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Main Phone: 208.375.4410
Service: 208.947.3600
Supplies: 208.947.3625
Sales: 208.947.3620
Toll-free: 800.584.8836
Fax: 208.343.6110
Address:
575 East 42nd Street
Boise, Idaho 83714
Directions
E-mail: info@fishers-boise.com
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| Chris Taylor's CEO Blog |
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Monday, August 18, 2008
Most industries these days are fraught with acronyms galore. When you live and breathe such an industry, day in and day out, you speak in a foreign language that you often forget most people dont speak. I was reminded of this the other day when a prospective customer stopped me and asked, Whats an MFP? So I thought I would provide a list of commonly used terms in the imaging industry.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 8:14 AM |
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Wednesday, July 30, 2008
I wanted to share a few updates on how companies in the Copier Dealers Association are doing.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 2:40 PM |
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Thursday, June 19, 2008
This text appeared in the Idaho Statesman this morning as the "Starting Up" article in the Business section. It is a brief story about Fisher's transformation over the last two years and how we did it.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 12:42 PM |
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Friday, May 30, 2008
No, this is not a blog about Gary Mahn or Eric Strand. I simply want to reiterate a point I wrote about last year: The best ideas come from employees... and leaders need to have their ears wide open to listen.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 7:48 AM |
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Monday, May 05, 2008
The copier industry is going through some significant changes and we are not exempt in Boise. What does it mean to Idaho's market and to Fisher's?
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 11:06 AM |
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Electronic document management (the scanning, indexing, storing, retrieving, and routing of electronic documents throughout an organization) is a major focal area of Fisher's business today. But I was recently asked a very good question from customer about this strategy. He asked, "if you sell and service paper document production devices and if you are converting customers to 'paperless' offices, are you putting you core business out of business?"
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 9:01 AM |
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It's 8:30am on a Saturday, I've been traveling for 19 hours, and I'm still not home. I was at a Canon Dealer Advisory Council meeting in Florida and weather in the Midwest resulted in an overnight in Chicago. This experience has reinforced the fact that most customer service sucks. And with every disappointing, frustrating experience I ask, "if the business owner knew about this experience, what would he or she do?"
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 8:42 AM |
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Monday, April 14, 2008
Fisher's holds a "lunch and learn" seminar every six weeks on electronic document management (EDM). Last week's event demonstrated the fact that EDM is finally being recognized as a key strategic initiative for many Idaho businesses.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 1:33 PM |
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Monday, March 24, 2008
Ricoh has chosen to go to market with multiple brands for the exact same products (copiers/MFPs, laser printers, wide format printers, scanners, fax machines, etc.). The brands are Ricoh, Lanier, Savin, and formerly Gestetner (Gestetner is now Lanier). This can be confusing to Ricoh family customers I wanted to take a moment to explain how this all works.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 10:43 AM |
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Thursday, March 20, 2008
Even though the market is down and many businesses lack the extra resources to invest in new technologies, Fisher's Document Systems' sales are up, month after month. We attribute this to three factors: 1) Fisher's service has dramatically improved versus the competition in our market, 2) Fisher's continues to present a strong value proposition that resonates even in a down market, and 3) new electronic document management (EDM) technologies help drive competitive advantage and bottom line growth to companies who need to reduce costs and increase efficiency, particularly in this difficult economic climate.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 5:27 PM |
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Monday, February 25, 2008
I have blogged in the past about my disappointments with the copier industry: Pushy sales people, buried contract terms, a shell game of hidden profits, and a lack of focus on the customer experience. But one of the very refreshing aspects of the industry, at least the industry leaders I am lucky enough to hang out with, is that they are an open book, willing to share anything with each other.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 7:55 AM |
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008
I am two years into my career with Fisher's and I have focused a significant amount of that time talking with the best of the best around the country in my industry. What have I learned from this extensive study? Don't look to the copier industry to learn much about customer service.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 7:48 PM |
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Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Fisher`s has undergone a dramatic transformation over the last two years, including a new ERP system, new CRM system, 26 new employees, a fleet of technician vehicles, a new internal leasing company, Kyocera as a new product line, a separate document and workflow management business unit... and the list goes on and on. Well, it all is resulting in significant growth (33% this year) and we outgrew our facility. We therefore built out a new location this summer and moved in this fall. This new facility, our Technology Center on Veteran`s Parkway and the Boise River, is yet another significant development for the company and has resulted in a dramatic improvement in the way Fisher`s can help our customers.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 12:02 PM |
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Friday, September 28, 2007
If your business is like ours (and probably 99% of all other businesses), you probably utilize Excel extensively. While I could blog at length about how Excel has dramatically changed my life (somewhat kidding but not really), I want to just post a quick note about the recent news that Excel has some issues that were just released.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 5:09 PM |
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Thursday, July 12, 2007
As of July 1, we started a new company called Fisher's Finance. This is an exciting development for us and for our clients. Beyond the obvious financial benefits of having our own leasing company (aggressive lease rates and use of depreciation in consolidated tax accounting), there are two primary driving factors behind this decision.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 6:40 AM |
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Where do companies get their best ideas for change initiatives and for continually challenging their organizations to improve?
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 6:27 AM |
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Monday, June 04, 2007
I am a micro manager. I get into people's business, telling them what to do and when to do it. I am also a laissez-faire manager, not talking to my people for weeks and trusting that things will get done right and on time. So do I have an inconsistent management style? Yes.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 1:14 PM |
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Monday, May 07, 2007
Xerox is acquiring all Global Imaging operations nationwide. In our local market this means that Boise Office Equipment (BOE) will be owned and operated by Xerox. In a recent Idaho Business Review interview, BOE former owner Mike Shannahan did a great job of deflecting market concern over this acquisition... but the reality is that his comments are more wishful thinking than accurate predictions. It is more likely that BOE is about to go through DRAMATIC changes.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 9:00 AM |
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Thursday, April 12, 2007
We are now allowed to publically talk about our selection as the only partner in the state of Idaho to be entrusted with HP's rollout of their cutting edge technology called Edgeline. Edgeline is a technology that HP invested over a billion dollars of R&D on and are rolling out this month. They selected 25 channel partners around the country to be the first to sell and support the product and Fisher's is honored to have been selected to be among them.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 10:37 AM |
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Monday, April 02, 2007
My number one goal in leading Fisher's is to build a customer-centric culture. An integral part of that effort includes a more subtle cultural shift to an innate sense of individual accountability. It is easy, and disastrous, for a company culture to become one of passing the buck and pointing fingers.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 6:47 AM |
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Monday, February 26, 2007
Canon, the number one manufacturer of imaging equipment in the world, is so impressed with the growth and development of Fisher's over the last year, they have asked me, as President of Fisher's, to be on their dealer advisory council. The council is made up of presidents of ten Canon dealers from around the country. The council meets several times per year with top Canon executives to advise on the products, processes, and strategies from the dealers' perspectives.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 2:50 PM |
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Monday, February 19, 2007
There are lots of components to Fisher's sales strategy including providing awesome customer experiences, understanding and solving customers' needs, and demonstrating a level of expertise far beyond hardware features. But one piece of our sales strategy is less tangible and is missing at most companies in our industry: transparency.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 8:59 AM |
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Friday, January 26, 2007
Fisher's recently partnered with Boise State Radio to be the primary underwriter for American Public Media's Marketplace programming on NPR. I had the honor of meeting with Kai Ryssdal, the charismatic host of Marketplace, twice this week. Although this was Kai's first trip to Boise, he spoke of Treasure Valley, BSU football, I84 traffic problems, and local news events as if he lived here. He also broadcast his Marketplace program to the nation from little old Boise.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 3:42 PM |
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Friday, January 12, 2007
Fisher's Document Systems was recently selected as Idaho's 18th largest technology company in the Statesman's annual Tech Idaho publication. Fisher's designation as a technology company makes all the sense in the world now... but this would not have been true of Fisher's in our recent history; nor is it true of the typical office equipment company.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 11:15 AM |
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Monday, January 08, 2007
It is commonly said that companies must challenge themselves and continually introduce change initiatives in order to grow. But what information is used to drive these change initiatives? Certainly market data, industry trends, financial analysis, etc. are important inputs to change, but the most critical impetus for change is often overlooked: feedback from customers.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 11:13 PM |
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Monday, September 11, 2006
It's cliche but true... when leading a company through dramatic growth and change you need to surround yourself with extremely bright people and leverage their strengths and ideas.
| Posted by Christopher Taylor at 7:19 PM |
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