There are a wealth of options to consider when it comes to ancillary products. VoIP, interactive whiteboards, pure water, physical security (including cameras and hardware), furniture and a laundry list of managed services. The question is, what is the right offering that will align with your client base or speak to the needs of prospects in your coverage area?
If you were to create a checklist of variables that would be necessary in order for your dealership to pull the trigger, one of the most important factors would be recurring revenue. Contractual business and the ability to provide monthly service and supplies are the lifeblood of any dealership. However, should an ancillary product not offer the recurring component, other factors could make it a compelling proposition, namely high profit margins (as in the case of furniture) and the ability to leverage other products and services with recurring opportunities within those accounts.
As we put the April State of the Industry report on ancillary products to bed, our dealer panel concludes their impressions with a look at the opportunities moving forward that they find most compelling.
Breaking ground on additional offerings that complement a dealer’s current service model is a step in the right direction, but Carson Stone—product and solutions specialist for Stone’s Office Equipment of Richmond, Virginia—feels a little creativity and a willingness to go beyond the ordinary can serve dealers well. Novel offerings represent an ongoing discussion inside the walls of Stone’s Office Equipment.
“Last year, we worked with content management providers who help clients best utilize their commercial displays in their offices,” he noted. “Hopefully, Stone’s will bring a new product/vendor to market every year for the next several years. That’s what we talk about in our manager’s meetings.”
While office furniture and design has been a solid ancillary addition for Pulse Technology of Schaumburg, Illinois, CEO Chip Miceli is drawn more toward offerings with recurring revenue models. One of the newer avenues for Pulse is software applications, and Miceli sees great potential moving forward.
“Document management is one area within this area where we’ve concentrated, and we see an opportunity to do more within software solutions,” he said. “It will be a focus of ours in this next year.”
Digitize and Dispose
Tim Renegar, president of Kelly Office Solutions in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, bases any ancillary product consideration on aftermarket potential. The “one-and-done sale” doesn’t mesh with anything in the dealer’s current portfolio. One area he’s keen on is document conversion services, which can open the door to a multi-year agreement for digitizing paper files, along with the disposition of hard copies.
“That kind of project can lead to a five-, six-, even eight-year commitment,” he said. “I think this is a huge opportunity that not enough of us [dealers] are looking at closely enough. We’ve also moved into mailing systems, which I’d never imagined doing previously, but I’m glad that I did. The goal is to get to the point where we’ve pretty much covered everything in the office and become that one-stop shop for everything necessary to keep information moving along in the office.”
The world of janitorial and sanitation (jan/san) products has proven to be a boon for Eakes Office Solutions of Grand Island, Nebraska. Nate Schaf, director of marketing, is always keen on identifying opportunities to grow Eakes’ business and better serve clients, and he has his eye on a pair of prospective additions.
“Packaging and MRO [maintenance, repair and operations] are two potential growth categories that we are watching in our janitorial world,” he said. “And we are always interested in new technologies that we can bring to our customer base.”
Quartet of Opportunities
Looking ahead to the next 12 months, Rick Salcedo, president and CEO of KDI Office Technology in Aston, Pennsylvania, has identified four areas of interest that are under consideration—cloud-based solutions, managed IT, workflow automation and digital marketing services. As more end-users gravitate to the cloud, he believes it represents an opportunity to enable clients to operate more efficiently and securely. Managed IT can help clients proactively manage their IT infrastructure and reduce downtime, while workflow automation enables end-users to streamline operations and improve productivity.
Also, with the increasing importance of digital marketing, Salcedo believes there is a significant opportunity to provide services that can help clients improve their online presence and reach new customers. The end game is universal: to be that single-source provider that addresses the entire office.
“Overall, we believe that these areas represent significant opportunities for us to provide additional value to our clients and gain more share of the general customer office,” he said. “By leveraging our expertise and experience, we are confident that we can continue to grow our business and become a trusted partner for all of our clients’ business needs.”
