at home, but anytime, anywhere. Employees, dealers and other partners should be really cognizant of how things are moving and where we’ll be when we come out. It will be in a very strong position. We want dealers and customers to know they can continue to count on Konica Minolta to keep their businesses running today and in the future.
The Lease of Dealer Worries: Leasing Companies Talk Protecting Resellers, Accommodating End Users
As the realities of business grinding to a halt weigh on the minds and bottom lines of end users, leasing companies such as GreatAmerica Financial Services and LEAF Commercial Capital are caught between a rock and a hard place. There are the end users, requesting some level of forgiveness regarding their contract obligations. The other challenge is ensuring dealer/reseller clients have protection and preservation with their end-user relationships. For this, we turned to Jennie Fisher, GreatAmerica’s senior vice president and general manager of the Office Equipment Group, and Nick Capparelli, managing director, LEAF Commercial Capital, to learn how the financing companies have struck a balance.
How has your leasing company mobilized since the onset of coronavirus?
Fisher: We used a staged and staggered approach to our response strategy, leaning on our Business Continuity Team at GreatAmerica. Specifically, we wanted to accomplish a couple of key goals.
- Protect our workforce. The safety and well-being of our team members was, is and will be our number-one concern.
- Continue to provide the GreatAmerica experience for our customers.
Our focus was to accomplish both of these goals by mobilizing our workforce to a work-from-home (WFH) operation and social distancing.
We implemented a plan to socially distance our team members. We were able to use our headquarters facility, in addition to our recovery workspace located across town. This plan allowed our employees to work further apart and continue to serve our customers, helping our Business Continuity Team and leadership to move to Phase II, the plan out to get everyone home who wanted to be.
Our team members were then segmented in waves of 50-100 to be deployed home, based on function criticality and equipment availability. We used mostly equipment that was already at our recovery workspace, or was procured early from budgeted future purchases. This allowed us to keep desktops intact at work to help ensure a smooth future return in the months ahead.
Within roughly one week, all team members (over 95%) that wished to be home working were successfully doing so. Our Business Continuity Team is already planning our thoughtful and phased return, knowing it could be weeks, if not months, before it will be appropriate to do so. The health of ourselves and those around us continues to be the basis of all our decision making.
Capparelli: Our first concern, as always, is protecting our employees and customers. Our business-resiliency plan allows the overwhelming majority of our staff to work from home with little to no disruption to our customers, and we’ve moved quickly to let our customers know we are here for them during this unprecedented time. Being in a position of financial strength going into this situation, we are well equipped to handle their financing needs, and we are working with customers on a case-by-case basis to offer assistance with their existing obligations. We’re also offering information on government funding alternatives, as well as ideas to help them access capital as they enact plans to strengthen their companies.
What are the challenges you have faced from a leasing standpoint, in terms of coordinating with dealers and servicing end users?
Capparelli: Many of our customers have seen a severe reduction in demand. With revenues in steep decline and the delay of government-sponsored programs to fill the void, cash positions have been under extraordinary pressure. As such, we needed to quickly adapt our approach to offer relief for our customers’ near-term obligations. Making sure we are connected to them at a time when virtually all are simultaneously in need is a big task. Our employees are doing an exceptional job for our customers in a very difficult time, and we are thankful for their tireless work.
Fisher: There are certainly many challenges for both our customers (office imaging resellers) and their customers (end users) right now. Many businesses have been impacted negatively through no fault of their own, and the sheer number of payment-relief requests from end users has been overwhelming at times. Because a high percentage of contracts in our portfolio are bundled (equipment hardware billed with monthly service and supplies), we are extra mindful in our management of these extensions to protect our customers’ revenues. Rather than having a blanket approach, we have been creative in providing options to help our customers provide relief to their end users. Administration of these options is being orchestrated with two critical priorities: 1) help our customers protect their monthly service and supply revenues coming from those entities that are still using their equipment and able to pay, and 2) protecting the relationship that they have with their customers. We have long recognized office imaging resellers as our primary customer, and we are vigilant to protect the bond they have with their customers.
As we continue to experience and work through these challenges together, we also continue to uncover opportunities. Our customers offering IT services have seen an increase in business through additional project work for at-home set ups, as well as new customers who are finding they need consistent IT support through this pandemic. This leads to additional opportunities to finance managed IT and ancillary services to help solve today’s problems, and for conversations on how they can add value in the future. The need for automation is creating opportunities as well—adding technology integrations that allow digital sharing of documents and transformation of data for remote workers, digital signature capabilities, and comfort in virtual connections.
In addition to opportunities coming our way, we have seized the opportunity to proactively provide informational and educational resources for our customers. Focus here has been on information about government subsidies, guidance on security with an expanded remote workforce, tips on continuing to cultivate culture remotely, education on video communications, and our very-well-received webinar with “They Ask, You Answer” author, Marcus Sheridan on virtual selling, which had more than 800 participants.
We will all look different coming out of this, many in very good ways.
