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Success Story
Modern Business Machines:
Empowering Employees Through Technology
Fritz Merizon, president and owner of MBM; Peter Mariahazy,
director of technology.
- Dealership:
- Modern Business Machines
- Industry:
- Office Equipment
- Type of Dealership:
- Canon
- Employees:
- 93
- Annual Sales:
- $25 million
- MBM Uses:
In a time when successful family businesses are increasingly rare, Modern Business Machines (MBM) continues to thrive. Fritz Merizon, grandson of company founder Isaac Merizon and the third-generation owner of the 52-year-old Appleton, Wisconsin-based dealership, attributes much of MBM's success to the hard work and dedication of its employees.
“The stability of our sales, service and support people has been a huge contributor to our growth,” Merizon says. “As a customer, if you're dealing with the same person over time, you're going to have a much better experience. If you look at dealerships struggling with turnover, especially in their sales department, it's very unlikely that you'll see any meaningful growth.”
Merizon himself has been with the company for 23 years, beginning as a sales rep and eventually assuming control of MBM from his father, Bill Merizon, in 1997.
Tools for Success
Peter Mariahazy, director of technology and human resources for MBM, agrees that hard work and good employees are a big part of MBM's success, but he also points out the importance of supporting those employees with the technology to help them succeed. The company relies on the ECi La Crosse business system to automate and manage everything from equipment sales to service to billing.
"Our organization is built around a very employee-empowered model, meaning we don't have your typical dispatcher," Mariahazy explains. "The techs in the field have a large say in managing their own book of business. There is a primary and secondary tech assigned to each machine. Calls come in to a customer support area and the software automatically prompts them to send the call to the primary technician or, if the primary tech isn't available, to assign it to the secondary tech."
MBM's ECi La Crosse system automatically sends relevant information, including the call number, machine ID, and problem description to technicians' cell phones. In the rare instances when both the primary and secondary technicians are unavailable, the call is routed to MBM's TRC (Technical Resource Coordinator) and either assigned to an available technician or handled by the in-house help desk. This help desk, manned by one of MBM's technicians, provides immediate response to customers with issues that can be resolved by phone, avoiding unnecessary visits to customer sites.
This non-traditional structure requires that managers, customer service personnel and technicians have easy access to information. Having virtually all of the company's operations tied together through one integrated system makes life easier for employees.
"Having one package with all the different components…employees have familiarity with the different parts of it and they're not jumping from software to software," Mariahazy explains. "They don't have to go to an industry service dispatch tool, then a separate accounting package and then a billing package. It's all integrated and that's made a huge difference."
MBM Today
Over the last half century, MBM has evolved from a 3M copier dealership to the 10th largest independently-owned Canon dealership in the United States with 93 employees, including 30 technicians and five service support personnel, over 4,000 customers, and approximately 7,000 serial numbers in the field.
While service and sales of equipment and consumables account for the majority of MBM's $25 million annual revenue, the company's document management business and an in-house finance division - MBM holds the paper on most of the equipment it leases - also make substantial contributions to the bottom line.
Merizon credits MBM's document management operation for taking the company in new and challenging directions, adding that it makes a compelling recruiting story when the company is trying to hire younger, IT-oriented job candidates. "It's not just the same old copier business," he says, offering MBM's collaboration with a local yacht builder as an example.
Each yacht had a corresponding "boat file," a large manila folder containing the project documents. As a yacht moved down the production line, more documents were added to the folder. Once the work was completed, the folder was stored in the attic, in case the dealer or boat-owner ever had a claim.
"We automated that entire process," Merizon explains. "Documentation is gathered electronically. At the end of that manufacturing process, we put it on a DVD and give it to the boat owner. We also put all of that data behind a secure website for the dealer. And the boat builder never has to worry about the integrity of the data."
The project created new opportunities for MBM. "We went to the holding company of this boat manufacturer and presented this solution to all of their different boat manufacturing companies; there are about eight around the country," Merizon continues. "We clearly understand the value that this delivers to the client and we've been able to customize solutions for their business needs."
MBM also derives revenue from service training. In addition to being a Canon dealer, the company is a Canon Certified Training Center, providing training to technicians from other dealerships as well as its own employees.
An On-Going Commitment to Technology
MBM's history and business model reflect an ongoing commitment to leveraging technology to improve operations. MBM was the first company to implement the original version of the La Crosse software back in 1983 and Mariahazy served on the dealer focus group that helped to develop the current ECi La Crosse system (originally known as NextGen).
Along with business integration, Mariahazy cites flexibility and easy access to the company's data as key benefits of the latest software. It has not only helped MBM address a number of customer service issues, including batching machines for billing, but the open database format enabled MBM to develop its own custom applications.
"We created our own Web site using the [La Crosse] data behind the scenes and much of the functionality built into that database, Mariahazy explains. "Separate systems would be much more difficult to work with."
Now MBM is implementing Intelligent WorkforceT from MWA Intelligence, Inc. With the company's non-traditional service structure, technicians are seldom in the office, creating a time lag in receiving and processing call resolutions and parts orders. Today, technicians call a voice mailbox, leaving messages to alert the TRC when they respond to calls. At the end of the day, the technicians fax in their service tickets, which must be entered into MBM's system.
Armed with laptops running Intelligent Workforce, MBM's technicians will enter their own tickets at the close of each call. Not only will management know where the technicians are, but integration with the ECi La Crosse system provides seamless updating of the original work order, eliminating redundant data entry and improving inventory management and customer service.
"If a technician needs a part, they will be able to see if there's another technician in the same area who has that part in their car stock," Mariahazy says. "If the other tech is relatively close, they can just meet for lunch, transfer the part, and the customer's machine gets fixed in the same day." And, if a part does have to be ordered, that can happen almost immediately, instead of the next morning.
"There could also be parts savings that we haven't even thought of yet," Mariahazy adds.
Learning From Others
Mariahazy not only works with the ECi La Crosse software at the dealership level, he serves as chairman of the La Crosse Dealer Advisory Council (DAC), ECi's customer advisory group for the software. It's an investment of time that Mariahazy says benefits both MBM and the other dealers he serves with.
"We as an organization and I, personally, think that best practices and learning from our peers in the industry is something that people don't do enough of, and we go to great pains to make sure we do," he explains. "It has given me insight into other dealerships and some of the things they've had to deal with."
Working with other dealers and learning from their experiences has left Mariahazy even more convinced of the importance of an integrated solution that ties all of the pieces - inventory, car stock, parts, controls, supplies, machines, etc. - together with service calls, orders and contracts.
"Having all of that together, and at the same time tracking the activity of the technicians - their mileage, parts usage, non-productive time…all of those costs are related and are tied into one package that makes it much easier for us," Mariahazy says.
Growing Revenue, Not Costs
The benefits of dedicated employees supported by a comprehensive technology solution are reflected in MBM's continued growth- nearly 10 percent in 2007 alone. They have also helped to insulate MBM against this year's economic downturn. While growth has slowed, revenues have remained stable and MBM has not experienced the same dip as many other dealers.
"We run our dealership fairly lean in terms of the number of support staff per dollar of revenue. The La Crosse solution allows us to do that," Merizon explains.
Looking forward, Merizon and Mariahazy hope to double MBM's business over the next five to ten years by continuing the company's expansion into managed print services, document management, production printing systems and other professional services.
"The traditional market is pretty much saturated," Merizon explains. "The key to revenue and profitability in our industry is capturing the support of the printed page. We are very excited about the future of our business."
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