CEO Lou Slawetsky laments lack of adaptive strategy in face of downbeat MPS dealers.
Industry Analysts CEO Lou 
Slawetsky has bemoaned the lack of changes regarding dealer strategy as he “continue[s] to hear the same problems”, and cites a change in sales representative approaches as a first step to improvement.
Among complaints continually expressed include being “forced to compete with my primary vendors in more than 30 percent of my customer interactions”, lower margins and decreasing page volumes.
However Slawetsky laments the lack of innovation from dealers, stating that “in all the conversations I’ve had with you, I rarely hear a change in strategy. ‘We’ll just keep doing the same thing we’ve always done. It’s worked before. It’ll work again.’ According to my good friend Albert Einstein […] that’s just insane. He defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Slawetsky is keen to espouse a change in approach regarding sales representatives, noting that the increasing popularity of A4 devices, which often can be purchased for approximately $2,000 (€1,566), against A3 devices valued at $6,100 (€4,778) represents a decline in sales rep income by 20 percent.
As such, Slawetsky recommends a change in direction: “You make little or nothing on hardware placements. But you make a ton on each page printed or copied […] So, why do we continue to comp our reps on an activity that loses money? Why not encourage them to generate incremental page volume.
“I know, conversion to a page-based comp plan means you’ll have to know how many pages each rep generates. And you accounting systems will have to change to comp sales reps on a timely basis. But the potential payoff is huge.
“Are you in the hardware or page business? I think the answer is obvious.”