As seen in ImageSource Magazine, June 2005
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The Challenge:

• Reduce the number of forms that a local stock
  trade company produced on a daily basis
• Provide the customer with the ability to scan in
  existing paper document

The Solution:

• One Gestetner 6002 MFP (60 ppm unit)
• Reform software by Fabsoft
• Ricoh eCabinet

The Results:

• The customer cut paper form costs by about 8
  cents per form
• Business Alternatives sold more than $30,000 in
  hardware and software

The story told by Ron Holtzer,VP of sales and operations for Business Alternatives:

First, I would like to point out that this customer was a client of a local Ricoh dealer prior to doing business with my dealership.In addition, it still had half of its 60-month lease remaining before we came in and provided our solution. We got our foot in the door during a product show that we hosted. It was attended by the customer's IT Manager, who saw what we had to offer and took some interest in it. Nine months later the stock trade company began talking business with us about a solution that would condense the amount of paper being used during transactions.

The main objective of the company was to find a way to reduce the high cost of pre-printed forms and to figure out how to improve work flow. At the time, the company was running 300-400 three-part forms daily.The business’ secondary objective was to implement a mechanism that would allow them to scan existing paper records, primarily in their HR department.

We brought in a Ricoh eCabinet for a trial and downloaded Fabsoft’s Reform for an evaluation. Reform allows for the merging of text files on to an electronic version of what used to be pre-printed forms. Creating this solution with the eCabinet allowed the company to archive a finished document into the repository of the eCabinet. This meant that the eCabinet now had a PDF version of the data—form and all—and it never had to be printed or scanned back in.

Next, with some professional customization by Fabsoft, they were able to route a second copy—form and all—to the salesperson that started the trade. This eliminated printing two of the three parts of the form. My customer can now drag and drop files into a folder in Reform. Once the file is dropped in the folder, it will be merged, archived, printed once, and also distributed via email.

The preliminary installation was not too difficult, and with Fabsoft's support via WebEx, it looked like I did it all. I am a sales guy with technical knowledge, but I didn't even have to get one of our technical guys involved!

It was a tremendous savings to the customer, as the cost of the threepart forms alone were 10-12 cents each. They went to under four cents per printed piece. That's a 50-70 percent savings in that one application! Now they printed out one copy for their customer and the other two parts, which were normally filed away into a cabinet and given to the rep, were totally eliminated.

Last, but absolutely not least in this equation was the need to scan other already existing paper documents.The customer already had a few smaller scanners in addition to an old, stand alone scanner.At first, because I really wanted to get an MFP in there, I attempted to buyout their existing Ricoh. But with 30-plus payments left, it just
didn't make sense.

So, because the scanning application was so important to them, the customer and I discussed moving that machine somewhere else and I presented a 45 and 60 ppm Gestetner MFP. I really thought, because the customer had so much time on their lease, they would go with a solution that was the least expensive scanning
solution possible. However, because the scanning solution was important, they went with the 60 ppm MFP.

Two things I want to emphasize about this sale:

1.This whole solution would have been dead in its tracks without Reform and the customization provided by Fabsoft.

2. At first glance, you'd think that an incumbent Ricoh dealer, with whom they didn't have any complaints, would have made this a very competitively-priced deal. However, that was not necessarily the case. Because I spent the time and effort to set up the solution to show off its abilities, I showed that I could deliver the answer to their problems. Once that was proven, the customer realized that the overall improved solution meant more than the up front costs.

The net result for my company was a sale of more than $30,000 (eCabinet - $15,000; Reform software - $2,500; and a Gestetner MFP - $16,000) in hardware, software and professional services that were not questioned by the customer. To my knowledge, the incumbent Ricoh dealer was not approached for a quote and I don’t believe the other Ricoh dealers in our market were approached—and there are at least three others

When presented with something that is outside of the box you can either run from it because you don't know enough, or you can learn more efficient methods of understanding what goals your prospect or customer has. It may take time, effort and even a lot of patience. However, the results can be less competition, better profitability, and even more revenue than just the traditional MFP can bring.

When margins on the hardware are decreasing and prices per copy are decreasing, the only things that can be done are to work harder—meaning sell more—or work smarter—meaning understanding your customers better. I choose the latter as often as I can.The reason is simple. By doing it this way, you can immediately differentiate yourself because the traditional MFP salesperson would, most of the time, rather pull a hit and run job.

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