PRINT
IT
RESELLER.UK
EXPO
29
In the middle of October, Sharp
Electronics brought 550 dealers from
30 countries to Malta to attend the
first Sharp Inspire Expo for three years.
Inspire Expo 2015 provided a forum
for Sharp to reveal its latest print and
document solutions, articulate its vision
for the future and announce a number
of important strategic changes that have
been forced on the company by problems
in its LCD panel and solar energy divisions.
The most significant of these changes is
a new corporate structure and the creation
of five virtual companies for consumer
electronics, energy solutions, business
solutions, display devices (components)
and electronic devices and components.
Sharp has taken this step so that each
business unit has more autonomy and
becomes responsible for its own business,
profit and loss and investment.
The new arrangement is good news for
the Sharp Business Solutions Group, which
has enjoyed year-on-year increases in profit
since 2012, which it will now be able to
reinvest for further growth.
Product synergies
Another reason for creating the five
virtual businesses is to encourage greater
integration between related technologies
that would once have been developed
separately with poor or non-existent
interconnectivity.
From October 1, Sharp Visual Solutions
and Sharp Document Solutons have been
brought together under the umbrella
of Sharp Business Solutions Group. As
the printed page, monitors, interactive
whiteboards and digital signage are, in their
different ways, all display technologies, this
arrangement makes sense.
The fruits of improved interconnectivity
can already be seen in the integration of
Sharp MFPs and Big Pad displays with
Cloud Portal Office (see below).
Consumer exit
In addition, to these organisational
changes, Sharp is continuing to reduce its
Sharp reorganises to drive growth in five key product areas and combines its document
and visual solutions in a single virtual business
Signs of the times
fixed costs. As part of this strategy, it is
focusing more on the profitable business-
to-business (B2B) market.
In Europe, Sharp has already exited the
consumer electronics business and the only
Sharp consumer white goods still being
sold are in Italy and Russia.
Today, 90% of Sharp finished goods
sold in Europe are B2B, with the remaining
10% made up of energy solutions, such as
LED lighting.
Channel strategy
So what do these changes mean for Sharp’s
UK resellers? Do they represent a change in
Sharp's channel strategy? And do they offer
new opportunities for ambitious dealers?
In some respects, it is business as usual
for Sharp. In 2012, Sharp set a target of
50% direct sales and 50% indirect sales in
Europe and it plans to stick to this ratio.
Company acquisitions have played a
major part in achieving the right balance
between direct and indirect business. Since
2012, Sharp has boosted its direct business
with the acquisition of eight dealerships
across Europe, including three in the UK
– IOT, Copifax in Burnley and CopyIT in
East Anglia.
Martin McCarney, Regional Head for
Sharp Business Solutions UK and Nordics,
told
PrintIT Reseller
that Sharp would
continue with this strategy:
“We are very keen to grow both
channels. Acquisition is one route, but
organic growth is the other route, and we
are achieving growth in both our channels.
There are some real good opportunities,
especially in the dealer channel, for Sharp to
win a greater share in multi-brand dealers
and that is something we are working on
with quite a few dealers,” he said.
In other respects Sharp’s approach is
changing. As it develops a new strategy
for the connected workplace of tomorrow,
it is giving resellers the ability to diversify
their MFP offering and take advantage of
opportunities for cross-selling.
Today, 90% of
Sharp finished
goods sold
in Europe are
B2B, with the
remaining
10% made
up of energy
solutions,
such as LED
lighting.
continued...
