Several office equipment dealerships are succeeding by adding production printing presses to their equipment reselling strategies. Founder Frank G. Cannata spoke recently with three such organizations:
- Applied Innovation (Grand Rapids, Michigan) resells Canon and Ricoh production presses. “Production printing is an important and growing segment of Applied Innovation’s overall business because it allows us to deliver higher-value solutions beyond traditional office print,” noted Production Printing Sales Manager Jim Fortier. “It strengthens customer relationships, supports larger and more strategic opportunities, and helps differentiate Applied as a consultative partner rather than simply an equipment provider.”
- Patrick Flesch, president & CEO of fellow dealer Gordon Flesch Company (GFC, Madison, Wisconsin), admits that “production can be tricky. At GFC, we have found much more success in this area,” he said, “when we are working with accounts that have a walk-up office fleet as well as a production print room. We are able to position more value in these scenarios.”
- Wausau, Wisconsin-based EO Johnson Business Technologies is another dealer succeeding with production printing., which “has helped us stay relevant in the industry,” pointed out Director of Production Print Jeff Reuter. “Over the years as office print volumes declined, we were able to maintain our monthly recurring revenue by having high-volume production accounts across multiple verticals. We have some solid placements in corporate in-plant print shops, commercial printers, and education accounts that keep the digital print clicks coming in on a very consistent basis.”
Read more of the trio’s Q&A responses in our production printing feature story for which Cannata also interviewed Dino Pagliarello,
VP of product management and production print at Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America.
Another production printing success story
Doing Better Business, Inc. (DBB), the dealer based in Altoona, Pennsylvania, subscribes to the office technology diversification model. In our latest CR CONNECT DEALER TOUR, President & CEO Deb Dellaposta explained how the dealership is deep into production printing. (Along with Patrick Flesch, Dellaposta serves on The Cannata Report’s five-member Advisory Board.)
Interestingly, DBB owns and operates its own commercial print shop near Pittsburgh, which came via the acquisition of Multiscope. The digital shop mainly operates to serve a large global customer, but DBB also uses the facility, which is filled with Canon and Ricoh production and wide-format devices, to meet internal print needs as well as to backfill printing for smaller school districts that don’t have their own facilities.
“What has really been great for us is that we have a staff [of five] there that understands workflow, understands commercial print workflow, and can . . . really work with our commercial print customers to help them streamline and become more efficient,” Dellaposta told our contributor, Filomena Tamburri.
DBB has grown more recently through a series of five other acquisitions. In 2022, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the dealer bought the aforementioned Multiscope from a founder who actually came from the commercial printing business, Dellaposta explained. He had print shops and presses all over the Pittsburgh area. “That acquisition really solidified our production printing understanding,” she said. However, production and wide-format printing are not all the eight-location dealership is into: DBB has ventured into managed IT services as well as audiovisual equipment.
Production printing OEM news
Some recent product announcements from manufacturers leading up to PRINTING United Expo 2026:
- Two months ago, Canon unveiled its varioPRESS iV7 model in the United States. The next-generation, B2+ sheetfed inkjet press made its U.S. debut at the thINK Ahead 2026 event in Florida, where members of Canon U.S.A.’s production printing user community assembled.
- Meanwhile, Konica Minolta Business Solutions, U.S.A., Inc. launched the AccurioPress C5080 Series. The new line of entry-level production presses is designed to deliver automated capabilities, consistent output, and simplified operation for commercial printers, in-plants, and franchise print environments.
- Earlier in June, Kyocera Document Solutions America revealed that its market-leading inkjet technology is available in monochrome. The TASKalfa Pro 15000b, the OEM’s new black-and-white commercial printer, will be on display in late September at the massive, North American printing tradeshow in Las Vegas.
This issue is chock-full of additional production printing-related content—from more on Inkjet technology developments, the wide-format opportunity, and dealers reselling label printers. We also address reasons why the channel needs to wait at least another five years for textile printing devices to permeate the U.S. market.
