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“The worst seems to be behind them.” This was my first thought when hearing Laura Blackmer open the general session on the first day of the Konica Minolta 2024 High Velocity Dealer Summit, which was held in Chicago from August 5-7.
The tone, energy, and information presented was vastly different than the last Konica Minolta dealer event I attended in 2022. There was no discussion of inventory challenges, delayed orders, or thanking dealers for their patience. Instead, Konica Minolta showcased optimism, sharing new revenue opportunities for dealers and reviewing improved financial figures from FY2023 and a strong first quarter in fiscal 2024. Overall, the company appears to be experiencing its first “normal” year compared to the volatility of the last four.
Event Overview
With less than 100 dealer representatives and five members of the analyst/media community in attendance, the event was more intimate than previous years. The setup was intentional by design to allow the Konica Minolta team (of which there were many) to be more accessible to the dealer attendees, while also creating a landscape for attendees to network in an approachable setting.
Although the size of the event was scaled back, Konica Minolta still maintained a similar format and structure with general sessions led by its executive team and educational breakout sessions targeting dealer principals, sales, and service teams. There was also a technology product showcase that featured some of the vendor’s key partners including ACDI, BTA, Distribution Management, Epson, Square9, and Y Soft, along with some recently released bizhub One i-Series MFPs on display.
Industry Themes & Dealer Opportunities
The content that Konica Minolta chose to highlight during the event featured a lot of existing, but major industry themes and growth areas such as digital transformation (DX), cloud, security, as well as production and industrial print. Konica Minolta understood and communicated that page volumes are declining, so they challenged dealers to take a growth mindset with a goal to add incremental units to their installed base (essentially take market share) and diversify their offerings. While neither of these tactics are groundbreaking new approaches, Konica Minolta dealers seemed up to the challenge.
To help connect the dots, the Konica Minolta team outlined some notable ways that dealers can capitalize on these opportunities—one of which is the launch of a new Intelligent Information Management (IIM) program designed to incentivize, educate, and support channel sales of IIM solutions and services, including Square9, Xcaas (capture as a service), and BPO services.
Additionally, Konica Minolta highlighted the importance of endpoint security in today’s landscape, and how its flagship bizhub secure portfolio is the perfect solution accompaniment when selling bizhub devices. Konica Minolta stated that its direct organization has an 80% attach rate for bizhub secure on A3 units with 100% gross profit—a clear opportunity for dealers to leverage.
Lastly, in the production and industrial segment, Konica Minolta revealed forthcoming product introductions (some of which were previously announced at drupa) to replace the AccurioPress C12000/C14000 series in Q4 2025, a new AccurioLabel 400 digital label press, new JETvarnish 3D digital embellishment technology that is planned to debut in the coming months, as well as new opportunities in the packaging segments that launched in FY2023.
Keypoint Intelligence Opinion
Konica Minolta has overcome some significant hurdles in the last four years. Among all the print OEMs, Konica Minolta was arguably hit the hardest during the pandemic (in part due to the two incidents at its toner manufacturing plants that, together with COVID-related challenges, impacted the vendor’s global supply chain up until last year). Today, the vendor is in a drastically improved position (operationally and financially) and is looking to take share from its industry competitors.
One elephant in the room that wasn’t discussed at great length at the event was the vendor’s managed IT services offering for the channel. Konica Minolta did not mention All Covered, its US IT services division. Two years ago, Konica Minolta had restructured its channel focused managed IT portfolio and urged dealers to diversify with IT but, today, the vendor has changed its approach—realizing that managed IT is not necessarily a good fit for most of its channel partners. That said, the vendor has picked up about 10 dealers that it’s working with to sell managed IT and is notably not actively looking to grow that figure.
Looking ahead, as Sam Errigo (Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. President and CEO) pointed out during his presentation, there are lingering global economic uncertainties on the horizon including multi-country wars and supply chain issues that are seeing the price of shipping containers increase in recent weeks. And, if that isn’t enough, the industry is also vulnerable to declining clicks which directly impact revenue and profit.
Konica Minolta and its channel have some work to do to drive growth, so it’s going to be critical for dealers to take advantage of Konica Minolta’s DX, cloud, and security solutions along with its entire print portfolio up to production. Again, none of these are net new strategies but can certainly be used as differentiators with the right sales positioning.
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