What concerns you most about your business and how do those concerns compare to other dealers?
One of the more intriguing findings in our annual Surveys revolve around dealer concerns. Each year we ask dealers to identify their greatest concerns from a list of 10 options, as well as “other.” The areas of concern we asked dealers to choose from include:
- Competing against manufacturers’ branches
- Declining print clicks
- Hiring and retention
- Keeping up with new technology
- Keeping up with the growing number of solutions on the market
- Maximizing revenue and profits from MPS
- Maximizing revenue and profits from MNS
- Effectively diversifying your product/solutions/services offerings
- Succeeding in production and/or industrial print
- A clear vision for where the industry is heading
- Other
Last year, the top three concerns were consistent with past years, with competition from manufacturer’s direct branches (35%), declining clicks (29%), and hiring and retention (21%) firmly entrenched in the top three as a primary concern. The numbers break out a little differently when we factor in all dealer concerns (dealers can identify up to five concerns), regardless of positioning. Here, the top three concerns are declining clicks (55%), hiring and retention (53%), and competition from direct branches (44%). Those are followed by diversification (33%), keeping up with the growing number of solutions on the market (30%), and maximizing revenue and profits from MPS (26%).
Only 3% of the 338 respondents in last year’s survey identified “other” as a concern. Other concerns include:
- The uncertainty of the OEMs.
- Dealing with a manufacturer that does not care about smaller dealers.
- Competitors are racing to the bottom, profits are declining due to competition, not embracing the technology and rather giving away product based on price.
- Finding and training, developing and retaining qualified IT engineers.
- Tightening hardware margins and declining service rates.
- Laziness.
- Aging of our senior sales reps; developing new talent to take over their accounts.
- The state of overall consumer confidence.
- Supply costs. [We get] no help from manufacturers when competing on competitive supply deals (CPP).
- Local customers being acquired.
We’d love to hear about your concerns. Share them with us by participating in our annual survey. Click here to access our Annual Dealer Survey sponsored by TIAA Bank.
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