Until this year, the more dealers who participated in our Annual Dealer Survey, the lower the percentage that offered managed IT. We believe the reason for this trend can be attributed to the number of smaller dealerships with revenues under $5 million completing the Survey.
After hitting a high of 50% of Big Six dealers declaring they offered managed IT in 2018 with 330 dealers participating, we saw that percentage decline as participation in the Survey climbed. In 2019, the percentage of the 344 dealers offering managed IT declined to 46%. Last year, the percentage of dealers offering managed IT declined to 44%. This year in our 36th Annual Dealer Survey, somewhat surprisingly, there was an increase in the percentage of dealers offering managed IT (46%), despite the number of Survey respondents increasing. Exhibit 1.34 shows just much the percentage of engagement has increased since last year among dealers representing the Big Six (Canon, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba).
Tracking managed IT engagement by dealers representing the Big Six OEMs, everybody was up from the previous year, with Konica Minolta and Canon dealers leading the pack at 59% and 58%, respectively. Though Canon has only 37 Canon dealers participating in the Survey, this OEM saw its dealers’ managed IT engagement grow by 13%. We used to think that Konica Minolta’s All Covered division was one of the reasons why such a large percentage of Konica Minolta dealers offered managed IT, but for the past couple of years, Survey results don’t seem to back up that argument. Last year, 15 of the 29 Konica Minolta dealers that offered managed IT said they partner with a third-party (more than likely All Covered), while this year, only six of the 21 Konica Minolta dealers that offer managed IT partner with a third-party. Considering the investment Konica Minolta made when it acquired All Covered in 2011, and the ongoing recognition All Covered receives in the IT world, one would expect more Konica Minolta dealers would be partnering with this division. We could chalk this up to dealers’ entrepreneurial spirits, where many would simply prefer to build it themselves, as we continue to see in our Survey findings.
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