Last week, Kyocera Document Solutions America announced it was retiring its Copystar brand. It had long been a sales division, offering Kyocera-manufactured devices under the Copystar flag. It will sail off into the sunset on June 30.
During last year’s Kyocera REIMAGINE dealer event in San Antonio, Kyocera President and CEO Oscar Sánchez and a panel of the OEM’s executives didn’t exactly issue a vote of confidence for Copystar’s future. Last week’s reveal was just another step in the manufacturer’s ongoing strategy first outlined in 2019.
From the dealer’s point of view, the Copystar demise did not elicit a somber candle-lighting sendoff. We checked in with some Copystar resellers to get their impression on what the move will mean for reselling exclusively under the Kyocera flag. The fact is, most of the dealers we surveyed welcomed the move, including some of the biggest Copystar resellers.
Chief among the top-performing Copystar dealers is Image 2000 of Valencia, California, a 20-plus-year partner. During that time, CEO Joe Blatchford trained his reps in explaining the so-called differences between Kyocera and Copystar, using the analogy of General Motors owning the GMC and Chevrolet automotive makes (which had models that, for a time, were largely indiscernible).
Other than converting contracts to Kyocera, Blatchford is largely unfazed by the move. He does feel it will benefit smaller dealers who have long been pigeonholed as second-tier resellers who could not qualify as Kyocera dealers. Blatchford notes they will now be able to enjoy the benefits of a dealer council, which Copystar did not have.
“The result should be better equality for all Kyocera dealers regardless of whether you are Kyocera or Copystar,” he added. “I think it is the right move and it comes at the right time. There is no reason anymore to have two brands. I would imagine the economy of scale will much greater with one line.”
Pearson-Kelly Technology (PKT) has been a Copystar dealer since 2007. CEO Chelsey Bode feels the decision was a long time coming, and it won’t have any impact on her firm.
“It does streamline some of their processes,” Bode said. “Both Kyocera and Copystar have had the same support people in our market, so it’s been weird to me that they have had different brands but managed the two with the same pre-sales and post-sales support people. Sure, I get that they wanted to gain more market share by having two brands, but I’m not sure they went about it the best way when compared to other manufacturers with a similar strategy.”
Bode pointed out that while some dealers depend on the strength of brand alignment, PKT doesn’t use OEM logos on its website, business cards or marketing materials. PKT promotes people first, company second and product last, she noted.
“It’s PKT’s job to select the best partners to address clients’ pain points and ultimately get them to their desired outcomes,” she said. “If a brand becomes stale or the partnership becomes weak, we realign our focus to find a better partner.”
Jim George, president of Donnellon McCarthy Enterprises in Cincinnati, commended the move, which he thought was a wise decision that will enable Kyocera to lower its marketing outlay. “Kyocera has a more valuable and recognizable name in the industry than Copystar,” he said. “All in all, I applaud the move as I have with other manufacturers that have done the same.”
One dealer in the “much ado about nothing” camp is Chip Miceli, CEO of Pulse Technology in Schaumburg, Illinois. Aside from more dealers offering the Kyocera brand, he doesn’t envision it materially impacting business. In fact, despite the fact that Pulse has been a Copystar dealer for 15 years, the move will be completely opaque to end-users.
“The funny thing is, we sell mostly the A4, which does not have the Copystar name on it,” Miceli noted.
If any dealer has the right to be just a little sentimental, it’s Blatchford. After all, during the past 10 years, Image 2000’s Copystar sales exceeded those of the number two through ten resellers combined, he noted. Copystar employees always treated Blatchford’s dealership like royalty.
At least Image 2000’s sales reps don’t have to break out the GM analogies anymore. Regardless, Blatchford will be content with switching over to the Kyocera name.
“We were the big fish in a small pond,” he said. “It was a really nice ride!”
