HP, Samsung and the Uber Factor
I am reminded of how Status Quo thinking is so attached to one's emotions. As you read this give your imagination power over your perceived reality. This will spark things you might not want to think about, but probably should.
I have argued the point that it’s not about how many pages experts say are printed. The disruption coming quicker—well it’s here!—is based on how many manufacturers can survive the consolidation, how technology will reshape the printing device, allowing alternatives to their delivery, and the way they are serviced. Some manufacturers, are barely hanging on, rumors spread on their sale, or not. Manufacturers, where print represents such a small part of their overall deliverable, will see more value in an exit strategy, than a growth strategy. More than likely their executives are eating lunch at the HP cafeteria listening to their Samsung friends explain how good the food tastes. The industry has too many players, and the customer base simply does not care about print like they used to. The facts are that most organizations spend less than 2% of their technology dollars on print.
The good bad or ugly—HP is the multi-billion pound gorilla and could be the biggest, last one standing. Everyone in the imaging channel should focus on business possibilities in a changing world. This can only happen when you keep the emotional baggage containing your product prejudices’, your spreadsheets prepared by some analyst describing the growth of print as a reason not to change, or having the attitude that HP can only survive if the imaging channel cooperates.
Lockup these thoughts in that emotional baggage and leave it at the train station as you get on the train to the future.
The catalyst which began the “Ubering” of the imaging channel started when manufacturers increased their footprint of direct operations. This forced them to make better products, with longer lasting consumable yields, so easy to deliver Amazon could do it. The new HP shown in Boston has only seven replaceable parts. HP had 13,000 resellers at their Boston meeting. When they talk channel they are not talking about the 2,000 or fewer copier dealers. HP does not see a border in service providers the way the imaging channel does. When Dion Weisler talks about disruption he sees a different vision of who delivers and services the equipment. Some will most surely be from the imaging channel, although HP won't care.
So, what’s the Uber connection? Go to the google machine as I affectionately call it, and type in Field Nation, or Work Market. These are just two examples of many companies like them. Then simply use your imagination. These two organizations and others like them probably don't even know yet, how they could disrupt the service deliverable of the imaging channel. Or is there an organization being created specifically to disrupt the service deliverable of both dealer and direct?
The future will not be the same even if we insist on it. All of us reading this understand that customers, or lack of them, determine the fate of all things sold, manufactured, and serviced.
This article is intended for provoking thoughts, tapping imaginations, exploring things and concepts which are different. Driving discussion based on reality, not emotions. If the actors in the theater of the imaging channel can look past what is in front of them, and leave their emotional baggage in the past, they can win.
I close with my favorite quote. “Status Quo is the killer of all that will be invented”.
R.J. Stasieczko
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