Precision Camera: A Service Giant Many Don’t Know
By Steve Smith -- TWICE, 6/2/2009
Lake Las Vegas, Nev. — When a camera or camcorder needs to be repaired, who is doing the repairing is probably not known.
However, there is a good possibility it is Precision Camera, based in Enfield, Conn., which for more than 60 years has repaired cameras and later on added camcorders to the mix.
John Malinosky, CEO/president of Precision Camera, was brought to the PRO Group’s annual spring meeting, heled here last month, by the organization’s former executive director Roger Heuberger, who serves as Precision’s sales and marketing corporate advisor.
Both men said Precision Camera, with more than 300 technicians in facilities in Connecticut, Texas and Mexico, is the largest service company of its type in the world.
“We handle service for Canon, JVC, Nikon, Casio, Olympus, Panasonic, Sony, Fujifilm and others. We handle products that have anything to do with imaging, scanning or related products,” said Heuberger.
To get a handle on the size of the privately held company, on a weekly basis Precision refurbishes from 10,000 to 15,000 cameras out of its El Paso, Texas, facility, Heuberger said.
The executives were at PRO to attract more retail business. Huppin’s/OneCall is one of its retail customers, along with Best Buy, Staples, Sears and many others.
It also has relationships with warranty companies, Heuberger said, such as Warrantech, NEW, Aon, Assurant, AMT Warranty, Bankers Group, ServiceNet and others. “In two-thirds of our business [Precision] is not directly facing the customer.”
And Heuberger said there is a “green” environmental angle in Precision’s business. In general, “any digital camera with a price tag over $100 can be serviced, given a longer life and have less impact on the environment.”
He noted, “Around 200 million digital cameras have been sold, with around 140 to 150 million” that are sophisticated enough to fix. Ten million are d-SLRs.
“You can save a million cubic feet of waste if you service 750,000 cameras and keep them from being thrown away,” Heuberger said.
For more on the company visit its Web site at www.precisioncamera.com
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