Consensus, a Ricoh SA Platinum Partner, has won distributor of the year at Ricoh SA’s annual Indirect Distributors Sales Conference held in Johannesburg. The distributor, which operates three branches, one in Rustenburg, another in Klerksdorp and a third in Mafikeng, grew the overall business by 38% through the year and grew its installed copy volumes by 60% following its approval to supply, service and maintain high volume printing solutions.
The opportunity to sell high volume printers was a significant factor in our success along with the ongoing assessment and training of our technical staff to ensure strong technical services, said Heloise Visser, manager and owner of Consensus. We enhanced our business at a number of levels throughout the year, which included a SWOT analysis, appointing two new branch managers for Klerksdorp and Mafikeng who bring extensive experience in the marketplace, and ensuring our strong middle management remains a sturdy foundation.
The North West distributor has strongly aligned with Ricoh SA’s drive to meet the future needs of customers today by focusing on the value propositions of high volume solutions. It notably achieved a 40% cost reduction for a customer’s print environment by replacing a legacy invoicing system on the back of an InfoPrint 6500 and Pro C651 EX. Visser said her business plans to grow that segment of the business by 80% and will embrace Ricoh SA’s new accreditation programme for distributors to ensure competence and excellence in a number of categories.
Consensus also won Ricoh SA’s Lion award for the highest turnover for supplies in the over R2m category and a Payment award.
In addition to ensuring ongoing training, inter-branch competitions for solution demonstrations judged by managers from Consensus and Ricoh SA, this year’s distributor of the year also ensured the deployment of Ricoh SA’s @Remote service at every installation. @Remote, free of charge, is a two-way communications tool for accounting and service management. It proactively determines consumables supplies and remotely reports any service issues to technical employees.
This is the first year that Consensus has won the coveted Buffalo award for distributor of the year, said Jacques van Wyk, executive GM for Ricoh SA’s indirect operations. They faced stiff competition this year, as always, particularly from the previous winner. Yet, they excelled in several aspects after making a concerted effort throughout the year and it has culminated in very impressive growth results and continued service excellence.
