Konica Minolta is stepping up its game with programs to accelerate its dealers’ DX and focus on production print, managed IT, and e-commerce.
Digital transformation (DX) in 2023 is not an option but a requirement across all businesses, including the independent dealer channel. Not only do dealers need to transform digitally, but the future of their business also depends on them assisting in their customers’ DX.
DX is a hot button growing hotter by the day. Konica Minolta is one vendor focused on assisting its dealers digitally transform. Performance programs such as Rev’d Up, Powered by IT, and The MSP Partner Program are designed to accelerate its dealers’ digital transformation by rewarding them and providing them with resources as needed for diversifying into new segments or ramping up their existing offerings.
According to Laura Blackmer, president, dealer sales, Konica Minolta, approximately 40% of Konica Minolta dealers are actively engaged in DX, selling solutions and services besides traditional MFPs with a service contract. “If you’re having a conversation with a customer about how they’re moving information around an organization, that’s digital transformation,” she said.
The Rev’d Up program has been a tremendous success thanks to dealers having that “a-ha” moment when they realize they need to expand their business in new directions. Sometimes it’s customer-driven, sometimes it’s driven by a younger generation within the dealer’s or customer’s business.
According to Anita Willoughby, senior vice president of inventory, purchasing, and asset management for Systel Business Equipment, Konica Minolta’s Rev’d Up program has been a positive for the dealership, incentives included. “Konica Minolta’s partnership with All Covered brings a robust offering in the solutions world. We’re quoting the School Gate Guardian systems, we’re doing the All Covered solutions, whether the management of the customer’s IT infrastructure or selling VoIP. It does flesh out our offerings, so if we hit another world disaster that impacts hardware production, we still have a sales avenue with all these other products and services.”
“Previously, under their prior programs, there was no incentive on what they call the DX for the managed IT and software,” added Janene Aul, vice president and general counsel at Systel Business Equipment. “We’ve already been involved in that area, but it’s a smaller part of our business. We’ve been trying to ramp it up over the years, and this encourages us to continue to grow that segment.”
Blue Technologies in Cleveland, Ohio, is another dealer participating in Konica Minolta’s Rev’d Up program. Last July, the dealership launched its communication technologies division, centered around MOBOTIX security cameras, Alice Virtual Receptionist, and School Gate Guardian software. The dealership was selling these products before starting this new division, but between the new division and Konica Minolta’s resources, there’s a lot more opportunity. “We don’t want to do anything we can’t do 150%, and the Rev’d Up program exposed us to some of the highlights of the MOBOTIX line, Alice, and School Gate Guardian,” emphasized Lauren Hanna-Masuga, Blue’s vice president of sales. “Putting a focus and plan behind that program meant more resources, better training opportunities, and better collaboration from a marketing standpoint.”
Konica Minolta even assisted Blue Technologies with its unified communications offering, providing everything the dealership needed for a landing page on their website. “Because Rev’d Up put such a spotlight on it, it made it very simple for us to market it,” said Hanna-Masuga. “That program makes it easier for us to adopt and market those product lines.”
Rev’d Up is the result of a shifting mindset within Konica Minolta. “When I came on board, we talked to dealers about diversifying their businesses and growing their opportunities in other areas,” observed Blackmer. “However, if you looked at our rewards programs, they were focused on copiers and supplies. We kept telling these guys to do it, but we weren’t giving them a reason to do it. The whole concept behind Rev’d Up was to build a program that helped the dealer break even and get a faster return on investment.”
She added, “The expectation is that you will grow aggressively if you invest in digital transformation or production print. We picked those two areas of our universe because they are growing and growing aggressively, particularly production print pages. Rev’d Up rewards investments in those two spaces.”
The percentage of dealers that achieved their production-print targets for the current year through the Rev’d Up program would be 28% if the year concluded on January 10 when we spoke. “To me, that’s successful engagement in production print,” said Blackmer. “There’s probably another 28% that sell production print but haven’t hit their targets yet.”
Dealers who are hitting those targets are successfully growing this segment of their business, which means they are investing in it, selling higher-end machines, and finding new customers. “These targets were not easy,” observed Blackmer. “They were growth targets during a year when we were challenged with availability, not so much on the production side, but we had the toner issue, which brought some production to a grinding halt for about two or three months. Even with that, this group of dealers grew their business year over year by double digits.”
Blue Technologies is one of those dealers that grew its production print business during the past two years. “During COVID, we had to change how we did business, and it was always important to have our partners back us up and provide resources that we just can’t have full time,” said Hanna-Masuga. “The digital transformation component of the Rev’d Up program with solutions is a huge part of our business.”
During the height of COVID, Blue Technologies took advantage of Konica Minolta’s Customer Experience Center in Ramsey, New Jersey, for virtual demonstrations of Konica Minolta’s production print products. “That was a vital part of our success in 2020, 2021, and 2022 because I couldn’t bring people in for demos,” said Hanna-Masuga. “The virtual demos and that support helped us adapt our already strong approach to solutions and production. We want to create a customized solution for our clients, so the demo is important in our process. To have those resources from Konica Minolta through the Rev’d Up program to back up my team was crucial.”
Systel Business Equipment already had a robust production-print business, but that didn’t stop it from exploring new ways to grow its production-print capabilities with additional offerings by participating in Rev’d Up, according to Aul and Willoughby.
DX = IT Services
Another way Konica Minolta is helping dealers accelerate their digital transformation is around IT services. Konica Minolta’s new Powered by IT and MSP Partner programs are designed to accelerate dealers’ growth in the IT space. According to Blackmer, 40% of Konica Minolta’s dealers are currently active in this segment. The other 60% may dabble in IT. “My guess is that 40% will grow to over 60% over the coming years. We see that trend line already.”
The Powered by IT program is geared toward dealers who may already offer help-desk services, sell phone systems, or conduct IT projects or security audits, but also want to provide customers with additional IT-related solutions or services they currently don’t offer. Dealers don’t have to use Konica Minolta for their existing solutions or services. In some instances, dealers use Konica Minolta’s IT resources to support the back end of their IT business. However, the dealer actively sells the services. “Maybe they use ConnectWise for help desk, or their own IT people do the consulting,” explained Blackmer, “but when asked by a health care company to do a HIPAA assessment, that’s something they could purchase from us. We would do the work, they can mark it up, and they’ll make their margin. It’s more of a white label and very specific deal-by-deal. Our goal is to make that really easy engagement using our team. We’re just giving them a tool or a solution to sell if they need it.”
Konica Minolta’s MSP Partner Program is for dealers with a more mature IT business. According to Blackmer’s estimates, about a dozen dealers are currently at this level. “We expect there will be about 24 to 30 dealers total by the time this year is over,” predicted Blackmer. “We built these two programs to address a dealer’s priorities. Do I want to build it? Do I want to buy it? Do I just want to dabble in it? We give them options. If they want to buy an IT services company, we are finding even in those instances, we probably still have something of ours to offer them, whether it’s an AppleCare opportunity or a procurement opportunity.” She referenced one large dealer with a hugely successful IT business that uses Konica Minolta for procurement because of its buying power.
Outside procurement, growth has come from providing companies with VPNs and deployments of PCs and laptops. “We had a couple of nice deals around that,” said Blackmer. “There’s an engagement level. People now see us as a place to bring that kind of an opportunity, or at least a place to explore that opportunity.”
DX = E-Commerce
DX is shaking up the traditional dealer sales model to accommodate a new generation of buyer who prefers to purchase online. And Konica Minolta is at the forefront of this trend with its new e-commerce initiative. “E-commerce is a form of digital transformation,” said Blackmer. “It’s how customers are buying, and it’s how dealers need to start presenting themselves in the marketplace.”
For the past two years, Konica Minolta has been discussing its e-commerce strategy with its Dealer Council, leading to an April 1, 2023, rollout. “My goal is to make it very palatable so that the dealers see it as an opportunity and not a threat,” said Blackmer. Initial reaction from the Dealer Council was not exactly positive when the concept was first presented in 2021, however, thanks to the painstaking research of Senior Vice President of E-Commerce Velinda Cox, Council members ended up with a better understanding of the market and the importance of having a digital sales presence. Since then, the Council has been providing the company with feedback on this initiative, and according to Blackmer, the program, when launched, will be 99% of what they asked for. Perhaps when that platform is rolled out in April, it will provide Systel with exactly what it needs, especially since Willoughby has not been all that happy with the various platforms the dealership has tried to date.
2023 DX Projections
Thanks largely to Konica Minolta’s Rev’d Up program, Blackmer expects another year of high double-digit growth in the DX categories, if not triple-digit. She envisions mid-double-digit growth for production. “What I’m excited about is how many dealers now want to talk about some of the specialty production products, which is around packaging, labeling, and industrial print,” said Blackmer. “We’re starting from a lower baseline, but I expect the numbers to double in those specialty categories. I’m hugely optimistic about the growth opportunity, not just for us but for our dealers.” She also expects to see strong engagement around the MSP Partner Program. “If we can double that engagement level from 12 to 15, to 24, to 30, I would be very happy.”
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