The Past, Present, and Future of Office Technology: Exclusive Interview with ECI Leadership

Ray: There are more people here than I think I’ve ever seen at one of your meetings. Trevor, how many people are here?

Trevor Gruenwald: So, customers and partners combined, we have about 1,200 people here this year. It’s a record group of attendees! I think the good thing is, particularly after the pandemic, there was a drop in attendance for a lot of these events. People were a little scared, and businesses were struggling. Now, we’re starting to see businesses improve. We’re seeing the S&P Index improve—it’s been up for two straight months. Interest rates are starting to go down, inflation is decreasing, and our customers are feeling more optimistic. I think that’s one of the reasons they’ve come out, to learn about the technologies we have and how they can leverage them to grow their businesses.

Ray: I had an opportunity to talk to the other verticals, and there’s a lot of passion for ECI in the industry. In the print space, you’ve got some e-commerce developments coming. And there was a profile from one of the other verticals that’s already using e-commerce. Which one was that?

TG: Oh, the one that won the Customer Excellence Award? They’re leveraging our e-commerce solution. It was a lumber company, and they’ve literally transformed their business since implementing the ecommerce platform. Plus, they’ve put in our ERP in the cloud. That’s allowed them to drive efficiencies. Since they did that, they’ve literally doubled their revenues and quadrupled their profits in a four-year period. Pretty exciting stuff!

Ray: There's more people here than I think I've ever seen at one of your meetings. Trevor. How many people are here?

Trevor Gruenwald: So, customers and partners aligned, we have about 1200 people here this year. So it's a record group of folks! I think the the good thing is, particularly after the pandemic, you had some downtimes in regards to attendance on a number of these events. People a little bit scared, and also businesses that were struggling. We're starting to see businesses start to improve. We're starting to see the S&P index start to improve. It's improved two straight months. You now have interest rates that are starting to go down. You now have inflation that's decreasing, and our customers are starting to feel more optimism. And I think that's one of the reasons they came out to learn about the technologies we have and how they can leverage that to then go grow their businesses.

Ray: I had an opportunity to talk to the other verticals, and there's a lot of passion for ECI in the industry. In the print space, you got some ecommerce stuff coming. And there was a profile from one of the other verticals, that's already using e-commerce. Which one was that in?

TG: Oh, that won the customer excellence award? So they're leveraging our ecommerce solution. It was a lumber company. And they literally transformed their business since they put in the ecommerce platform. Plus, they put in our ERP, in the cloud, actually. So it allowed them to drive some efficiencies there. But since they did that, they literally doubled their revenues and quadrupled their profits in a four-year period. So pretty exciting stuff!

Ray: So, you could buy lumber and all that stuff online. But in the print industry, we’re trying to debate whether we should be online?

Laryssa Alexander: I’m going to say we should be online, and that’s one of the reasons for the integration that we did with the EvolutionX product (and e-automate). We’ve talked to dealers through the years about becoming hybrid dealers. Looking for new ways to have additional revenue streams, getting a bigger share of wallet, you know, where they’ve had relationships for ten, fifteen, twenty years.

So we see the EvolutionX product as an opportunity to provide that additional revenue stream. They’re already providing the print side of things, and now they can do consumables, they can do other office items. They can even do some of the equipment, where maybe it doesn’t require a full sales engagement on some of the lower-end things, where maybe they just want to put products out there where people can buy them and have them shipped.

So this is going to give them opportunities to expand and have a new revenue stream.

Ray: You mentioned cloud. So, if you want a better experience with e-automate, why don’t you just go in the cloud? I mean, isn’t that the upgrade we should be focused on? So I want to ask you, Laryssa, where are we at with the cloud?

LA: Well, I will say that right now, we have over half of our customers that are actually in the cloud right now through ECI. And, you know, some of the things that we’ve seen and experienced over the last few years, with some of the cyber threats and some of the risks that are out there, it’s just harder and harder for businesses, depending on the size of the business, to be able to invest in what they need to to have that level of security. There’s also some of the things that we’re rolling out, things like MFA and SSO, that are just naturally part of cloud offerings, that we’ll be also pushing out to the customer. So we see it as an opportunity for them to make an initial investment into that kind of an offering, but then it should also help offset some of the cost in other areas.

Ray: Well… everything’s in the cloud. I mean, even my MSP friends, they don’t have servers in closets anymore. They’re moving all their customers to the cloud.

TG: Yeah. That’s a great point because it’s not “if” the cloud’s going to happen. And it’s obviously the same with e-commerce. It’s not if. It’s when. People are looking for different ways to do business.

Ray: Maybe I’m a little harsh sometimes, but I would be like, “Okay. By this date, you’re in the cloud and that’s it.” Would you guys ever do anything like that? Maybe we could get the rest of the fifty percent on there.

TG: We like to do more of a carrot approach than a stick approach, if you will. So, we like to partner with our customers. If you look where we’re investing most of our technical enhancements and integrations to our other applications and so on, it’s largely going to be in the cloud.

We can’t deeply develop and invest the same level in every single platform we have. We have to look at those that we think are the right ones moving forward. So we can consolidate some of the spend, so that we can then accelerate the pace of development that we have. So I think that’s part of our approach right now… It’s all based on what’s the best benefit for our customers right now and doing it kind of at their pace and their path.

Ray: What are they telling you? Why they’re not doing it?

LA: Well, some of our customers obviously have been on prem for decades. So, they have some bespoke integrations or they have customisations that they’ve created. So it just takes more time to look at those and figure it out. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t a migration path. It’s just more energy to do it. But as Trevor mentioned, our goal is to make sure that we have a stronger value proposition.

We talked a little bit about some of the enhancements that we’re working on. And one example is, working towards that single pain approach where we can leverage the content that we have from all of our business applications—the MobileTech, the Printanista, the e-automate and leverage that information. And when it’s in a cloud type of environment, we can pull all that data together. Right?

So then we are able to turn around, and start showing benchmark reporting or, certain dashboards. But those are things that we’re only going to be able to do by having that into a cloud environment.

Ray: So as ECI tries to help dealers utilise AI to enhance their business, become more profitable, more efficient, better customer service, it just seems that all of that stuff is definitely in the cloud. So in your other verticals, are they at the same (cloud) adoption rate?

TG: In most of our verticals, it’s a higher percentage that are in the cloud. Why we’re seeing a little bit slower adoption in the (office technology) space—I think because they have cloud expertise within their businesses, within the field service space, they are a little bit more reluctant. Which is odd because you think they’d understand the real value and want to move forward. But because they have some of those skills themselves, they want to keep it within their environment. But, again, it’s not helping them to go do that. Our customers have seen, in the other markets that have moved faster to move to the cloud, they’re able to take advantage of the cost savings and the security reliability that exists by being in the cloud.

Ray: Well, I gotta tell you, this is a great event, and it was it was really fun to talk to the other verticals and see what you’re doing for these other industries. Is there anything you wanna add?

LA: We are excited about the turnout this year. And as Trevor mentioned, I feel like it’s a sign of the optimism that they have in our space and market, our products—everything that we do. We’re looking forward to the sessions we have today and tomorrow. We have our celebration tonight for our twenty-fifth anniversary that we’re going to be able to share with all the attendees.

TG: The only thing I’ll say, it all goes back to the mission that we talk about and it’s the passion that drives our organisation. We are industry experts that support this entrepreneurial spirit and profitable growth of small, medium-sized business. So we think about that every day. That’s how we invest our time and our energy. We’re going to have the industry expertise to understand and walk in your shoes, but we’re also going to make sure that we’re going to give you the ability to leverage that entrepreneurial spirit that made you who you are and that made you successful, and be able to help you accomplish that through the use of innovation.

Ray: So you could buy lumber and all that stuff online. But in the print industry, we're trying to debate whether we should be online?

Laryssa Alexander: I'm going to say we should be online, and that's one of the reasons for the integration that we did with the EvolutionX product (and e-automate). We've talked to dealers through the years about becoming hybrid dealers. Looking for new ways to have additional revenue streams, getting a bigger share of wallet, you know, where they’ve had relationships for ten, fifteen, twenty years.

So we see the EvolutionX product as an opportunity to provide that additional revenue stream. They’re already providing the print side of things, and now they can do consumables, they can do other office items. They can even do some of the equipment, where maybe it doesn't require a full sales engagement on some of the lower-end things, where maybe they just want to put products out there where people can buy them and have them shipped.

So this is going to give them opportunities to expand and have a new revenue stream.

Ray: You mentioned cloud. So, if you want a better experience with e-automate, why don't you just go in the cloud? I mean, isn't that the upgrade we should be focused on? So I want to ask you, Laryssa, where are we at with the cloud?

LA: Well, I will say that right now, we have over half of our customers that are actually in the cloud right now through ECI. And, you know, some of the things that we've seen and experienced over the last few years, with some of the cyber threats and some of the risks that are out there, it's just harder and harder for businesses, depending on the size of the business, to be able to invest in what they need to to have that level of security. There's also some of the things that we're rolling out, things like MFA and SSO, that are just naturally part of cloud offerings, that we'll be also pushing out to the customer. So we see it as an opportunity for them to make an initial investment into that kind of an offering, but then it should also help offset some of the cost in other areas.

Ray: Well... everything's in the cloud. I mean, even my MSP friends, they don't have servers in closets anymore. They're moving all their customers to the cloud.

TG: Yeah. That's a great point because it's not “if” the cloud's going to happen. And it's obviously the same with e-commerce. It's not if. It’s when. People are looking for different ways to do business.

Ray: Maybe I'm a little harsh sometimes, but I would be like, “Okay. By this date, you're in the cloud and that's it”. Would you guys ever do anything like that? Maybe we could get the rest of the fifty percent on there.

TG: We like to do more of a carrot approach than a stick approach, if you will. So, we like to partner with our customers. If you look where we're investing most of our technical enhancements and integrations to our other applications and so on, it's largely going to be in the cloud.

We can't deeply develop and invest the same level in every single platform we have. We have to look at those that we think are the right ones moving forward. So we can consolidate some of the spend, so that we can then accelerate the pace of development that we have. So I think that's part of our approach right now… It's all based on what's the best benefit for our customers right now and doing it kind of at their pace and their path.

Ray: What are they telling you? Why they're not doing it?

LA: Well, some of our customers obviously have been on prem for decades. So, they have some bespoke integrations or they have customizations that they've created. So it just takes more time to look at those and figure it out. It doesn't mean that there isn't a migration path. It's just more energy to do it. But as Trevor mentioned, our goal is to make sure that we have a stronger value proposition.

We talked a little bit about some of the enhancements that we're working on. And one example is, working towards that single pain approach where we can leverage the content that we have from all of our business applications—the MobileTech, the Printanista, the e-automate and leverage that information. And when it's in a cloud type of environment, we can pull all that data together. Right?

So then we are able to turn around, and start showing benchmark reporting or, certain dashboards. But those are things that we're only going to be able to do by having that into a cloud environment.

Ray: So as ECI tries to help dealers utilize AI to enhance their business, become more profitable, more efficient, better customer service, it just seems that all of that stuff is definitely in the cloud. So in your other verticals, are they at the same (cloud) adoption rate?

TG: In most of our verticals, it's a higher percentage that are in the cloud. Why we're seeing a little bit slower adoption in the (office technology) space—I think because they have cloud expertise within their businesses, within the field service space, they are a little bit more reluctant. Which is odd because you think they'd understand the real value and want to move forward. But because they have some of those skills themselves, they want to keep it within their environment. But, again, it's not helping them to go do that. Our customers have seen, in the other markets that have moved faster to move to the cloud, they're able to take advantage of the cost savings and the security reliability that exists by being in the cloud.

Ray: Well, I gotta tell you, this is a great event, and it was it was really fun to talk to the other verticals and see what you're doing for these other industries. Is there anything you wanna add?

LA: We are excited about the turnout this year. And as Trevor mentioned, I feel like it's a sign of the optimism that they have in our space and market, our products—everything that we do. We're looking forward to the sessions we have today and tomorrow. We have our celebration tonight for our twenty-fifth anniversary that we're going to be able to share with all the attendees.

TG: The only thing I'll say, it all goes back to the mission that we talk about and it's the passion that drives our organization. We are industry experts that support this entrepreneurial spirit and profitable growth of small, medium-sized business. So we think about that every day. That's how we invest our time and our energy. We're going to have the industry expertise to understand and walk in your shoes, but we're also going to make sure that we're going to give you the ability to leverage that entrepreneurial spirit that made you who you are and that made you successful, and be able to help you accomplish that through the use of innovation.