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NA0407
Konica Minolta Business Solutions: A
Professional Approach to Selling (C)
Prabakar Kothandaraman, William Paterson University
Sudha Mani, William Paterson University
William J. Healy, William Paterson University
B
ill Swanson immediately set a meeting with Peter Daniel to go over his progress. Daniel was pleased that Swanson had met with Benedict. “Good job!”
he remarked. “For me to commit more resources to NYCG, we need to know
more. For instance, do we know when they are going to buy? Or the lay of the land
with regard to the people involved in the decision?” asked Daniel. Without clear
answers in hand, all Swanson could promise was, “I will address all of your concerns
about NYCG as soon as I can.”
On the afternoon of January 14, Swanson called NYCG’s Wayne office and asked
to speak with the head of Distributed Print Services (DPS). “What is it regarding?”
asked the operator. When he explained why he wanted to meet with the head of DPS,
the operator initiated a transfer over to Bob Benedict’s office. Swanson stiffened: He
was about to be on the line with Lydia Cruz, and he had forgotten to send her the
information about the local baseball academy that he had promised her. In the past
few days, Swanson had come to identify Cruz as a gatekeeper who could influence his
ability to move the sales process forward by controlling the flow of information. He
hoped that his oversight would not lead Cruz to create roadblocks for him. But before
he could worry too much about it, Swanson found himself explaining to her, for the
second time in a week, that he represented KMBS and wanted to understand NYCG’s
copying needs in more detail. Cruz recognized his name and told him that she would
get back to him, after talking to Benedict. But Daniel appeared convinced that Swanson needed to talk to more people at NYCG. “What if Benedict doesn’t approve?” he
worried. Luckily, Cruz called within the hour, with contact details for not only Joe
Bairstaw, the DPS head, but also for Chris Talbot, the head of Central Print Services
(CPS), and Andrew Wu, the head of IT. But before he did anything else, he looked
up the information he promised to give Lydia Cruz about the baseball academy and
e-mailed it to her.
Swanson was able to set a meeting with Bairstaw at NYCG’s Manhattan office.
Bairstaw, who was joined by one of his managers, Clara Sealy, listened attentively to
Copyright © 2016 by the Case Research Journal and by Prabakar Kothandaraman, Sudha Mani, and William
J. Healy. All rights reserved by the authors and NACRA. This case was written by Prabakar Kothandaraman,
professor of professional sales, Sudha Mani, assistant professor of professional sales, and William J. Healy,
professor of professional sales at William Paterson University to stimulate class discussion rather than to
illustrate effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors thank Konica Minolta
Business Solutions for written permission to use this case and the editor, associate editor for marketing
and health care, and the reviewers of the Case Research Journal for their helpful comments on the draft.
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Swanson’s introduction and took notes. Swanson was keen to impress him, but he
could not tell from his body language what Bairstaw was thinking. Swanson finished
his introduction with a question: “So Mr. Bairstaw, what are you looking for from a
print and copy vendor?” Bairstaw cleared his throat and began:
I am glad you know our printing needs. What is more important though is your plans
and capability for delivering trouble-free, identical service across all our ninety-two
locations. You may have a big presence in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut, but
what about Cleveland? Or Denver? Do you have the organizational muscle to pull it
off? It is important for me to understand how your service department operates. When
someone calls you, how long will you take to respond? If the machine keeps giving
us trouble, will you replace it? If I don’t get service from your service person the way
I want it, whom do I call? Will the person who answers the phone be different every
time, based on where the problem is? How committed is your leadership to all these
things?
Bairstaw continued to outline his vision for DPS, emphasizing that he wanted close
monitoring of the usage of all the machines, in accordance with the overall goals of
increasing duplexing capabilities and keeping overall costs down. Similar to Benedict,
Bairstaw reiterated the need for security and eco-friendliness, and he said he looked
forward to hearing the details about how KMBS planned to meet these requirements.
“The devil is in the detail,” he noted over his shoulder, as he was leaving the meeting.
“I’d like Clara to take you on a tour of the facility where some of the DPS machines
are located.”
Sealy appeared very knowledgeable about the day-to-day operations at DPS,
detailing the various Canon machines available. “This one prints the best color in the
building,” she noted, pointing to a machine at the far end of a hallway. A couple of
people waiting to use it stood about, chatting. As they kept walking, Sealy volunteered
her assessment, “The Canon service people are really nice and responsive. I see them
here almost every day.” Unsure if that constant presence was a good or a bad thing,
Swanson could only reply, “Oh, really?” After the tour, Swanson thanked Sealy and
asked her if he could contact her with any further questions. “Absolutely!” Sealy said.
Arriving back at his KMBS office, Swanson found a voice message from Chris
Talbot’s office, asking him to set a meeting at NYCG’s Philadelphia office. Talbot, the
director of CPS, was based in Dallas, Texas. Swanson immediately called back and set
up an appointment for 11:00 a.m. on January 26.
On the slated date, Kris Shea, the head of the CPS print shop in Philadelphia,
greeted Swanson on the ground floor. Talbot was on a conference call and asked Shea
to meet with him first. Shea seemed a bit stressed. She explained that the print shop
had three high-speed color printers operating at eighty-five pages per minute (ppm)
and two black-and-white printers operating at 110 ppm. They were stretched that
morning, and she was unsure if she would be able to meet the deadlines on several
reports she was trying to get finished. “Is that machine under maintenance?” asked
Swanson, pointing to a color machine that appeared to be on but idle. Shea explained
that they could not switch printers once they had started a print job, because each
printer had its own color tone, and NYCG’s advisory people were really particular
about consistent color combinations throughout the report. For example, they hated
it when the logos showed different tones on different pages. Shea continued:
Oh, how I wish we could distribute the work across the printers! We started this job
yesterday and should have run it through, even using a single machine. But we had a
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breakdown on that particular machine last night. That set us back almost twelve hours.
The Canon service people are nice, but right now, I would trade all that for a machine
that is built strong and can handle large print loads!
Soon thereafter, Talbot finished his conference call and invited Swanson into a
meeting room, where he got quickly to the point:
Mr. Swanson, Kris must have explained our operations to you. The story is similar
in many locations. I do not know what kind of machines you have. I will have to see
them before we can get anywhere. We expect the next set of machines to print color in
a consistent way so that we can run our jobs through any machine. We want the latest
technology to manage workflow efficiently. I want the same service in all of my thirtyone centers. If you think about it in terms of fast food, you get the same Big Macs no
matter which McDonald’s you go to. Call it “McService” if you want. But that is what I
am looking for. It is all there in the RFP [request for proposal]. Any vendor who wants
my business needs to show me a detailed plan and convince me that it will work. I want
to deal directly with the manufacturer, not a middleman! And uptime is crucial for us,
because this is truly a profit center.
This rapid-fire list of demands made things pretty clear. Swanson felt he was really
getting a sense of what NYCG wanted. He also had developed a perception that
Canon, the current supplier, was not necessarily a dominant rival. It appeared that
CPS might be ripe for a proposal to install a few demo KMBS machines. Swanson
made himself a note to reach out to Benedict with an offer to set up some machines,
because he sensed that an RFP was on its way.
Thus, later in the week, Swanson met with Benedict to talk about putting a few
machines in NYCG’s Philadelphia office that could demonstrate KMBS’s capabilities.
Benedict liked the idea, but he wanted the demo to be set up in Houston, Texas. He
asked Swanson to plan for the demonstration after he received the RFP. “We are sending it to four vendors, including you and Canon,” Benedict indicated. “You should get
it by the end of the month.”
This timeline was vague, leaving Swanson with the belief that he needed a better
sense of when the final decision would be made. As if reading his mind, Benedict continued, “We hope to finish the process and have the new machines in by this time next
year. We need our IT and finance people to have some time to go over the proposal,
and that usually takes at least three months. So, we need to get moving along.” Finally,
Benedict advised Swanson to meet with the IT head, Andrew Wu, before planning the
future demo.
It was tough to contain his excitement. Swanson believed things were moving in
the right direction with this account. He could not wait to meet with Daniel to provide
answers for many of the questions that Daniel had posed. In addition, Swanson began
constructing a purchasing timeline (see Exhibit C-1). He realized there would need to
be some formal presentations, created explicitly to respond to the RFP. With the exception of Andrew Wu, he had met all the people that Benedict had identified. Although
Shea and Sealy did not have senior titles, Swanson decided to include them in his notes
as part of the buying center, because of their proximity to the department heads. In
addition, Shea and Sealy had valuable input to offer when it came to print quality, ease
of operation, and other such factors. With all these details, Swanson created a chart of
the NYCG personnel involved in the process. By accessing NYCG’s website, he identified the partner-in-charge of procurement, Dawn Wheaton, and added her name to
the chart, which he labeled “NYCG Buying Center” (see Exhibit C-2).
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Exhibit C-1: NYCG Timeline
Feb 2013
Mar 2013
Apr 2013
RFP
Presentation
Demo
June 2013
Demo machines
installed
Nov 2013
Begin discussion
on financials
Feb 2014
Conclusion of
negotiation
Mar 2014
Deal
Source: Case writer summary, based on interviews.
Exhibit C-2: NYCG Buying Center
Lydia Cruz
Benedict's
secretary
Joe Bairstaw
Director, DPS
Bob Benedict
Global
Procurement
Director
Chris Talbot
Director, CPS
Dawn Wheaton,
Partner-incharge,
Procurement
Clara Sealy
Manager,
DPS
Kris Shea
Manager,
CPS
Andrew Wu
IT Manager
Source: Prepared by case writer; based on interviews.
In addition to these charts that he created himself, Swanson knew Daniel would
want a complete picture of NYCG’s requirements before beginning to plan for demo
machines. Although he could wait for the RFP, he wanted to be prepared. Accordingly,
he decided to compose an outline from his notes about what the NYCG top executives
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were looking to learn from a potential proposal from KMBS. Armed with these notes,
he called Daniel and blocked out a two-hour meeting slot for the next day. Swanson
was keen to learn from Daniel how KMBS could ensure smooth demo operations;
right now, it looked like the demo machines would be headed to Houston, not an
NYCG center in his own sales territory.
The following morning, Swanson remained in a state of excitement as he drove to
KMBS’s head office to meet with Daniel. “I can’t wait for this meeting to start!” he
thought as he parked and headed in to the building.
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Next week: Course Project Paper #2:
Case HBS KMBS (C)
Objectives
• Identify the buying center and update information on customer needs through meetings with various
members of the buying organization
• Translate features to specific benefits and develop a value proposition
• Provide a value proposition to customers
Write a short essay (1000-word max) to answer these questions:
• Identify the role of the members of the buying center, along with their top goals and reasons for these
goals (you can attach the details as a chart/graph too).
. Based on Swanson's discussion with other members, what are the updated top goals for DPS and CPS?
• List how KBMS can meet NYCG's needs with its products and solutions. The emphasis is not on specific
products and services; instead, students should think about the specific benefits they would ideally offer
to NYCG
• What is the value proposition KMBS can offer to NYCG
Format
• MS Word, APA 6th
Due date and cut-off date
• Due Saturday June 6 at 11pm, but no later than Sunday June 7 at 9am.
Purchase answer to see full
attachment