PRINCIPAL ISSUES
Samsung’s Pursuit Manufacturer focused on growing its print business by: Brent Hoskins, Office Technology Magazine
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ith an expanding MFP product lineup and a new copier/ MFP-industry veteran leading the efforts to grow the company’s business in the product category, executives at Samsung Electronics America Inc. have their eyes on the BTA Channel. On June 21, Samsung hosted industry editors and analysts at its North American headquarters in Ridgefield Park, N.J., to share plans for growth and preview its newest MFPs. Tod Pike The briefing came just over two months after the announcement that Tod Pike had joined the company as senior vice president, responsible for the overall leadership, vision and implementation of Samsung’s Enterprise Business Division. Pike had previously served in leadership positions at Canon U.S.A. Inc. and Canon Canada Inc. over the course of 19 years, following 16 years at Xerox Corp. “I think my coming here speaks to the importance of print to this company,” Pike said as he addressed the editors and analysts. “There are growth opportunities all over the place for Samsung in business-to-business [B2B], but perhaps none so great as the growth opportunity that we see in print.” Pike noted that for Samsung to attain its growth targets in the coming years, it will need to increase its B2B sales. That effort, he said, is the focus of the Enterprise Business Division, which covers four product categories: display monitors; digital signage; mobile computing, including notebooks and tablets; and print. “You are familiar with our heritage as the number-two manufacturer of printers in the world,” Pike said. “We have had a good presence from the Samsung brand in the U.S. in single-function print and A4. We are now rapidly moving up-market.” That move up-market is reflected in the July 18 launch of Samsung’s new line of A3 MFPs — the color CLX-9201NA, CLX-9251NA and CLX-9301NA, along with the monochrome SCX-8123NA and SCX-8128NA. The products range in MSRP from $3,900 to $8,270, with page-per-minute speeds ranging from 23 to 30. “With the introduction of these new A3 MFPs to Samsung’s printer lineup, we are reaffirming our focus on corporate customers,” Pike said. “We consider a smart mix of A3 and A4 offerings a requirement. With our increased investment in A3, we are confident we can become one of the top global producers by 2015.”
Pike said the Samsung brand name will be helpful to the company and its dealers in pursuit of the B2B opportunity. “As we look to expand the brand into new areas, the brand means a lot of things,” he said. “It means high quality. It means an investment in research and development. It is big and powerful; we are the number-two patent holder in the United States. Plus, we are spending more than $8 billion a year in R&D. I like the fact that we have great brand recognition with our TVs and smartphones. It kind of warms the entry for the dealer community.” Samsung’s dealer community is small, but growing. Currently, Pike said, there are about 60 to 70 active authorized dealerships. The company is now recruiting new dealers with a target of full U.S. coverage. “My approach — and the company’s approach — is being laser-focused on finding the right dealers in the right markets, as opposed to a hit-and-miss strategy that results in having six or seven authorized Samsung dealers in a particular geography,” Pike explained. “We want to work very closely with dealers to make sure that we are not going to be selling around them.” Actually, the company has a salesforce focused on helping channel partners sell to Fortune 500 accounts, federal and state government agencies, and other large accounts. In many cases, existing accounts, currently using other Samsung products, provide opportunities for BTA Channel dealers as well, Pike said. “One of the great tools that we have available to us are these relationships,” he said. “It has been very helpful to us recently as we authorize new dealers. When we are able to bring dealers into potential opportunities, it has been a nice way to encourage them to come on board.” Samsung is enhancing its field support structure to better serve its dealers, Pike said. “We are working to build that up,” he said, noting a strategy that is now in place as compared to Samsung’s previous dealer support structure. “We are partnering local dealer sales managers with support specialists, who are more solutions engineers, to support the dealer community.” Those efforts to boost dealer support go hand-in-hand with Samsung’s focus on expanding distribution, Pike emphasized. “There is a list of recently authorized Samsung dealers around the country,” he said. “We hope that the list grows very rapidly in the months to come.” n Brent Hoskins, executive director of the Business Technology Association, is editor of Office Technology magazine. He can be reached at brent@bta.org.
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