COVID has forever changed the landscape of almost every market and was a huge wake-up call for the office equipment industry. Almost everyone experienced hardware sales and print volume declines as offices closed last year. In conversations with dealers at the height of the pandemic, some had lost as much as 60% of their revenue from the loss of additional hardware and services. And even as offices begin to re-open this year, the office environment has already seen such significant transformation that we expect to have a different future than what we thought pre-pandemic.
Luckily for some dealers, they were able to pivot (and even expand) into areas that helped to stave off an inevitable and disastrous outcome. Others weren’t so lucky and struggled to keep their doors open. The industry is at a crossroads today, where several companies will need to make some tough decisions to transform, diversify, and collaborate.
Keypoint Intelligence and ITEX have teamed up to help paint a path forward for our industry. We may not be able to predict the entire future, but we can help with what we’ve learned from the past, our newest research findings, and involving industry leaders that can all help you see a clearer future for the office and dealers.
The theme for this year’s ITEX is “Putting the Pieces Together for the Office of the Future”, which is the focus of the pre-conference sessions as well as the breakout sessions of the main conference. The pre-conference sessions will start with answering the “why” dealers need to pivot and diversify, which is presented exclusively by Keypoint Intelligence. These sessions will help other dealers understand the statistics of what happened during the pandemic and (more importantly) discover why they need to look at other areas to expand their business and their opportunities. The pre-conference sessions will be held on November 8th starting at 3:00PM, which will give dealers enough time to travel that day and attend the sessions before painting the town that evening in Vegas. The six main agenda topics are:
The COVID Situation – What Happened & Where Do We Go?
Hardware & Print Volume – Yesterday, Today, & The Future
The Office of the Future, the Future of Work & Workplace Transformation
Transformation of the Buyer
The Future Buyer/Commerce Experience
The Future of Print
What will happen to A3/A4?
New print offerings: Production, Industrial-Packaging (Direct to Shape), Additive Manufacturing, and Wide Format
Future Technologies & The Smart Workplace
IT, IoT, Smart Lighting/Temperature, and Managed IT
Solutions & Services of the Future
The New Hybrid Workplace: Convergence of Collaboration & Communications
VOIP, Teams, Zoom, and Cloud Collaboration
The Future Dealer & The Channel Convergence Phenomenon
IT, Office, PSP & A/V Channel Convergence
The main conference sessions will be presented by other industry veterans and dealers to uncover the “how” dealers need to transform their business to become a viable dealer of the future. There will be four tracks that dealers can attend during the conference hours, consisting of:
The Future of Print Track: This track will focus on different print technologies that dealers should consider as part of their diversification strategy around print
Future Technologies Track: This track will look at other technologies outside of the traditional print space—such as VOIP, security cameras, IoT, and managed IT services—that dealers could offer to help grow their business
Future Solutions & Services Track: The Solutions & Services track will look at software solutions that can help customers with digital transformation as well as additional services, such as security services, to help their profit margins
The Future Dealership Track: The Future Dealership will look at the operations and business side of the dealership to help them understand new business models
Between the pre-conference sessions and the conference session tracks, dealers will have a good understanding of why they need to diversify and how they can get into these new areas based on vendors’ and dealers’ experiences.
Again, we are very excited to be providing dealers this year’s “must-attend event.” We know that many are looking forward to going somewhere and meeting with their colleagues as well as participating in a great conference and expo. Many dealers are trying to navigate the future of their business, and this event will help answer your tough questions and give you a path forward. We look forward to having you experience the Future NOW!
For more information about ITEX and to register for the event, go to the ITEX website.
