We recently had the opportunity to visit Minnesota-based Marco Technologies, one of the leading office technology dealers in the industry. With locations in 12 states, Marco is a Konica Minolta, Sharp, HP and soon-to-be Canon dealer. While perhaps better known for its IT solutions as well as office print, Marco has made significant investments in production print as well, and recently opened a state-of-the-art demonstration facility, so we got to see how it’s focusing on that investment firsthand.
Marco CEO Doug Albregts notes that currently, 4.4% of its business comes from the production print division. “We would like that to scale to 10% in the coming years, assuming everything else grows at the same rate. We see a lot of upsides here with our new facility showcase and what that brings to the territories where we target our sales efforts,” he said.
Albregts says Marco is currently the largest production systems dealer for Konica Minolta in North America, and is beginning to leverage its new facility for both sales and customer satisfaction requirements. “We have ‘in-house’ access to all Konica Minolta production engines, finishers, and accessories,” he says. “This allows us to deliver the highest customer experience; pre- and post-testing and scope of work, while delivering a closed loop process. We have access to KM’s customer experience center, especially with our East Coast operations being very close in proximity. However, with the demonstration facility in Minneapolis, we’re able to host customers and prospects from around the country there, too.”
He notes that Marco’s production specialists, some of which have more than 25 years of experience, serve as subject matter experts available to their general sales population as production opportunities arise, and the production specialists are trained on all production equipment they sell and support.
What does the future hold for Marco in the production print arena?
“We are just getting started in offering new innovative products from our vendor partners,” says Albregts. “Wide format is another area of growth where we see an accelerating sales opportunity. But it’s not just about these products, it’s about bundling creative solutions and how we bring them to market more efficiently, how we drive demand with our customers and how we creatively offer best-in-class services. This is how we will be defining our organic growth strategy moving forward. Of course, we are always in acquisition mode! We can bring all of this to the businesses we acquire as
well.
