I’ve been contributing to the Business Transformation Center since 2011. Its been an honor and a heck of a lot of fun. The story of how I was able to secure a position with UBM is a great one – if you and I ever meet, make sure to ask me about it.

Back then, I was a practice manager on the edge of this bold new movement, managed print services. Not only that, the MPS practice was part of a $135M, traditional, west coast, IT VAR. The opportunity literally dropped into my lap as everyone above me was fired. You see, for 6 months, the practice was running under water at negative $25k each month – ouch. Well, one thing led to another, we pulled the practice out of the fire, constructing a sustainable MpS entity. After a strong year, we initiated the second phase – merging the MPS practice into the overall managed services portfolio, right there with Help Desk, Unified Communications, Virtualization, Data Center, ITLS and Staff Augmentation – good times.

Meanwhile, I picked up the ball here at the Business Transformation Center.

Over the years, we’ve talked about team building and the definition of managed print services. We’ve explored compensation models and how to hire managed print services professionals. We’ve gone to the cloud, covered MPS fundamentals, discussed selling strategies, the importance of good partnerships, qualifying, managed services versus manage print services and sales manager ride alongs.

Oh, the times we’ve had together.

So what’s changed since the dog days of August, 2011 in the wonderful world that is managed print services? A bunch and not so much.

Back in 2011, many industry players struggled with the definition of managed print services and fifty percent of those who ventured into the ecosystem, did not reach a high degree of success. In 2011, it was difficult keeping tally of all the new MpS tools, software systems and fulfillment programs- the number of providers seemed to double each month.

Today, if anything, things have settled. MPS is a mainstream offering and more people are talking about growing a managed print services practice into a managed services division. Dealers are moving into PC support and remote monitoring and management of non-print related devices like storage and servers. Some are getting into staff augmentation while others have simply jumped the managed print services curve into managed services. It is still a wild ride.

As I look back, it feels like so much has occurred but as I consider today’s challenges and opportunities, in a way, I am reminded of those days back in 2011 – change is just around the corner, it always has been.

For you, dear reader, I wish nothing but the best. Stay true to what motivated you in the “old days” but always keep an I on the horizon.

That’s where the fun is.

Cheers!

Greg Walters

The buzz around workflow is both nebulous and relevant. Like managed print services in the days of yore, workflow is being defined as many things—from small applications to business-process redesigns.

The point is simple: Our devices are, and have been, part of general business workflow forever. The time has come to embrace this role and expand beyond the machine, not necessarily reducing the number of devices but at least improving how information flows through, from and around them. Designing revenue streams around workflow is not an easy proposition. I believe that the best business model is the one that comes from within, not outside of, your organization. Either way, this time next year, there will be both successful and failed workflow practices scattered about. Where will you be?

Managed print services, in my opinion, has always been a bridge into managed services—not managed network services or managed IT services but managed services. So what is happening around the industry at the tactical level? Are dealers embracing managed services? If so, are they building or partnering? Can our OEMs provide managed services to the channel for reselling opportunities?

At the corporate level, most OEMs are investing in services through acquisitions. Xerox is the only imaging OEM that can claim a high percentage of revenue through services, over 50 percent, in fact. Will more OEMs support this model? It appears to be the new way to go as more OEMs are purchasing IT firms all over the world.  But what, if anything, should you do to support everyday growth and sustainability? Here are a couple of ideas.

For workflow, consider Xerox® ConnectKey™. Xerox has a simple yet sophisticated proposition, allowing its machines to connect directly to a cloud. The user interface is standard on all compliant Xerox devices and adding new programs is end-user available. Here’s one thing: I know a great deal of people across the country who sell managed print services and sustain a business doing so whose opinion I respect because day in and day out, they provide services. From this collection of friends and colleagues, I have heard good things about ConnectKey.

I recommend reaching out to your Xerox rep and getting as much information as you can. It might not fit into your value proposition, but if you don’t look, you won’t know.

When it comes to managed services, get ready for more partnerships. At the 2013 Transform MPS Conference, managed services was more a topic of conversation from the attendees than the presenters, which leads me to believe a great deal of resellers are investigating this new area. Could managed services be the next greenfield for copier dealers? Could our entry into that market be disruptive enough to cause secular change in both niches?

I say yes.

For us on this side of business technology, partnering with a solid set of managed service providers appears to be an efficient method when bringing managed services portfolios to market. Check into existing programs in our niche, such as ServiceSolv from Synnex and Great America’s Collabrance, for example. There are more coming everyday, and your OEM may be able to help as well.

Change is a constant, I guess if you’re in the imaging industry, you are well aware of this. Keep your eyes and mind open to all possibilities, and always be ready to adjust according to the winds of change. It is what we do best.

But waiting until a clear and present threat actually appears isn’t the time to launch or enlarge an MPS practice. Fortunately, it’s becoming easier than ever for VARs and MSPs to take proactive steps that can help them not only stop competitors in their tracks but create organic growth opportunities.

Perhaps the simplest and easiest way to start customers down the road to MPS is Xerox eConcierge®. It’s not managed print, per se, but the service monitors printers on a customer’s network and enables them to order supplies through a solution provider’s branded e-commerce portal. Best of all, partners receive recurring revenues from supplies replenishments without creating their own monitoring and fulfillment infrastructure. Get more details.

Xerox Partner Print Services® is a comprehensive MPS solution that provides remote monitoring tools to help VARs and MSPs manage and service the print fleets of their customers. Partners can choose the service level that fits best, whether that’s delivering services directly or letting Xerox service accounts via its cloud-based software platform. Either way, partners retain complete control over the customer relationship. See what XPPS can do for your customers.

Channel partners can then fill out the services engagement with Xerox ConnectKey®, a range of new value-add technologies for Xerox multifunction printers. ConnectKey for SharePoint® can simplify customer workflows and help them optimize business processes. ConnectKey Share to Cloud lets end-users scan documents to cloud services, including Google Docs/Drive, Dropbox, Salesforce.com and Office 365. In addition, ConnectKey for SharePoint can scan files directly into Microsoft SharePoint and other Windows folders. Learn more.

Being proactive pays in the managed print market. What resources are you using to stay a step ahead of the competition?

She says that a significant number of organizations are now entering into their second, or even third,  MPS contracts, showing that businesses are looking for further savings and efficiencies. She adds that MPS addresses those needs in three ways:

1. Many businesses still rely heavily on paper to support business processes— whether it is finance and accounting or HR. “MPS can help intelligently organize information from both paper and electronic sources and make it more readily available to office, mobile and remote workers,” Fernandes writes.

2. At the heart of increased cost savings and higher productivity are multifunction printers that act as document-processing hubs for capturing, routing and archiving documents, according to Fernandes. “Documents can be scanned directly into electronic systems—be it an ERP or ECM system or even cloud-based systems such as Dropbox or Office 365,” she says. “As information becomes easier to manage, it’s better able to help boost productivity, cut costs and advance the move to the paperless office.”

3. Some MPS providers can provide the full outsourcing of business processes, for example, managing invoice processing, HR, finance and accounts and also IT outsourcing, she adds.

These observations are a good reminder for VARs and MSPs as they articulate the long-term value proposition of managed print for their prospects and existing clients. It also shows that in a market unsettled by disruptive technologies, solution providers and proven MPS engagements play a valuable role for customers who are trying to sort it all out.

How are you capitalizing on disruption?

Today, managed services is the hot new issue for cutting-edge copier dealers. This is not another ”change- or-die” scenario like MPS was promoted to be. Managed services represents the normal, if not natural progression of the entire business products and business services niche. It’s not just copiers and printers that are in flux right now, it’s PCs, servers, networks and ancillary support services as well. There is confusion and disruption all around.

Why get into managed services? There are many reasons, but here are four top ones:

It is a Green Field. Disruption seems to be the new normal in technology and, as we often hear, where there is mystery there is opportunity. Today, the IT niche is experiencing similar challenges to those we started to experience years ago: shifting user behavior, reduced utilization of our core product, consolidation and channel shrinkage are just few influences we’ve been swimming with for years.

Services-based model. All of our devices carry a service revenue stream, billed on a timely basis. The same is true in the IT world, but instead of billing “clicks,” typical managed services are billed per user or seat. The invoiced amount varies as the number of employees fluctuates, not the amount of network time consumed.

This model is in our wheelhouse, something with which we are familiar.

Professional Selling. We sell on a daily basis and typically move from end user to C-level within our prospects. The majority of selling talent in the imaging niche resides in selling opportunities involving SMBs or midsize companies. We’ve been trained to cold call, qualify opportunities quickly, pencil deals on our feet and close—sometimes, all in one appointment. Our school of hard knocks imparts unique lessons we carry into life and other industries. After selling copiers, help desk and remote monitoring should be a piece of cake.

Bonus reason: Your OEM. Managed services is the hot issue today and all the OEMs are scrambling to cover this sector. Hardly a day goes by without an announcement about an acquisition or partnership between imaging and IT companies. Look toward your OEM; indeed, just look at Xerox. With more than 50 percent of its revenue derived from services, the resources and examples of a service-centric business model may be a click of phone call away.

In short, there are real opportunities today in managed services.

Good luck seizing them.

Then again, a proper MpS engagement includes many different, running variables – like a team of horses – which all need to be managed into the same direction. Perhaps maneggio is a good root word for managed print services, after all.

Ex-date driven -

In the old days, lease end dates triggered calls for review meetings. These meetings included a quick discussion around providing newer and faster technology for a lower monthly payment. This procedure was a boon for copier OEMs, leasing companies, dealers and sales people alike. Indeed, possible lease renewals were used to calculate quotas and forecasts – they were that important.

But that was then, this is now. Once considered a staple of every MpS engagement, the buzz around reviews has dropped to not much more than a whisper. Does anyone still perform quarterly business reviews?

If you’re not, I know you would love to meet with your clients once a quarter if it meant getting more business. Let’s consider the following business review issues:

Machine stats – shipments, service calls, uptime ratios, etc. -

If there is an issue around one of the above subjects by all means address. But if the total content of your business review is telling your client how often you sent a technician and the number of toner cartridges delivered in the past 90 days, make sure you accompany your oration with the 250 slide PowerPoint deck, thus completing your client’s torture. Wouldn’t you prefer to share the latest and greatest ideas on how to improve your business? Of course you would. So try to make your next business review

Here’s one suggestion:

The Vision Roadmap -

This is a simple presentation and can include just about anything you want, as long as it reflects new technology and how your client will be affected by these advancements. For example, consider discussing how BYOD or tablets are impacting other businesses similar to your client. Of course, you’ll want to bring in workflow, managed services and how all this falls into your vision of managed print services. Simply have a conversation.

Will business reviews lead to more business?

I have it on good authority that business reviews focusing on ideas and solutions tend to neutralize the competitive issues around hardware acquisition. Think about it, if you’re solving big picture problems and positively impacting your client relationships, the transactional aspects fade into the background, price rarely enters the discourse.

Give it a try next time you schedule a business review.

This doesn’t mean there isn’t a future for our industry, our OEMs or ourselves. There is a future and it’s bright, not gloomy.

Stronger OEM’s

Today’s economic times are tough and not all of us will come through looking or acting the same as he did before. We are all transforming and the companies that survive will be transformed and stronger. There are a few good examples of OEMs making the shift, but let’s examine Xerox.

Today, with revenues dropping for everyone, watching how an organization manages the downturn is very important. Xerox is manufacturing equipment, this is true, but they’re not putting all their eggs in one copier/printer. Over 50% of revenues are driven through services. Sure, we can debate the definition of ‘services’ but beyond this, it’s safe to say that less than 50% of Xerox’s revenue is a result of copier placements. Back in 2007, would you have considered even this a possibility?

Economic headwinds, managed print services and changing enduser behaviors accelerate transformation within the ecosystem from boxes to services led revenue streams. When the world economy emerges out of this malaise, the OEMs who successfully managed yesterday’s business while stretching into new realms, will be leaner, focused and stronger.

Stronger channel

In some cases, traditional channels will evaporate and reappear as a something different. I am not saying all businesses within the channel will disappear, we’ll probably be working within a larger independent channel, I am suggesting that the channel will transform as much or more than the manufacturers.

Negative economic pressures force us all to look at our position differently, examine alternative possibilities and determine our true destiny. This is part of the evolutionary process. There will always be a channel between manufacturers and ultimate end users the transformation involves what products or services move through this channel. The future is more workflow and relationship based engagements

Stronger Professionals

Selling today is as competitive as ever. The changes affected by economic ups and downs are both professional and personal. Consider corporate training programs and your personal finances: as gas and food prices increase you’re under more pressure at the grocery store than ever before. Combine this with a selling environment that includes less customers and prospects and you’re under twice as much pressure.

In the big picture, this is natural and like the OEM and the channel, your personal transformation is guaranteed as we’re all faced with changing the way we conduct our lives. It’s natural and currently accelerating.

Managed Print Services End Game

Ultimately, we all transform as will managed print services. The future of our industry will include new ways of conducting business. Methods we can’t imagine. As we moved from the typewriter, to copier, printer, fax and email so to will business process move beyond spreadsheet, word-processing and email.

There should be no fear, with organizations like Xerox moving into the future without forgetting the past, our industry will be right there in the middle.

And so will You.

Much has been written about how output and the companies promoting print can become “relevant,” again. It has been said that when we make it easy for end users to print from any device to every device—such as mobile printing—relevance will be ours once again. Designing and offering reliable, available technology is important, but not as valuable as our personal relevancy to our clients. It isn’t how do we make print relevant again, it’s how do we remain vital to our customers and clients.

Forget about making print relevant. What about the relevance of people in businesses today?

We’re moving into workflow, and as we concentrate more on the process it’s easy to ignore the people inside the process. Don’t get me wrong, process and workflow optimization are important—integral—to providing quality service at an affordable rate. And as technology continues to shrink the amount of people-hours needed to complete tasks, it’s easier and easier to relegate humans to the back of the value-chain.

This has happened before and will happen again. Consider the plow, loom, or cotton gin. Before each innovation, manpower and time where exhausted in simply staying alive. As additional menial tasks became automated, civilization expanded and grew. Artists, scholars and inventors let free the bonds of labor to pursue greater expression and more sophisticated inventions. Who is to say that if not for the plow, the space shuttle, transistor radio, or even the process known as xerography would never be invented?

Enter managed print services and the continued removal of manual processes inside business workflows. Look at your automated service-call system. Your machines tell your technicians when service is needed and when they need toner and supplies. Today, if an end user has a question or a service call to place, they simply send an email or work their way through the voice-mail maze, possibly leaving a detailed message.

Here’s the thing. Managed print services, if taken and implemented at the most basic level, is managing the end of print as we know it. Volumes and the number of machines will reduce printed output, and the management of the machines responsible for archiving knowledge to paper will become a cottage industry full of boutique providers, if that.

It’s like developing an app to help manage and optimize your existing collection of DVRs a month before the world decides Blu-Ray is the standard. Or inventing the best, most efficient buggy whip, three years ahead of Henry Ford releasing the Model T.

But there is hope.

Everything always comes down to our personal choices: How are we going to remain important to our clients? In this ever efficient world of processes and automation, how can you and I continue to get the attention of our customers and prospects?

I don’t know a single answer because each customer is unique. I can guess that elevating beyond the process and focusing on the results of an optimized workflow is a great aspiration. It’s a long way from where it all started—marks on paper—but it’s the only choice we have.

Let’s attempt to define managed services: “Managed Services is the proactive management of an IT (Information Technology) asset or object by a third party, typically known as an MSP, on behalf of a customer. The operative distinction that sets apart an MSP is the proactive delivery of their service as compared to reactive IT services, which have been around for decades.”

As we go about defining and designing a working managed services model, it is important to have a vision, but looking for guideposts from others who have been this way is difficult. In my travels, I’ve found some common touch points that have bubbled to the surface to remember when venturing out into the managed services realm:

1. Define your offering portfolio.

This almost goes without saying: You need to know what you’re selling when you start selling. Even more than managed print services, managed services have a broad range of offerings. It’s up to you to find the best mix for you and your customers. This means that you do not need to match anybody else’s portfolio offerings. If you do not want to offer hosted email services, for example, then don’t. It is up to you.

2. Create a clear compensation plan.

You would think we learned this through the MPS years, but compensation is still the last issue most people want to discuss. Always an issue, comp plans should be designed before rolling out any program.

3. Easy-to-communicate benefits message.

Value props or elevator pitches (yuk) must be clearly understood and ultimately owned by those who articulate them. This does mean establishing a knowledge base, but not necessarily retraining your existing staff. The best place to start is with your clients. Ask the ones who are already engaged in a managed service of some kind what benefits they are receiving and why they decided to off-load some internal duties to another firm. From there, build a simple-to-understand description of how your services positively impact your clients’ businesses.

4. Pivot off your managed print service practice’s value proposition.

Success of the past can be utilized to project the future, indeed. I’ve said it hundreds of times, “If you can create and sustain a managed print services practice, you can successfully implement a managed services practice.” It’s still true. Look to your managed print services value prop as a base to build your managed services offering.
So conceptually, at least, the path is clear: Define what it is you do, decide how you will compensate your staff for evangelizing and converting prospects, create an easily communicated value-prop messages and build on the success of your proven service capabilities. Good luck!

That’s sound logic. In fact, I expect that the managed-print services providers that will see the most success in the next two to three years will be the ones poised to promote document-management solutions. The good news is that it’s becoming easier than ever to enhance MPS to embrace larger content-management needs. A series of new options are arriving to help solution providers move in this direction.

For example, with Xerox ConnectKey®, a new capability embedded in more than a dozen of the company’s multifunction printers, VARs and MSPs can quickly give customers the ability to print from almost anywhere using almost any mobile device. ConnectKey also gives the channel a way to make MFPs onramps to the cloud—end-users can scan documents directly to cloud services, such as Google Drive, Evernote, and Microsoft Office 365.

Also included in ConnectKey are tools for hardening MFPs to make document-management environments safer and less prone to outside intruders. ConnectKey-equpped MFPs use 256-bit hard-disk encryption, McAfee® security technologies, and Cisco® TrustSec for tighter management and policy compliance.  See more details about ConnectKey.

How fast are you moving to take MPS to the next level?