Kyocera and DataBank to provide Turnkey ECM program
By Andy Slawetsky – Last week I attended CommunityLIVE, the annual Hyland OnBase ECM/ERP solutions convention in Orlando. OnBase is a single enterprise information platform with vertical solutions focused on finance, healthcare, insurance, government and higher education. There were over 1,300 end users at this conference paying over $2,000 to attend – pretty impressive!
Solutions like OnBase have been becoming increasingly important to imaging dealers and there were several familiar faces at this event. Companies like Panasonic, Canon and Xerox had booths and there was a great presence from others such as Konica Minolta and Kyocera.
#Kyocera VP Danielle W speaks about @databankimx partnership at @OnBase #CommunityLIVE #Ecm Event pic.twitter.com/Me9AnyFmb2
— Industry Analysts (@aslawetsky) September 13, 2016
It was Kyocera that really interested me at this event as they had just made a major announcement that they have partnered with DataBank to help their branches and eventually dealers easily sell OnBase products. DataBank is a leading BPO ECM company and one of OnBase’s biggest resellers.
The partnership provides Kyocera branches (yes, there are a few) with turnkey OnBase ECM and workflow solutions. I’m told that this alliance will eventually roll out to their entire US dealer network after they get a little experience working with DataBank.
DataBank has a strong presence with Enterprise customers. Now they’re focusing on SMB – the sweet spot for Kyocera imaging dealers.
Chuck from @databankimx talks about partnership with @OnBase and #Kyocera pic.twitter.com/ltNl6KjaWw
— Industry Analysts (@aslawetsky) September 14, 2016
The program will eventually offer dealers a great way to get into content management without having to invest over $100k to internally develop their own offering.
During the conference, Kyocera/DataBank/OnBase held a webinar. The call was hosted by VP Danielle Wolowitcz of Kyocera, DataBank CEO Chuck Bauer and some representatives from Hyland OnBase. During the meeting, Chuck told me DataBank has offices in major markets and has excellent coverage in the US market. “Dealers are right in the middle of this right now, they just don’t know it yet,” he told me.
Kyocera is serious about this new relationship. With over 1,300 attendees at this show, Kyocera and DataBank brought more customers than anyone else.
As our print industry continues to mature, dealers and resellers are constantly looking for new products and services that fit with their infrastructure and business model. This new alliance fits these needs. Dealers can get in with minimal investment and resell high-level ECM with very little experience in this area.
Once Kyocera rolls this alliance out to the dealers at large, the dealer sales person identifies an opportunity, their DataBank partner will work with the dealer to provide a unified sales team that will engage with the customer. This won’t be a hand off but rather; the dealer will be kept in the process throughout the sales cycle. In the interim, all opportunities with the dealers will be handled on a case by case basis.
This industry may not be around forever. I keep reminding my readers that a great number of imaging (copier) dealers used to be typewriter dealers. Once typewriters went away, they shifted focus to copiers, then to printers. What’s next? For some of you, maybe it’s managed services. For others it might be ECM. These are two natural areas for dealers to expand into.
This alliance is a great move by Kyocera. They’ve partnered with possibly the best ECM reseller in our market and will eventually provide dealers with the ability to sell this workflow with minimal investment on their end. Stay tuned as I will be following and reporting on this new relationship as there are updates to the program.
~Andy
