KONICA MINOLTA GAINS TRACTION ……….

[Anonymous]

Konica Minolta Gains Traction In The Channel
Four
years after Konica and Minolta merged, dropped much of their
noncommercial lineup and began taking aim at the commercial solution
provider channel, the company says it is seeing traction and is set to
expand its channel efforts in a bid for an increased slice of a
shifting market.Konica Minolta Business Solutions, the Ramsey,
N.J.-based unit of the worldwide imaging giant, has targeted rivals
Xerox and Canon in its goal to boost its U.S. market share. The company
is planning to invest more in fewer solution providers and has
specified color, monochrome and production print areas as ripe for
growth opportunity, said Steve Jones, executive vice president of
Konica Minolta U.S. dealer sales.”We have some very strong markets, and
we have some very weak markets,” Jones said. “Our goal by ’08 is to
have 20 percent market share, across the board, across our product
line. Right now, we’re at about 12 points. That means we have to pick
up about 8 points over two years.”Jones said Konica Minolta is looking
at its newest multifunction device, the Bizhub C550—a network-enabled,
color-laser device street-priced at $25,000—for a competitive
advantage. The device prints at 55 ppm in black and white and 45 ppm in
color, with scan, copy and fax capabilities. As one of the few
companies that designs and manufactures its own printer engines, the
company believes it has a technological advantage and can be more
nimble in development.In 2003, the combined company maintained a roster
of more than 600 dealers and solution providers in the U.S. Since then,
Jones said, that number has declined to about 500, largely by design.
“We do not want more dealers,” he said. “We want better-quality
dealers. We’re really getting to the point where we are basically
satisfied with the partners we have. But we’re studying where we need
help.”Jones said he has divided his channel sales force into three
groups, each focusing on one specialty area: monochrome, color or
production printers. The company has targeted Xerox in the production
print space, and Xerox and Canon in the other two segments and is
working with partners to focus on those areas as well, Jones said. The
plan to boost targeted investments in partners that are on board with
its strategy kicked in with Konica Minolta’s new fiscal year in
April.To drive the point home, Jones said he has altered the way he
will compensate his inside sales team. “I’m comping my people on the
dealers’ growth. If my dealers are successful, my people will be
successful,” Jones said. “The main goal is looking at the strategy of
the dealer, and what areas they want to focus on,” he continued. “I
require every one of my people to put together a business plan with the
dealer at the beginning of every year. That process is beginning
now.”Doug Pitassi, director of sales at Pacific Office Automation, a
solution provider in Portland, Ore., that partners with Konica Minolta
in addition to other vendors, said the breadth of Konica Minolta’s
product line has made it a staple in going to market with a competitive
sales offering. “We’re very big with Konica Minolta,” Pitassi said.
“The reason is they have a full product lineup; they’ve got
multifunction devices as well as production print equipment.”That has
helped us out, when you can go into an account and produce a full set
of solutions,” Pitassi said. In addition, he said, Konica Minolta’s
support has become stronger, and he was bullish on its channel efforts
moving forward.Those efforts are taking hold at a time of significant
upheaval. IBM is setting up a joint venture with Ricoh to take over
IBM’s InfoPrint lineup; Dell saw significantly reduced sales of
products manufactured for it last year by Lexmark, according to
Lexmark’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission; Oki Data
is rewriting its channel engagement from the ground up; and Xerox said
earlier this year that it will open its entire product line to the
channel.Looming over the industry is Hewlett-Packard, the global and
U.S. market-share leader, which has become focused on expanding into
areas such as Web-based printing with its announcement that it would
buy Tabblo, which specializes in online print services for consumers;
and rumors that Lenovo will join the fray by acquiring a printer
company.In the end, all this turbulence is making it clear to vendors
that solution providers are more critical than any stable, long-term
growth in high-output commercial accounts.

[Author]

April 24, 2007 at 11:59 AM