ENX Magazine Business Profile

Prior Nami Business Systems in Hamilton, NJ is one of the region’s leading independent office technology dealerships. They represent a broad range of manufacturers, including Canon, Konica Minolta, Muratec, OKI Data, and Brother. Prior Nami’s territory encompasses Mercer, Burlington, Monmouth, Ocean, and Middlesex Counties in New Jersey as well as Lower Bucks County in Pennsylvania just north

of Philadelphia.

President Tony Nami has been in the business since 1978 when he began selling copiers in Philadelphia for Royal Business Machines. He joined Prior Business Systems in 1980 and was instrumental in helping them transition from a typewriter company to a copier dealership. When the Priors retired, he acquired the business and hasn’t looked back since.

Tony Nami, Jr.

How’s business?

Nami: Okay, it’s about as steady as it was last year.

Does that surprise you?

Nami: It does not. I’d like to see it a little bit stronger, but the reality is we’re in an industry with a piece of pie that’s shrinking and a lot of people are going after that same piece of pie.

Who are Prior Nami’s customers?

Nami: Our expertise is in serving those small and midsize businesses that don’t have more than 50 employees. That’s for most of our down-the-street copier sales. We have a fairly decent IT division in size and those are the kinds of companies we service; anything bigger than that has their own IT support.

Why do customers choose Prior Nami?

Nami: Because of our ability to provide fast service and our flexibility. We’ve seen that over and over again, our clients even customers who leave seem to come back because they appreciate the fact that when they call us they get somebody who answers the phone and can make a decision. If their copier is down nobody here has to go up and down the flagpole to see if they can get them a loaner today.

Who are your biggest competitors?

Nami: About 20 percent of our competitive run ins are with other [independent] dealers and we are running into Xerox and Kyocera direct a lot. When I go to the 20 percent side we’re bumping into Sharp of late in smaller organizations, which we haven’t in a long time. I might want to classify them as the leader of the low-cost product right now.

What’s the biggest challenge of selling office technology today compared to when you first entered the business?

Nami: Some of the challenges are still the same now as they were then for a small business person—building personal relationships with your customers. That requires sales representatives and individuals who are willing to go out and meet people. The same challenge we had then is the same one we have now and that’s finding people that love to do that type of work.

Going back 25 years I remember selling in a recession and we’re back into that again. Right now getting leases approved is an issue with certain clients as are finding people who can get approved and want to flip the equipment. Or they don’t want to change because they feel their machine is still in good shape. As a result we have to be more creative in getting them to buy the new technology and see the benefit of all the extra features on the newer products. It’s not just a box that makes a copy.

How did you end up selling office equipment in the first place? Was it by accident or design; what made this industry a good fit for you personally?

Nami: It was never by design. I thought for sure I would be in some sort of trade. I was interested in electronics and worked construction. On the electronics side I worked in an audio shop repairing radios and TVs and doing car stereos back when we were selling eight tracks and cassettes. What I realized in that business, as much as I enjoyed fixing them, I really enjoyed selling and working with people. Working retail, six, seven days a week was tiring me out and someone mentioned there was a job selling copiers. I went for the interview and got the job. That’s how that began.

No regrets?

Nami: I love the business. I love talking to people and the opportunity and challenge of selling. I eventually left Royal to help the Prior family in Trenton move their business from a typewriter company to a copier company. We were selling the Triumph Adler line—the Mita product at the time—and one thing led to another and we landed some really great accounts. The Priors were great guys and when they decided to retire they gave me the opportunity to buy them out.

You’re aligned with an array of manufacturers, Canon, Konica Minolta, Muratec, OKI Data, Brother, why are these a good fit for Prior Nami?

Nami: We do a lot of business with the State of New Jersey and we’re pretty strong with municipal government and some education, so having that array of products fits into that.
Muratec has been a great product for us with the State and municipal agencies for many years. Jim D’Emedio and his team at Muratec have always done a great job of finding niche products and we’ve always been able to plug the Muratec in where Canon and Konica Minolta have a weakness. We took on Brother because it brings people into the store. We’re a Brother-authorized service center so the walk-in trade keeps the shop busy. OKI was a WSCA (Western Sates Contracting Alliance) partner and we had their products and we’re selling them in municipal agencies that want to buy under the State contract and due to Oki having the WSCA contract, that’s where that product fit in for us.

What product segments are doing well for you right now?

Nami: We’re doing strong in production print black & white, which is the Konica Minolta 950. Konica Minolta’s mid-range color line is a strong push for us right now as well as Canon in that same area. And we’re still pushing the Muratec in the Segment 1 desktop environment—the scanning, fax, copy combination.

What’s the Prior Nami take on MPS? Are you doing much with it?

Nami: We’ve been dabbling in it for three years. We’ve always been doing cost-per-copy contracts. We’re using Konica’s program and their Web tool now and that’s growing.

How easy was it for you to sell MPS to your people?

Nami: It was a struggle to drag my people in and say you’ve got to talk this up and push it. We don’t have someone dedicated to doing that. Considering we’re doing it by committee and it’s starting to work and grow, it’s become easier to say to people, ‘You’ve got a contract with us, let’s put a DCU [Data Collection Unit] on your network,’ and that gets us talking about everything else that’s on the network and directing them to the right products to print to and getting us some more business.

What percentage of your business is MPS today and how would you like to see that grow?

Nami: I’d say 30 percent of our revenue is service and out of that maybe 12 percent of clients are on MPS and the rest are still CPC, and we’re driving them into it. That would probably be a fair assessment—maybe one third of our CPC contracts are MPS right now.

Are you finding customers asking for MPS or are you driving that discussion?

Nami: We’re still driving it. We don’t have people calling us and saying, ‘I want an MPS contract.’ I don’t know if that’s because the industry doesn’t spend the money to promote it and get people excited. For example, Konica Minolta gives us a script and a video that we run on the local cable for the bizhubs. Maybe if we had something like that that talked about managed print services, people would call and ask for it.

I notice your dealership is Microsoft Certified, what advantage does that bring to your dealership and does that mean much to customers?

Nami: We have some techs dedicated specifically to working on customer’s networks. We’ve built servers, built workstations, and we support a lot of firms with 25 workstations and a server or two. Those people feel confident knowing the technicians coming out are Microsoft Certified engineers and professionals. In addition we’ve also gone to COMPTIA and CDIA. Last year I made sure everyone here was trained in that. So that’s a moniker they’re carrying. On the Konica Minolta side we made a commitment we’re going to be PRO-TECH Certified and we are ready to achieve that. We have a tech going to school next week and when he’s done we’ll have met the criteria to be PRO-TECH Certified.

There was a lot of talk about managed IT services at the recent Konica Minolta dealer meeting, is Prior Nami ready for managed IT services?

Nami: That could be good because as I mentioned we have these clients with 25 workstations—some are law firms and some are small manufacturing companies. If All Covered works the way they were saying in Las Vegas, it sounds like it might be something that will give us a much larger presence in that business. We’re very anxious to see how that’s going to work. I’ve talked to our IT people about it and they’re excited. It’s going to be a new talk track if nothing else.

What do you wish you knew when you first got into the business that you know now?

Nami: When I bought the company we were still pretty much a typewriter company and we were still building our copier business and didn’t become a full-line Canon or Konica Minolta dealer as soon as we should have. If I had taken the plunge sooner maybe we would have been $2 million ahead in sales of where we are now. At the same time we’ve remained successful and profitable so I have no regrets.

What is it that gets you up every morning and excited about coming to work?

Nami: Some days I wonder why I’m doing it myself after 30 years. But I get here maybe 7 or 7:15 in the morning and leave here by 6 o’clock so something is driving me here. I think it’s the challenge. What gets me up is I’m ready to face another day and a new challenge. I own the place, I love it, and it’s that love that keeps me going. I have a great team of people working for me. We’re like a family and want to succeed together. We’ve done well together and I hope that continues.u