Sharp President & CEO Mike Marusic outlines the opportunity for these laptop PC devices.
Office technology dealers seeking new ways to diversify their product offerings might find success by expanding into a product considered a commodity—computers. Key players in this segment within the dealer channel include Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Sharp, with its Dynabook line acquired from Toshiba in 2018.
While selling computers may not be an easy win, it offers dealers another way to position themselves as a one-stop for their customers. According to Mike Marusic, president & CEO of Sharp Imaging and Information Systems of America, “It’s hard to get people excited about something they’ve been using for 25 years.” Even so, Sharp has made notable progress, with about 70 dealers currently selling its Dynabook products. Marusic estimates the threshold for Sharp dealers taking on the line is about 100—a significant percentage of Sharp’s 400+ dealer partners. “Having 70 dealers actively selling the product is a good development,” Marusic noted while acknowledging that many are smaller dealers.
A major growth opportunity for Dynabook lies in education, particularly with the Dynabook E-Series, a slimmed-down model ideal for schools. “It’s perfect for education…perfect for going against Chromebooks,” said Marusic. He highlighted that many schools that rushed to purchase Chromebooks during COVID discovered that although the price was right, they didn’t hold up to the wear and tear. “So now they’re going back to PC-based products,” reported Marusic.
For dealers, selling Dynabook is an appealing way to diversify, particularly for those already offering IT products and services. “If you’re just selling copiers, it’s an extension and a good diversification opportunity,” said Marusic. “But if you’re selling IT services and IT products, it’s a great combination. You can bundle the whole solution—laptops, IT systems management—and target larger businesses. That’s where we see the best opportunity.”
At Donnellon McCarthy Enterprises in Cincinnati, Ohio, Dynabooks are on the menu. “We get the occasional sale,” observed Jim George, president. “I was ordering 20 Dynabooks at a time so that we had them ready to turn around like us copier people like to do. I can get [customers] a new laptop in four hours. It’s that white glove service that we’re used to.”
Some of the dealership’s sales come from its managed services clients. “It’s an enormous convenience for our IT folks and the customer because we can turn their laptops on with their data and get them out to them a lot of times on the same day or the next day,” George said.
With the recent acquisition of Ohio Business Machines, Donnellon McCarthy Enterprises’ Dynabook business will likely get a huge boost. While doing his due diligence before the acquisition, George visited the company to check their inventory, and Ohio Business Machines had stacks and stacks of Dynabooks in inventory. “They are turning them nonstop,” noted George.
Some dealers selling Dynabooks report solid sales figures, with some generating $200,000 to $250,000 annually in Dynabook revenue. Marusic emphasized that these sales are often part of larger bundled solutions, yielding even greater total revenue. “If they’re doing $250,000 with us, they’re probably doing $750,000 in total with the bundled [solution],” he said.
And the margins for Dynabooks aren’t bad either. For a product from a manufacturer like HP, margins are in the four to five-point range because, as Marusic said, HP has the dominant market share, and they’re everywhere. With Dynabook, dealers can make a few extra points above the more widely distributed brands. “Dynabook isn’t HP, it isn’t Dell, so the margins are better.”
Marusic also noted the unique security features of Dynabook, which offers enhanced protection with its proprietary BIOS. “I won’t say it’s hack-proof, but if you’re a hacker, you’re more likely to target the common platforms first,” he noted.
Dynabook Enhancements
For dealers expanding into e-commerce, Dynabook is an excellent fit. “When you talk e-commerce, I often say, ‘It’s a lot easier to sell an e-commerce product that, when you take it out of the box, it does what it’s supposed to do when you turn it on,’” said Marusic. “Copiers are a little more complex, there’s a lot of custom configurations.”
Marusic pointed out that Dynabooks can be customized through integrations from Sharp’s distributor TD Synnex, enabling customers to select configurations online while minimizing dealer involvement. He contrasts the simplicity of setting up laptops with the complexities of selling copiers. It shows up with that configuration out of the factory,” Marusic emphasized. “I think we’re seeing more and more people do that.”
Sharp includes Dynabooks in its standard incentive program, meaning sales of the computers count toward copier quotas and vice versa, so dealers receive rebates for selling both devices. This creates additional incentives for dealers to embrace the full range of Sharp’s offerings. “We like the partners that sell all our categories,” said Marusic. “There’s a halo effect where we work more closely with dealers selling our displays, laptops, and print products.”
By expanding into Dynabook, Sharp dealers have the opportunity to diversify their businesses, improve margins, and strengthen relationships with customers across multiple product categories.
