Here we go again, talking about diversification. That’s okay, it’s a topic that warrants repeating…again and again and again.
It’s not just The Cannata Report advocating for diversification. I was at the Executive Connection Summit (ECS) earlier this year, and Frank Cucco of Impact Networking emphasized its importance in his keynote address, which was one of the highlights of the three-day event. There was also an excellent presentation by Frank Mallozzi on industrial print, another diversification opportunity, albeit one with limited appeal in the dealer channel due to the resources necessary to build this business.
Beyond ECS, attend any BTA event or dealer meeting, and you’ll likely discover more opportunities to diversify beyond the core business—office print. We’ve arrived at the point where it is not as challenging to make a case to diversify anymore. There are many new products, services, and solutions to meet your existing and new customers’ needs. In this issue, we highlight a few diversification opportunities, including EV chargers, wide format, inkjet, MPS, standalone scanners, UCaaS, and label printers. But what about managed IT and production print? We’re saving those segments for upcoming issues dedicated to those high-impact diversification opportunities.
As you review the list above, you’ll find that most of those diversification opportunities aren’t all that off the wall, and some of them are hiding right under dealers’ noses, as you’ll see in my article “Don’t Overlook the Obvious: 4 Conventional Diversification Opportunities to Consider.” One of my sources for that article is Noel O’Dwyer of Intermedia Cloud Communications. I’ve interviewed him multiple times during his career, including his latest tenure at Intermedia Cloud Communications.
For O’Dwyer, all this talk of diversification in the office technology dealer community is nothing new. He maintains, and I agree, that it is something dealers have been doing since they started selling products other than typewriters and adding machines.
He’s right, but the reality is that the current generation of dealers, and I’m casting a wide generational net here, is still enamored with print/imaging technology. As a result, diversification must continue to be a topic of conversation. Because of that, as long as dealers need to think beyond the core business of office print, we’ll be talking about ways for dealers to diversify even if at least one of those diversification opportunities we’re discussing in this issue—inkjet—still touches on office print.
I’ll leave you with a point about diversification that bears repeating courtesy of Impact Networking’s Cucco from his ECS keynote, which I recapped in the CR-Connect 2024 Dealer Tour article in our February issue. “You must always be evolving. You can’t just be stuck in one product. You have to see what’s coming on the market, see what’s going on, and make the right adjustments. And you have to continue to diversify the product line, and if you want to get bigger, diversify geography.”
