Editor's Note: Below is a continuation of an article that is publicly available on APDSP.org. To view that article, click here.
What Do Repro Shop Owners Say about Gordon Flesch?
We asked two reprographic shop owners who compete against Gordon Flesch about the nature of that competition. Here is what they said:
In which business areas do you feel Gordon Flesch most significantly competes with you?
Owner #1: Primarily large format equipment. When Covid hit the small format companies were forced to find other revenue streams. Schools and some of their other large “click” customers stopped printing because they were shut down. To date, these customers are not back to pre-covid printing numbers and probably never will. Many of these companies were forced to focus on IT services and large format equipment to expand their revenue.
Owner #2: Large format printing equipment is our biggest competitive threat with Gordon Flesch. They are a Canon authorized servicing dealer and sell everything from iPF, to TX/ TZ, to ColorWave and PlotWave, to even Arizona and Colorado on the graphics side.
When you face Gordon Flesch in a competitive situation, how often do you prevail?
Owner #1: If the customer is only interested in large format equipment then we win the deal 90% of the time but if they convince the customer to bundle small format equipment into the purchase then they win 90% of the time. This is why so many companies selling large format equipment are now starting to sell small format copiers.
Owner #2: The relationship and trust we have built with our customers is often the differentiating factor between winning a contract or not. Our team is also dedicated to AEC clients so we pride ourselves on being more knowledgeable to our clients needs than our competitors in office equipment. I feel like when customers do business with them in large format equipment, they are simply buying a printer, or addressing a need which is a large format printer. But when customers do business with us, they are investing in a partner who understands them.
What do you see as their competitive strengths?
Owner #1: They have over 1000 sales reps and will find any low hanging fruit much quicker than our industry will. They also have major buying power and use it to their advantage.
Owner #2: Purchasing Power (top level pricing), access to a wide range of equipment (solutions for all workflows), and IT support-to-total fleet management (copiers, desktops, large format) are certainly all strengths of theirs.
Do they have some competitive vulnerabilities that you are able to exploit?
Owner #1: They don’t understand the daily needs of the AEC customer. Think about it, it’s not uncommon to walk into a large AEC firm and see 20 to 30 office copiers but that same AEC firm will only have one or two large format machines. When their large format machine goes down they need it fixed now. The construction project doesn’t come to life until the project is completed and in the meantime that AEC firm is dependent upon the drawings bringing the project to life. The other thing the small format companies struggle with is the file sizes used in our industry.
Owner #2: Lack of experience in the CAD/ AEC industry is a vulnerability they possess. Our clients seem to appreciate our dedication to AEC.