Toshiba America Business Solutions Hosts 2003 National Dealer Meeting And Presents New Business Strategies, Product Introductions And E-business Initiatives
Toshiba America Business Solutions(TABS)announced the successful completion of its 2003 National Dealer Meeting in Carlsbad, Calif., with more than 400 Toshiba dealers in attendance to witness one of the most significant dealer meetings in the company’s history. Richard K. Taylor, senior vice president, Sales, Marketing and Business Operations and Mark E. Mathews, Vice-President, Marketing, opened the four-day event with an inspirational message encouraging attendees to “Dream to Extreme,” the theme title of Toshiba’s meeting, and showcased Toshiba’s strategic direction for the U.S. market, aggressive new product line-up and e-business offerings for the coming year.
In the midst of an economic downturn and a market that continues to pose business challenges for those within the industry, Toshiba executives shared promising achievements. Toshiba’s revenue increased 7.1 percent in its 2002 fiscal year and increased an impressive 7.8 percent in the first quarter of 2003, despite a widespread decline in competitors’ revenues in the fiscal year ending in March 2003. In addition, Toshiba’s color unit sales increased 84 percent in its 2002 fiscal year, compared to 2001, with a forecasted growth in color sales of 37 percent in the 2003 fiscal year. Toshiba also unveiled numerous key initiatives targeted to further increase the company’s market share and provide dealers with expansive and unlimited growth opportunities. In addition to concentrating efforts on its Major Accounts program to garner more Fortune 1000 and 500 customers through the integration of leading technology, Toshiba will expand its software solutions business through strategic partnerships and a new Toshiba Certified Document Solutions provider certification program; continue to develop its comprehensive training program and launch a new e-Learning Training System; support its branding campaign with a greater advertising, public relations and marketing push and a new, redesigned public Web site; and introduce a wave of innovative digital imaging products that leverage Toshiba’s cutting-edge technology and bridge the gap between performance and price.
The “Dream to Extreme” theme for this year’s event set the tone for one of Toshiba’s most aggressive new product endeavors, the e-STUDIO3511/4511, known internally as McKinley. The revolutionary, new monochrome 35 page-per-minute (ppm) and 45 ppm multifunction products (MFPs), with 11 ppm color capabilities, represented a fulfillment of Toshiba’s own “extreme dream” – the development of a monochrome MFP with unparalleled performance and paper handling abilities, as well as copying, printing, faxing, scanning, e-Filing and network connectivity right out-of-the-box that also offers truly affordable business color. Introduced to the dealers for the first time during the meeting, the e-STUDIO3511/4511 serves as the cornerstone of Toshiba’s new product cadre, which also includes a new high-speed, high performance monochrome system, the e-STUDIO350 and 450; a new line of monochrome and color printers; and a new Toshiba developed integrated hardware and software document management solution called the e-STUDIO KS-1000. Toshiba also highlighted its net-ready eBridge technology, a unified architecture that incorporates copy, print, scan and fax functionality into a single board developed solely by Toshiba and to be incorporated into all future Toshiba MFPs.
Toshiba also introduced a new Web-based document management and output analysis program that leverages Toshiba’s award-winning FYI Portal called Encompass. With Encompass, Toshiba’s trained consultants can accurately and quickly analyze a company’s document production and management costs, create a comprehensive proposal and strategy to right-size output equipment fleets and streamline costly production processes, compare total cost of ownership between a Toshiba and existing solution and reduce output costs by up to 40 percent. Featuring an extensive database of more than 3,000 copiers, printers and fax devices and 6,000 supplies for both Toshiba and competitive products dating back to 1990, as well as their associated usage and supply costs, Toshiba’s Encompass Program and online database ensures assessment integrity and consistency through continually updated drop-down data menus and pre-determined industry-accepted metrics.
“This year was a very important one for Toshiba’s technological strength and we were very pleased with the number of attendees at the 2003 National Dealer Meeting,” said Rick Taylor, senior vice president, Sales, Marketing and Business Operations,TABS. “It demonstrates a commitment by Toshiba dealers to our leadership and vision, as well as a trust in our ability to deliver the technology, products and support that will sustain them through both uncertain and prosperous business environments. This year, we were able to achieve what many in the industry could not – sustain an increase in revenue while dedicating a significant amount of time and resources to research and development to bring products such as the e-STUDIO3511/4511, e-STUDIO KS-1000 and Toshiba’s eBridge platform to market. Innovations like these are points of differentiation for Toshiba and our dealers. We were excited to communicate our collective accomplishments and deliver the products that will set the stage for dealer success in the next few years.”
Toshiba will launch its flagship products, the e-STUDIO3511/4511, e-STUDIO KS-1000, and e-STUDIO350/450 in late 2003. Toshiba’s new Encompass document management and output analysis program will be introduced next month.
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