Dealer Survey & The Cannata Dinner

The number of dealers in the $10 Million-Plus Club continues to grow thanks to organic growth and diversifying their product lines.

Multifunction A3 and A4 devices may have become the dominant technology in many offices, including home offices in the growing hybrid work environment, but standalone printers have not yet become extinct as evidenced by the results of our 38th Annual Dealer Survey.

Production print is also a great opportunity to capture clicks outside the traditional office. And now with Kyocera offering a production print machine and Sharp poised to do the same early next year, the number of OEMs offering production printers is expanding.

Fully 42% of dealers reported their managed print services revenues were up in 2022 compared to 33% last year. On the downside, 8% reported revenues were down, and 50% said that their MPS revenues were the same.

As the number of dealers participating in our 38th Annual Dealer Survey soared to 458 this year, we saw a modest decline in the percentage of dealers offering managed IT services.

Between last year and this year, we saw a 2% dip in the percentage of dealers making acquisitions. However, there was a significant uptick in the number of acquisitions.

In our Annual Dealer Survey we ask dealers to rank their greatest diversification opportunities from a list of nine, including “other” in order of preference.

One of the highlights of our November issue is the second part of our 37th Annual Dealer Survey. In this issue, we examine dealers’ biggest concerns and reveal the ratings of their A3 and A4 OEMs…

This is the second year we have been gauging the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the independent dealer channel. Last year’s Survey, particularly in the revenue portion, was pretty much what we expected based on our conversations throughout the year with dealers and OEMs. Annual revenue experienced the biggest year-over-year decline in the history of the Survey.

Executive Summary (Part II of II) The three most pressing concerns within the entire dealer universe comprising our Survey are declining clicks (54%), maintaining profitability (40%), and hiring and retention (35%).

Exhibits 2.1-2.11 Dealers have many concerns, and our Survey historically illuminates those concerns. After expanding the number of concerns to 13 last…

Exhibits 2.12-2.19 Each year, we ask dealers to rate their primary A3 MFP suppliers as “Excellent,” “Very Good,” “Good,” “Fair,” or “Poor.”…

Exhibits 2.20-2.25 This has not been a good Survey year based on dealer ratings of their A4 providers. Except for Lexmark whose…

Exhibit 2.26 In Part 1 of our Survey in the October issue, production print was identified by 46% of dealers as a…

Exhibits 2.27-2.34 If there is one thing you can consistently count on in our Annual Dealer Survey for the past five years,…

Exhibits 2.35-2.36 For the past nine years, we have asked dealers to identify the companies that provide them with the software and…

When Frank G. Cannata launched that first Survey 37 years ago, his objective was to provide independent dealers with a venue to share views about their suppliers and competitors, and acknowledge the manufacturers that excel in supporting their channel partners. True to The Cannata Report’s original intent, these objectives are just as important today.

This year’s Survey had the second greatest number of responses in the history of the Survey—380, with 366 of those representing the Big Six manufacturers—Canon, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Ricoh, Sharp, and Toshiba. The largest number of dealers were aligned with Sharp (91), Ricoh (80), and Toshiba (70). The Big Six OEM with the fewest dealers participating was Canon with 32.

Exhibits 1.1-1.4 In this year’s Survey, 697 A3 MFP lines were reported across 379 respondents (one respondent did not identify an A3…

Exhibits 1.5-1.8 Declining A3 clicks and wider acceptance of a hybrid workforce prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic have made A4 more viable…

Exhibits 1.9-1.10 To identify the manufacturers with the strongest distribution, we tracked how they ranked as a dealer’s primary and secondary equipment…

Exhibits 1.11-1.13 The percentage of dedicated dealers is on the rise (Exhibit 1.12). Two years ago, 37% of dealers participating in our…

Exhibits 1.14-1.20 Despite the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, backorders, chip shortages, and hiring and retention challenges, the dealer channel seems…

Exhibits 1.21-1.22 Since 2019 we’ve been tracking dealers with revenues of $10 million or greater, calling it the “$10 Million-Plus Club.” Prior…

Exhibits 1.23-1.25 Despite the emergence of A4 in the MPS world, standalone printers are still as relevant as ever for MPS and…