I’m back from the Kyocera Document Solutions America FY15 Pan American dealer show in Las Vegas where over 1,200+ attendees were treated to two days of hospitality, product and solutions updates and an overview of Kyocera’s strategies and company performance.

Under the theme of “Empowerment,” the event began as most do with a keynote session where we heard from Kyocera executives such as President and CEO Nori Ina, Senior VP of Sales Ed Bialecki, VP of Marketing Peter Hendrick among several others. First of all, I have to say the stage looked amazing. They had this massive, and I mean massive screen that went from floor to ceiling almost from one end of the room to the other. I was up front and as one of my colleagues said to me, it was like sitting in the front seat at a movie. While I was asked not to quote any specific figures about Kyocera performance until the end of April, Kyocera has continued their growth pattern seen over the last few years in the North American and Latin American markets – not an easy task in a flat market. Revenue was up across the board.

Senior Director of Product Planning and Marketing Danielle Wolowitz then addressed the crowd, providing a review of the last year as well as discussion as to what we would be seeing in the product fair later that day.

A word used heavily throughout the presentations was “Dealer Centric.” Kyocera was saying all the same things I hear at virtually every one of these shows; “we’re focused on the dealer,” we’re Dealer Centric,” and on and on. It’s one thing to hear them say it; it’s quite another when dealers say it. I had several dealers tell me that Kyocera has really become great to work with over the last few years. Mark Carlile of Total Office Concepts in Walla Walla WA told me, “When they say they are dealer centric, they truly are dealer centric.” He went on to elaborate about the responsiveness he receives and what a great partner Kyocera has become. This was a sentiment I heard throughout the conference.

The show was very light on A3 hardware with no significant products coming out any time soon in this category. A few dealers grumbled over this perceived lack of product – one of very few complaints I did hear. However, in Kyocera’s defense, there were several new A4 printers and MFPs as well as a handful of apps (solutions) slated for release later this year, most likely around summer.

The other complaint was that Kyocera STILL doesn’t have any production equipment to offer, forcing their dealers to go elsewhere.
I asked Mr. Ina during the analyst roundtable if it wouldn’t make sense to pursue an OEM relationship to provide this technology and it appears this is something they’ve considered on and off for years.

While I don’t think Kyocera can achieve an ROI required to support the R&D effort needed to develop their own light production equipment, I think there is certainly opportunity for some. I spoke to one dealer at the show that told me how they got cut out of a large bid because the client wanted to go with someone that could support them from top to bottom. This is why they need these products.

Here are some of the other highlights from my visit:

Kyocera continues to push ahead with their three-tier color-pricing program, running a breakout session dedicated to this unique billing program. Great American is now on board offering Kyocera dealers a specialized program that can handle all the different meters necessary to invoice customers properly with this billing system. The three-tier program allows dealers to choose up to three different costs per page based on the customer’s page coverage. The advantage is that a customer printing minimal color can be charged a minimal color amount instead of the all-or-nothing billing style found in traditional contracts where a customer is either billed for the full color page or billed for black.

This billing program is a great differentiator and I’m surprised other brands haven’t followed suit. If I was a customer, I would certainly consider a Kyocera printer based on three tiered pricing before I even looked at the actual device.

Kyocera showed 10 new ECOSYS color and b/w printers, including a 62-PPM black and white MFP. The new A4 MFPs have a really nice big user interface that has the same layout as the A3 TASKalfa devices, adding consistency between the A3 and A4 lines. This is helpful to customers but more importantly, it allows Kyocera to tie the A4 products into their app program and make use of the solutions they’ve developed for the TASKalfa line.

There were a great number of apps mixed in with the hardware. The product fair was probably the nicest I’ve seen at a Kyocera event and one of the best I’ve seen at any dealer shows for that matter. There was plenty of cool blue lighting making it feel techy and I liked the vertically organized layout. It’s hard to explain but the way it was set up made it feel like there was a crowd everywhere I turned, yet it was still manageable enough to get close to the products and speak with the specialists.

The apps were my favorite part. First of all, I love the fact that Kyocera has stopped using the word solutions and started calling them apps. I noted this after last year’s meeting and it is still the case. Personally, I feel the words are interchangeable, but by calling them apps, they’re using a language that customers use.

We’ve been forcing the word solutions down people’s throats for so long we forget people outside this industry have no idea what we’re talking about when we say it. They do know what apps are because they have them on their phones. Apps are things that do stuff. They can be anything and do anything, just like a ubiquitous term like “solutions.”

I think people in this industry forget that most people on the outside don’t know what the heck we are talking about a lot of the time. When I started selling copiers I was literally handed a thesaurus of acronyms and industry terms. I recently saw a great video by another vendor where their VP took to the streets asking people if they knew what an MFP was and most of them didn’t. Anyways, I digress.

As far as apps, most new ones we saw at the show are coming this summer. A great number of them had some level of mobility component. My favorite was probably PinPoint Scan (or possibly PinPoint Mobile once it comes out, the name is still TBD). While everyone is working on enabling printing from mobile devices (Kyocera included) through AirPrint and Android print apps and through other methods like NFC, PinPoint Scan is a cloud based solution that allows customers to scan (not print…yet) to their mobile devices whether they’re connected to the network or not.

A customer walks up to a device, scans the QR code on or next to the device, which then brings up a browser on their smartphone. The browser has a unique pin code that is then entered into the control panel. When the customer scans the document, the scan appears on the mobile device and is ready for download.

There were plenty of other apps as well including one that allows customers to essentially use their Android and iOS phones as the copier/MFP control panel, another that builds off their education software announced last year that facilitates and processes bubble surveys including the delivery of reports. Right now the survey app is only for use with hardcopy. I think it would be much more useful if there was a hardware component, like if customers could use their cell phone to answer questions on the fly.

They have these in my kid’s school, using handheld devices similar to TV remote controls rather than cell phones. But they don’t have any mechanism for blending hardcopy bubble sheet surveys into it and for schools that haven’t invested in this hardware yet, these bubble sheets might offer a great opportunity. Kyocera said they are looking into other ways to make this more useful and I got the feeling they might be talking to other companies about a handheld component.

The apps were popular and many had large crowds around them. It was actually tough to get close to some of them at times. There was a nice balance between Kyocera apps and embedded ones from partners such as DocuWare and PaperCut among others that are integrated right into the Kyocera user interface.

Shifting gears, let’s talk about something that was an issue for the last couple of years. A while back, Kyocera came out with a program where they were going to provide 36-month warranties on all parts for their A3 products. Dealers complained. Why not A4? Then they came out with a comparable plan for their A4 products. Dealers complained. Even though they were the only brand receiving this level of warranty on their hardware, they complained.

However, they had a legitimate beef. While the parts were covered, my understanding is that the return process was extremely difficult, if not to the point of making it prohibitive. Worse, dealers complained of the ship back and freight charges they were accruing for sending back products that failed that were covered in the warranty. You’re charging me for shipping back your failed part? I’d be annoyed too!

Once again, Kyocera listened and when it was announced during the keynote that Kyocera was discontinuing the practice of passing along these charges, dealers erupted in applause. This came straight out of the dealer council. Well done.

This brings me to a point. Mr. Ina is dynamic leader and to his credit, he has done a great job in his first three years with respect to gaining the trust and respect of his dealers. Kyocera’s senior staff has been stable since he arrived. Mr. Ina proudly boasts of his goal to eventually visit every one of his dealers and it’s my understanding that in his first three years he’s visited the majority of them (there are over 700). He laughs and cracks occasional jokes in meetings I’ve attended and he doesn’t wear a tie. He’s extremely approachable and he really seems to listen to what people are saying.

Numbers were up and dealers were actually pretty happy with Kyocera. I’m sure it’s frustrating to not see any new A3 but there were plenty of other things to see. While some vendors have noticeably scaled back their dealer meetings over the last few years, Kyocera seems to have hit the throttle. The facilities and food were great, the product fair was fantastic and the screen on stage during the keynote was mind blowing. It’s a long-standing joke in the analyst community that you can tell how the vendor is really doing by what they serve their dealers to eat and drink. Judging by what I saw (and ate), things are definitely going well. I appreciate the invitation to this event and I am encouraged by what I saw on this trip.