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?

One case in point is Xerox’s latest financial assessment. The overall results didn’t produce any real surprises for channel partners in the printing, imaging, and document-technology sectors. But some numbers and comments by Xerox Chairman and CEO Ursula Burns were illuminating.

First the numbers: Xerox says services continue to shine, which is good news and welcome validation for solutions providers that have been transitioning their business models to managed print services and general IT services. In the last quarter, Xerox, which has been a leader in the transformative power of services, saw revenues in this segment of its business grow 4 percent.

Burns also offered some comments that should be encouraging to the channel. First she noted that in February, Xerox announced ConnectKey™, a software system embedded in 16 new Xerox multifunction printers. Many of these units began shipping in the second quarter. Then she reiterated Xerox’s commitment to the channel, by saying “We’re continuing to shift our business model to adapt to market trends by expanding indirect distribution…”

There are no guarantees in business life, but doubling down on services continues to look like the right strategy for the times. How have your services bets been paying off?

Fortunately, printer OEMs are addressing the complexities of assessments and the channel now has options that can help them spend less time on this crucial but essential aspect of the sales cycle. Case in point: the Xerox Partner Print Services® (XPPS) program, a unique program that simplifies key aspects of launching and managing successful MPS engagements. This includes resources for speeding assessments.

XPPS includes a unique tool known as Xerox Quick Assessment and its online resource Xerox CompleteView Pro. Once a prospect agrees to the assessment, partners get the results within two business days. An expert Xerox Assessment Analyst can even help the partner interpret and analyze the data to develop the right proposal for the individual customer. CompleteView Pro also offers a margin calculator so partners can determine what to charge customers. CompleteView Pro can even create a summary of how must the prospect will be saving with the new MPS solution.

XPPS take a big step forward when it comes to shortening the MPS sales cycles, which is a win/win for the channel and end-users alike. Each will more quickly reap the rewards of well-managed print environments.

She explains that Xerox’s current strategy for growth is to continue its transformation into a services provider. To do that it is focusing on three areas: business process outsourcing, IT outsourcing, and document outsourcing. “We’re going to do that while we remain tightly connected to technology — technology in how we deploy and operate and enable our services lines, but also to stay focused on the fact that there are still [technology] needs.”

Regarding the printing business, Burns continues to see big things for the market. “There are still needs in the printing business that technology is the foundation of,” she explains. “The transformation [for Xerox as a company] is to hold onto and stay engaged in the areas of technology that are growing and that are transforming, and to grow a set of services in poorly penetrated areas or areas that are a priority for us and for our clients.”

She also speaks frankly about the challenges of mobile printing and how Xerox ConnectKey® offers a solution. “In mobility there are a couple of key things. One is simply being able to get printed pages from your digital device,” she says. “It’s pretty simple. Hard to do. It’s very annoying to me, and I have a good set of solutions in my house. ConnectKey helps you to print from any device to any ConnectKey-enabled printer. It’s not only Xerox printers that you can do this with. Print from any device to any device. It’s a big thing.”

Burns has proven herself to be one of the most significant thought leaders in the world of document outsourcing, including managed print services. Read the entire interview and get a glimpse of the future.

Suddenly you find yourself at the “Y” in the road; do you give the simpler, “I sell copiers” or do you start down the road to elevator-pitch-land, delivering the value proposition your sales manager would be proud of, yet putting your neighbor asleep or earning you the label of “avoid at any cost she’ll try to sell you timeshares/cars/real estate/jewelry.” Have a good summer.

Every sales trainer, managed print services consultant, manager or tutor will tell you to come up with a statement that is concise, informative, memorized and at the ready, describing how your customers benefit from what you do. Seems simple. But when was the last time you remember somebody’s value proposition to you? In your mind, haven’t you reduced his or her value speech into small, digestible portions.

“I help my customers realize their dreams” – Real Estate agent.
“We provide luxury motor cars” – Car salesman.
“We are logistics” – A rep from a shipping company.

Don’t get me wrong, each value proposition represents how a company views themselves and how they wish to be known. They aren’t lying. I’m suggesting you do something different with your managed print services value proposition. Tell a story. Do not describe. Illustrate.

Wait, what? Instead of rolling off a transparent sentence that anyone from Ford Motor Company to Big Bob’s Copier Emporium can regurgitate, tell an honest story. That’s right– tell a story or quip about your last engagement. Make it simple, conversational and informal, but make it a story.

For instance, when somebody asks what you do, how about you start off with, “you know, we were just talking about that at work the other day. Or “well, I really don’t know. Let me tell you what I did yesterday, and then you tell me…” Not only are these more engaging, they might even be true!

I am all for sitting down with contemporaries and hashing out a single sentence or paragraph describing what you do, how you do it and why it’s important that everybody buys what you’re selling. I get that. But in today’s communication drenched business world, can another collection of 144 characters be that memorable?

Tell a story.

For Parmetech, a Havertown, Pa., company that provides full-service printing and imaging solutions, the answer is Xerox PagePack®.  “We lead with PagePack for all of our new opportunities” in managed print, says Mike Parmet, executive vice president of Parmetech.

The reason? PagePack gives resellers such as Parmetech an opportunity to move beyond just selling hardware, Parmet says. “It has opened the door to us growing our managed print services business,” he explains. “If you just sell printers you’ll never survive and thrive in this business.”

PagePack offers customers a single contract that covers pages printed, maintenance, services and all consumables for networked printers and multifunction systems. It also provides a fixed cost per page for black-and-white and color, whatever the print coverage. Companies can opt for one-, three-, four- or five-year contracts, tailored to meet their needs.

What’s particularly unique about PagePack is that it’s more comprehensive than any other managed print program, Parmet says. It covers devices from many other vendors and offers unlimited page coverage and third-party fulfillment on supplies. “We have the ability to order supplies via a Web portal and Xerox ships the supplies, which is an important feature,” Parmet says.

Unlike other printer manufacturers, Xerox absorbs a great deal of the risk associated with managed print, Parmet say. For example, with other programs resellers have to absorb the risk of customers running more color photos than expected.

Parmet has some advice for resellers that are considering launching a managed print business via PagePack: Commit the necessary resources in order to be successful. “Make sure you are ready to commit to training people, to developing a business plan, and to working with the [Xerox] partner manager to develop the plan,” he says.

In addition, Parmet says, be sure to leverage the resources Xerox provides, such as the personnel who help resellers get the most out of the PagePack program. “Invite the Xerox people into your loop and trust them,” he says. “They are tremendous resources.”

If investing in large amount of infrastructure is not in the cards for you or your dealership, there is one aspect of managed services you should investigate—workflow. I’ve mentioned it before, studying and improving workflow can be a natural step between managed print services and managed services. It’s also a process we’ve been familiar with from the very beginning.

What is workflow? A simple definition is “…a sequence of industrial, administrative, or other processes through which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion…”

Visualize the steps involved in printing a document from blank page to .PDF or the time you’ve said to an end user, “show me how you’re printing payroll checks.” The narrative relayed is usually a sequence of industrial, administrative or other processes through which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion. This is what is so simple about workflow—we perform some basic analysis each time we conduct an assessment or ask our clients how they do something. Indeed, every time we outline our managed print services delivery process, we are describing our workflow.

Observing workflow is a snap, documenting workflow is simple. Selling workflow, unfortunately, is a different story.

We typically do not sell workflow as a standalone service. Instead, we leverage the ability of our devices to meld with existing processes, automating manual workflows whenever possible. So within the context of a managed print services engagement, selling how easily our machine fits into and improves the way our clients perform their job, is a correct approach.

As with most every technological topic, workflow will soon become mundane. You’ve got to engage the subject today before your competition. The easiest way to get involved is to look to our more advanced OEMs. Get to know the “new” tools/apps but remember they are just tools, nothing more.

True, managed print services is not all about hardware. The device remains a mainstay inside current and future workflows.

Your biggest asset is the knowledge contained between your ears. Go learn about workflow and the new tools in the market. Then approach your managed print service opportunities with more savvy and acumen.

Specifically, Dastin draws analogies between smartphones and multifunction printers (MFPs), and if you think about it for a second, the comparison isn’t as big of a stretch as it first appears. “”Just as we moved from single-function phones to smartphones to collaboration tools, we see our MFPS in the same way,” Dastin explains. “This is the beginning to extract connectivity around the box and not be constrained by print.”

His overarching theme is that the print industry is currently in the process of  trying to redefine MFPs. “We all know where print is headed. We’re moving the MFP from a printer to a documents system,” Dastin says. “It’s important to drive that with things like the [Xerox] ConnectKey software platform, where you’re able to move from where you would print and distribute hard copies, then email and print, to where you can, with mobility, access a document and collaborate,” he told CRN.

That’s significant not only for how the channel looks at MFP opportunities, but also in terms of larger managed print services strategies. It’s no secret that MPS is hot these days. Predictions vary depending on who is analyzing the market, but almost everyone agrees that the compound annual growth rate for MPS will be at least in the mid-teens this year.

But savvy service providers are already looking beyond these numbers and wondering how they can use a successful MPS foundation to support additional services. Dastin describes one important option—a solution that capitalizes on mobility and the urge to collaborate. Are you ready to jump on this bandwagon?

What’s surprising, however, is that not everyone in the channel is jumping on these opportunities. As CRN points out in a recent story, many solution providers continue to rely on maintaining antiquated on-premise hardware and software reseller offerings rather than focusing on creating a highly profitable managed services business.

The publication quotes an investment advisor who has a blunt assessment of this situation. “When you are looking at a market segment like managed services that is growing 45 percent that you can participate in, why wouldn’t you put all your energy and resources into that?” asks Martin Wolf, founder and president of MartinWolf, a global M&A investment adviser focused on services models. “I wouldn’t do anything else. Most of these [solution providers] do not have enough resources to gamble.”

Most likely everyone who is reading this is well-versed in the potential of managed services in general and managed print services in particular. But stories like these are an important reminder of two realities. First, that you’re making the right bets with your service-oriented business models. Second, that success in the future will come to those who figure out how to stay ahead of the competition with innovative services and partnerships that provide the training and tools that cultivate leadership positions.

Are you leading or following in today’s biggest opportunities around services?

As Campbell points out, when Xerox ConnectKey™ is embedded in an MFP it enables the channel to develop and implement end-user apps built for mobility, clouds, big data, and workflow solutions. It also provides new embedded security capabilities from McAfee and Cisco.

“We will transform the way work gets done,” the story quotes Rick Dastin, president of Xerox’s Office and Solutions Business Group. “We will have our devices be integral to the new world [of mobility, cloud and big data]. We’re moving from peripheral to integral with software to make everything more relevant.”

CRN also points out that the ConnectKey platform features an open API to allow channel partners to develop and embed their own apps on MFPs with no additional software requirements. Any app developed for ConnectKey must be certified by Xerox and the developer will be able to monetize that app by placing it in a marketplace that Xerox plans to launch later this year, Dastin told CRN.

“The solution provider can upload that app to the marketplace. [With] the pricing model, we’re looking for solution providers to monetize it mostly on their own. We’re trying to incent solution providers to develop apps and get the monetization of that,” Dastin said.