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What's everyones thoughts on the, what seem to be daily or weekly, acquisitions of local dealers by the directs. I saw today Meridian in Virginia was aquired by KMBS and a dealer in Texas by GIS. My thoughts are this is cyclical and these braches will at some point be sold off and closed like they were in the 90's (if my history is correct). My father tells me all the time about the the manufacturers trying this direct operation crap and how it has failed in the past and will fail again. I am the type of person that hates my competition. Some people say competition is good, or give other BS reasons why there needs to be options. I don't feel that way and take no mercy on competition. 

Just curious what others think about where the dealer network is going, especially with Global buying up canon and ricoh's dealers. It leaves a void and that void is either filled with another dealer carrying the line or the direct trying to pick up the slack giving the product away for less than we as dealers can buy it for to try to flip the accounts.

 

"If any of my competitors were drowning, I'd stick a hose in their mouth and turn on the water." - Ray Kroc

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Art, Jason H,

Here is an interesting thought. Xerox owns Global, Global owns a lot of (what use to be) dealers. I guess they are now "Global Branches" per se. What happens to them when Xerox Splits their Hardware & Software into two companies? I wouldn't want to be working for a Global Company right now. A lot of uncertainty. IMHO.

Just My $0.02

Vince

What comes around goes around, right?  Acquisitions is now the norm in the industry if you want to grow your business instead of one dealership or direct branch stealing each others MIF. 

In NJ, it seems for each dealer that is acquired (by a dealer or direct) another dealership pops up to take it's place.   I'm sure at some point you may have to look at acquisitions in your geo area in order to grow your MIF faster, take away some smaller competitors, and increase profit margins.

I don't think direct operations will ever go away completely.

Even with my limited experience in this industry compared to you veterans, I've seen it happen several times where direct buyers a dealer or a dealer buys a dealer. The low-hanging fruit get flipped, but the sales reps who don't stick around take their customers with them to another provider.

Jason, I'll email you a great story I have...

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