Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office and EFI’s groundbreaking new partnership
Top and above: Frank Mallozzi, chief revenue officer, EFI (left) and Larry Weiss, president and CEO, Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office (Atlantic) in the boardroom of Atlantic’s Bloomfield, New Jersey office.
EFI and Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office are blazing a trail, going where no dealer or EFI has ever gone before.
EFI has created a partner program, which complements its existing distribution by allowing Atlantic to directly sell and service EFI large-format devices and ink.
This is a big deal for Atlantic, particularly since it gives the dealership an opportunity to broaden its product offerings.
“One of the largest areas in the production arena is large format,” said Larry Weiss, president of Atlantic. “We believe there’s going to be tremendous growth in that area because of the number of products that are coming into play. These products have a decent price point and a very, very nice return on the supplies.”
Atlantic has access to the full line of EFI wide-format machines. The first EFI device Atlantic is selling is the Pro 16h, a machine that lists for $135,000, and which Weiss estimated also gives Atlantic the potential to sell another $130,000 in supplies. That’s a welcome change from what he’s been seeing happening with supplies for traditional office MFPs.
“We really don’t sell a lot of supplies anymore because everything is cost per copy in the traditional copier business,” acknowledged Weiss. “We’re excited about what the revenues can be in the supply business, and we believe there’s a great niche with this large-format market in that the print industry is looking for ways to expand their business and large format seems to be one of those growth areas.”
At Atlantic’s Production and Industrial Print Expo at MetLife Stadium in Rutherford, New Jersey, this past June, Atlantic customers and prospects clamored around the EFI Pro 16h in the exhibit area and then heard EFI executives discuss the benefits of large-format printing.
At press time, Atlantic had registered nine different companies with EFI and sold one machine, and Atlantic’s Vice President of Production and Industrial Print Luis Villa was expecting to close three or four more deals.
Exclusivity with a prospect is one element of the program. Anytime a dealer identifies a prospect, EFI will honor and support that relationship, and not overlap or compete in any way on products sold up to a certain segmentation as dealers are only responsible for certain EFI product lines. If a customer is looking to engage at the higher end of the product line, EFI has a referral program in place.
“It’s what I call orderly marketing,” said EFI CFO Frank Mallozzi. “We have a philosophy that if that customer is not a customer and [the dealer] brings them into the fold, we would engage with them through a referral program.”
Another element of the program that has been beneficial to Atlantic is the support from EFI. As a long-standing EFI partner for its Fiery controllers, Atlantic was already familiar with the quality of support.
“Now, if we need something, we go right to EFI,” said Villa. “In the past, with the same product, when we bought it through someone else, we had to go through that company.”
The previous service model could sometimes be a challenge for dealers. Villa recalled the time a customer had an issue with a new machine. Atlantic’s techs were instructed by the other manufacturer to replace all the circuit boards, which didn’t seem like the best diagnosis for a new machine.
“I called Frank and he told me, “˜Give me a few minutes’ and, lo and behold, I’ve got a guy calling me from California and the machine was repaired in twenty minutes,” recalled Villa.
One reason EFI selected Atlantic for this program is that it has been so successful placing EFI’s Fiery controllers. Virtually every color device Atlantic sells ships with a Fiery.
Atlantic also has the most support staff for Fiery controllers of any dealer in the country, according to Villa.
“That’s important because it goes hand in hand with EFI’s ecosystem,” explained Villa. “Every product is driven by an EFI controller. So that was part of the decision when they [determined] if we were capable of doing this.”
Another reason Atlantic is piloting the program is its existing commitment to production and industrial print.
“Atlantic is really sort of the first to embrace it the way we envisioned it,” said Mallozzi. “Between Luis and Larry, and all of the investments Atlantic had made in running their core business, I thought it would be a tremendous opportunity to parlay that into some new industries, one being industrial print. And again, Larry having somebody dedicated like Luis, we thought it would be a perfect pilot.”
Another benefit is that there is very little overlap in terms of distribution, even though EFI sells direct in the New York region, mostly at the high end of the industrial print market, a market by the way, that Atlantic is moving into.
“I like complementing my distribution to fill the various gaps and segmentations,” stated Mallozzi. “We don’t sell a commodity and I don’t like overlap and conflict. Atlantic was perfect to put this in place because they had all of the components needed to go to market.”
Atlantic had already been selling large-format devices””not just EFI””another reason it was selected for this pilot program.
At press time, Atlantic had five sales reps selling the EFI wide-format machines, including Villa and Rob Habeeb, vice president of production and industrial print at Atlantic.
Training is essential for selling these devices, and Atlantic sales reps and service techs often travel to EFI’s location in New Hampshire for training sessions to learn more about selling and servicing these products.
“It is a different animal, and your day-to-day salesperson doesn’t really know where to find [opportunities] or where to look for them,” said Villa.
When we spoke with Weiss, Mallozzi, and Villa, this initiative was still just getting off the ground. It was about three months in, but by all accounts, it was going well. Atlantic has been doing a lot of training and webinars to get the dealership ramped up on the program.
“We have a lot in our pipeline, we have a lot of customers that are very close to signing,” reported Villa who added he was preparing to take two customers to New Hampshire for a VIP visit, which includes the requisite demonstrations.
Villa raves about EFI’s support.
“Their support is amazing, it’s off the charts! That’s one big piece too,” said Villa. “They’ve always been good with us, but now with [the partner program], it’s even better. The funny thing is, I went up to New Hampshire for three days, and every time I was introduced to somebody, they’d say, “˜This is Luis Villa, he’s from Atlantic. He’s Frank Mallozzi’s friend (laughs).'”
Villa doesn’t call Mallozzi unless it’s something serious.
“But you know what, at the end of the day, the times I have reached out to him, the response and the resolution was 100%,” responded Villa.
Weiss agrees with Villa that EFI is a great partner.
“They were extremely helpful in getting us off the ground here and in building the relationship,” said Weiss. “There’s a couple of other products that are coming out that we can sell. There’s a product coming out at the end of the year that will really complement the 16h, and we’re very excited.”
Atlantic is following the EFI model for servicing the equipment.
“These machines don’t require a lot of break-fix,” noted Villa. “It’s more on the operator on the maintenance side. That’s one thing that they really enforce a lot on the operator. There’s an operator certification, etc. So, for us, it’s minimal service, hands-on hardware service, better revenue, because it’s all inkjet. We make a lot of money off the ink and consumables.”
Villa’s biggest fear, whenever Atlantic takes on a new product, is the support or lack of support.
“At the end of the day, we’re the ones facing the customer,” he said. “In the wide format business, that whole business is totally different because the amount of revenue a commercial printer can make on these machines is enormous. It’s very profitable.”
Atlantic has four technicians trained on the EFI wide formats. EFI provided the technical support to Atlantic on the first three installs at no charge to Atlantic. According to Villa, that’s huge because it removed the installation cost from the equation, allowing the dealership to offer customers a lower price for the hardware.
Opportunity Knocks
Most opportunities for large-format devices are with commercial printers because they have the space to handle the equipment, which can be quite large. Design firms are another viable market, but unlike commercial printers, design firms don’t typically have a dedicated operator to run or maintain the machine.
Atlantic is no stranger to diversifying its product offerings and EFI wide format expands those offerings.
“We can offer the full gamut””copiers, IT, MPS, production print,” said Villa. “This falls into the industrial print [segment], which we’re leaning toward a lot. Now, with all these things we can offer, we can go to a customer and say, “˜Hey, I can do that for you as well!’ All these things open up another opportunity for us.”
Bandwidth on the Run
Weiss has huge aspirations for this segment of the business and is looking to create a separate wide format division within Atlantic. He’s looking for this to be a multimillion-dollar percentage of Atlantic’s business. Villa is more conservative, at least for the first year.
“To be honest, I’m looking at five million because we’re just starting,” said Villa. “Outside the dollar amount, I think a year from now, we’re going to make a very, very big impact as far as our company is concerned, and with our customer base and brand new business as well.”
Weiss understands he lacks the bandwidth to grow as fast as he’d like, despite having two superstars on his team in Villa and Habeeb. The challenge is finding talent with knowledge similar to Villa and Habeeb.
“We’d really love to focus on the industrial print arena,” said Weiss. “We just don’t have the bandwidth because we also need them to help the subject matter experts on the production side of the business. Unfortunately, we do look at the future and say, hey, we’d love to be able to set up a true industrial print business model where this is all that people look at and go after. If you think about it, with the price points of these machines, and I’m just telling you about what EFI has and what Konica Minolta has, we believe, it could be a $10 to $20 million business within three to five years.”
The bandwidth problem is an issue and when he has it, he’s going to let Villa and Habeeb run with it.
“Whether it will be two years from now, three years from now,” said Weiss. “Right now, we dabble, right? We go in for the low-hanging fruit in the high end. We’ve got four or five MGI prospects. We’ve got two KM1 prospects. We’ve got three to five 16h prospects, but we need to sell the other stuff, right? It’s bandwidth. You know what? There’s not a lot of knowledgeable people that understand production. They’re going to have some tall shoes to fill to have the same knowledge as a Luis and a Rob.”
While Villa and Habeeb can sell this equipment without much difficulty, Weiss, too, is getting involved in the high-end sales side, mostly because he understands the pricing and the market.
Lack of competition
Atlantic has modest, if any, competition at this end of the market right now.
“There’s no other dealer that has this business to offer,” said Villa. “And you know what? There are very few dealers that can support it. That I know for a fact.”
He expects Atlantic will be one of the bigger players in the tri-state area in wide format.
“As a company, it’s going to make us stronger,” said Villa.
EFI is making this program available to other dealers, provided they have the chops to sell it.
“If the dealers are interested in taking it on, just like Atlantic did, we would be open to bringing on some additional dealers to complement other geographies,” noted Mallozzi. “I’ve invested in a channel program and have hired a couple of channel personnel to do that.”
Villa has already been contacted by other dealers in other markets, curious about how the program works.
Weiss isn’t concerned about other dealers participating in the program because the program protects the dealer who first approaches a prospect.
“As long as we register the client, if [EFI] were to put on competitive dealers within the same market, we’ve got it registered, therefore, they’re not going to support anybody else. You can’t sell this product to somebody if you don’t really have the support. No independent dealer is going to be able to do that.”
Even though Atlantic is currently the only dealer participating in EFI’s Partner Program that doesn’t mean it’s going to be that way forever. But for now, it does give Atlantic an edge.
If all goes according to plan, Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office will be the de facto EFI wide format provider in the New York metropolitan area. And if and when that happens, everybody from Atlantic to EFI will be ecstatic.
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