Comments on the Canon 1730/1740/1750 Models

These units will be very successful for Canon. I have been waiting a long time for Canon to bring these A4 units to the market. There is a whole series of 6 different models depending on the customers needs. I am not familiar with those Ricoh units....which models are you referring? I already have several customers that have been waiting for these to be released. Now just bring the color series similar to these and Canon will be set. From what I heard the Ricoh units are priced too high for most of the A4 market....Canon has a sweet price point and can be configured a multitude of ways.

Appreciate your feedback! The Ricoh models I referred to earlier are the MP C300/C400 A4 color models.

The Ricohs have been slow sellers is not because of end user needs or wants. Basically ours is a quota/revenue driven business from the top to the bottom.

The preferred compensation model for commissions is that of a revenue based plan with commissions. Why have a GP driven comp plan for your sales people when your Dealership or Branch has a revenue based quota plan from the manufacturers? It just doesn't make sense.

With that A4's from Canon, Sharp, Ricoh, and KonicaMinolta has presented their own issues. What's a Dealer Region Manager to do? His region may have sold 10,000 a3 color systems per quarter for lets say 10,000 each thus representing a revenue of 1,000,000 dollars for that color segment/speed. In pops the A4 color with the same speeds at half the cost, does he or she promote this right away to the Dealer Sales Managers or do they try and hold onto the A3 color systems as long as possible. The same holds true for the Dealer Sales Manager (the rep who handles the account for the dealer), does he or she want to push these devices only to see their revenue drop by 25% or more for the placement of the same amount of boxes? Also there's a good argument for the Dealer Owner or Direct Branch Manager. Revenue will drop, quotas will stay the same and along with the revenue drop will come a drop in profit. I believe that everyone has tried to hold out as long as possible with the coming of the A4's whether color or black. Now, more than ever all in involved have to turn to a service based model of solutions, and professional services to the keep the pace.

I see the Canon 1700 series as one of those game changers and it seems pricing like this for an A4 device will only increase demand when 11x17 is not needed. I believe the price buyers will gravitate to this type of unit. Just recently Ricoh re-positioned the MP2500B (25ppm) an A3 Black device, lowered the MSRP to a little over 2K, lowered Doc Feeder cost and possibly the All In One Kit for the print/scan and fax. Seems like this box will have an MSRP of about $4,300. The knock on the Ricoh MP2500B is no color scan. This seems like it was a move by Ricoh on two fronts, one they were getting their butts kicked with the Canon iR2525 and Ricoh has been slow to introduce the new A3 replacements, with the new pricing model of the Canon iR2525, I'm thinking Ricoh needs to re think the pricing model on the new systems.

Once all parties involved embrace the A4 color or black devices I can see sales people may finally have the ability to drive profit, especially in major markets that are saturated with dealers and direct branches. We (us) will look to move customers from A3 devices to A4 devices and sell the savings, and the savings may help to hold margin, but we'll have to sell twice as many units to maintain revenue. So, when you've been moving 5-7 units per month, everyone will have to move upstream concentrating on multiple placements, and higher segments devices. This model will be short lived as the rest of the industry falls into the A4 model. A3's will still have a place where there is volume, or until a major player adapts the A3 cost per page model with the A4 systems, or when one of the second tier players get off thier ass and market their cost per page as a driving factor in Total Cost of Ownership.

For those of us that still sell copiers and don't dable that much in MPS we can continue with trying to eliminate printers, the new A4's will help. But, these A4's were pretty much designed for the MPS world and you can bet MPS players in your area will be dumping these devices to capture the clicks.

Agree, disagree, thoughts????

Thanks for taking time for the great blog....there was a lot of good info in there. The rule of thumb is 2 A4's to 1 A3. I thought he was referring to the Ricoh color A4's as those are the ones that I knew about. I have not seen an A4 Ricoh that fits this class. A4's really work great when a customer does not need all the bells & whistles or 11x17". Canon has a very good position like you said Art with the 2525. I have personally placed several of these units. However I have also placed the 2525 where the 1700 series would have fit perfectly but they were not launched yet because they did not need ledger size. One thing that you cannot sell is futures even though we all would like to. The A4's are also great for the MPS world which we are breaking into but it is a slow process. This industry like you said Art is headed to more and more A4 placements and we all may have to move quicker to make those revenue quotas. I wish it was easy to maintain the GP in the deal like a A3 but that will be a challenge for sure.

You all bring up some good points. Both the Ricoh MPC300/400 series and the Canon 1700 series are definitely are game chnagers. Being able to sell both helps. I thinkk Ricoh is really holding back on the SP5200 because of this Canon series. In a GP sales model a sales rep is in heaven selling these two untis. Don't get me wrong regarding revenue but GP based models is where it is at. I havent been impressed with some models from Canon lately, however, I think they have gotten it rigth with the Canon 1700 series. For those of you who need any information on this unit reach out to me offline.

Sorry for the spelling errors. Too early in the morning for the post.

Larry....what models are you referring to that you do not like from Canon? Why? What brand are you selling?

Sell Ricoh and Canon. In my opinion, I feel the ease use from a user perspective is much stronger with Ricoh than Canon. The dealer support is stronger with Ricoh. I like Ricoh color much more than Canon. I do not spend much attention to the units in general as they are just a by product. My main focus is solving problems within an organization. It just so happens prinetrs and copiers fall into this.