What you have learned during the past year will be important for what comes next.
At least we’re somewhat used to it by now. The pandemic, I mean, and all the closures, limitations, masks, and rules that seem to come with it. None of it is much fun, and just like last year, this winter of discontent will impact the dealer channel. So, if you failed to get good at it last year, another opportunity awaits. Although some of 2021 will hopefully turn out to be “Pandemic Lite,” there will still be an impact on dealers’ businesses and those of your customers. So how does a savvy and proactive dealer respond to the seemingly never-ending challenges of the pandemic? And what does it mean for the future? Glad you asked.
Responsiveness
“The pandemic created a large need for a remote workforce,” recounted Troy Olson, chief business development officer of the Les Olson Company, a large dealer serving Utah and Nevada. Echoing Olson is Katsuhiro Matsufuji, vice president and general manager of the Business Communications Group at Canon U.S.A., who said in an email that the COVID-19 pandemic drove “a sudden shift to remote work and customer needs, most notably for remote workers who needed to maintain productivity and efficiency while transitioning to a home office environment.”
The demand for productivity and efficiency was behind a need for more agility. A somewhat overused term in business today, agility means the adaptability and flexibility to take on multiple tasks, some of which may be unfamiliar, and doing so quickly.
“Dealers and customers alike are seeing huge demand for increased agility so workers can access the information and applications when, where, and how they need them,” affirmed Jim Coriddi, vice president, dealer division, Ricoh USA.
Remote workers have found themselves needing to be agile and maintain productivity and efficiency while transitioning to home offices that often are kitchen or dining room tables. Meanwhile, the IT folks at their company were trying to figure out ways of accommodating employees strewn across multiple zip codes while maintaining some semblance of control of critical business information.
“The same forces influencing our clients were also impacting our work patterns,” noted Keith Adams, vice president of IT at Les Olson Company. “We had to adjust to more workplaces, plus remote work and communications functions.”
The upshot here is—if you haven’t already—ask your customers what your company can do to make their world a better place. Then, find a way to deliver anything in your wheelhouse because your customers need you.
“In today’s work environment customers need help in implementing solutions that can help both remote and in-office employees stay connected while maintaining access to critical business information and systems,” said Matsufuji.
As you’re probably expecting, there’s a “gotcha.” Leading the way is the service you provide, which has to be consistent no matter an employee’s location.
“You can’t have a lower-tier experience for remote workers because remote productivity is increasingly determining a business’s total productivity,” said Coriddi.
Not Business as Usual
These are tectonic shifts from what was considered to be business as usual. Moving forward, dealers already well-embedded with companies in typical office buildings must plan to support more remote workers, not less, and perhaps in different ways than they have over the past several months. For example, they may need to place and support more small MFPs, while ensuring delivery of consumables to locations further outside their usual market areas. Some may find it effective to partner with dealers closer to remote workers’ homes. Others may recommend placing machines with higher duty cycles or more capabilities in customers’ main offices to accommodate workers who do the majority of their printing on days when they are in the office. Some dealers are already expanding capabilities such as data security, managed IT, and telephony to support the needs of remote workers.
Others are focused on somewhat less complex needs. Woodhull, Inc., a multi-location dealer based in Dayton, Ohio, focuses on providing the service and support its customers need, regardless of where it places the copiers, printers, and scanners it provides.
“The opportunity is in finding solutions for customers, be it for improved workflows, better access to documents, or maintaining the communications customers need,” said Marketing Manager Robert Woodhull. “We see it as a collaboration with our customers that is part of the consultative relationship we have with all of them. The pandemic exacerbated the need for this, but it has always been part of the way we do business.”
Ricoh’s Coriddi added, “Dealers are also seeing significant demand for process automation, especially helping workers be more productive in remote environments.”
As part of this, the cloud is becoming an even more important tool for many remote workers than when they were in an office. In what is becoming a common workflow, former cubicle residents upload work to the cloud and print either remotely to their main office or the next time they are physically in the main office. This lets them remain productive (which their managers like) and may increase efficiency by completing work in less time—which their managers like even more. In other words, customers may be asking dealers about process automation and looking to dealers to support the needs of remote users. Being able to meet customer’s requirements will help foster relationships that extend into the future.
Scanning, for example, has become a crucial need. A hard copy of a document can be quickly scanned and uploaded to the cloud for access by others in an organization. The increase in scanning, which seems to be happening simultaneously as the decline in A3 and A4 printing, may reflect a shift to viewing and sharing documents electronically rather than physically. This raises other issues, not the least of which is security.
“A challenge for many businesses has been providing secure remote access for employees,” said Olson.
Consider, for example, a brokerage service where customers’ financial records are maintained or a law firm where all manner of confidential information is under wraps. Documents that financial wizards and lawyers thought were protected on networks set up by their local IT guru might suddenly become vulnerable when customers’ employees use unprotected networks offered by phone companies and cable providers. These are often wide open to anyone with, shall we say, less than honorable intentions. As a result, VPNs (virtual private networks) and partitioned internet connections are becoming standard common for remote workers because cell phones are about as secure as radio broadcasts. Dealers should be familiar with connecting to and supporting these options.
Thinking Ahead
What everyone wants to know, of course, is how many people will ultimately be working remotely? This number will vary a lot. Ask each customer about their plans and do so on an ongoing basis so you can anticipate how you can best help serve the needs of remote workforces.
Part of being prepared is having the right equipment, policies, and procedures to ensure work is done productively and efficiently. This begins with the tools your customer’s teams use. Sharp Imaging & Information Company of America, for example, offers up a three-tiered suite of WFH (work from home) products its dealers can sell that make it easier for their customers to equip staff with laptop computers, monitors, and printers. This helps make up for the lack of laptops in many offices and acknowledges that many workers may have limited technology at home—often a shared, under-powered computer and a tired inkjet printer. Savvy dealers can add value by working with a customer to ensure needed software such as the Microsoft Office Suite, or specialized business applications are installed on the computers before turning them over to remote workers.
All vendors have made it easier for remote workers to stay productive at home (and on the road) using smartphone apps and software on laptop computers to make communications and sharing documents easier. Sharp’s WFH bundle, for example, has an application called Synappx that lets remote users work in the cloud, create a document, print, edit, make changes, release a job, and then pull it down and print in the office. Walk-up printers in an office can be selected from smartphones, minimizing the need to physically touch shared printers.
Vendors such as Canon and Ricoh offer similar capabilities, keeping people safe while ensuring they are as productive and efficient as possible. Canon’s Remote Operation controls its imageRUNNER ADVANCE interface via compatible smartphones or tablets. Ricoh Smart Integration (RSI), for instance, has long been a boon to road warriors who might have hit the office once a week or less, but this solution is now a mainstay for people finding themselves working from home.
“RSI helps salespeople who are rarely in the office, but it is also a great fit for people who now have to work from home,” said Woodhull.
RSI enables documents to be digitized and stored safely in the cloud where they are easy to locate. Retrieving them is faster than doing it manually and provides access from anywhere.
Anywhere being well, anywhere because this is not just about the pandemic. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says millennials will make up some three-quarters of the domestic workforce by 2030. This largely digital generation has already been questioning conventional attitudes about remote work and traditional work hours. Dealers need to adapt to the changes brought about by the pandemic and up their game in service and technology by partnering with customers and using the time we are in not only to serve customers today but also to be poised to address the needs that will present themselves through the end of this decade and beyond.
It’s easy to think of supporting remote employees as a temporary issue that will go away when “everyone” returns to the office. What if they don’t return? The very real possibility of offices not returning to “normal” has been a recurrent topic in The New York Times and other news outlets. Several recent articles pointed out that companies once occupying thousands of square feet of Manhattan office space are preparing for hybrid workforces in which employees spend less time in offices and more time working from home. Don’t think for a minute that things happening in the Big Apple don’t apply to you. Household-name companies that once occupied New York office towers are reducing office space in those towers while opening satellite offices in suburbs and even remote locales. The same strategy is being adopted by firms across the country—that a growing number of employees will work remotely—indefinitely. If you don’t think this changes the game for copier/printer dealers, it’s time to wake up and smell the toner—and the opportunity. Successful dealers will be offering more, and in many cases, becoming more intimately involved in customers’ businesses than in the past.
Why is this important? Because some level of remote working will likely become the norm, and dealers who treat remote working as part of business as usual will become more successful. Using this pandemic interval as a time to find and refine ways of supporting customers with remote or hybrid workforces is a way you can take advantage of adversity to be prepared for what your customers will need this year, next year, and the ones after that.
“We have focused on collaborating with our customers, working to learn their needs, and finding the best ways to address their challenges,” said Woodhull. “By being proactive we can anticipate change, which is critical to continued success.”
Access Related Content
Visit the www.thecannatareport.com. To become a subscriber, visit www.thecannatareport.com/register or contact cjcannata@cannatareport.com directly. Bulk subscription rates are also available.
