Print Managed Services firms told to target IT managers' headaches

Service providers that position themselves as a consultative business focused on relieving IT management pain-points stand to reap benefits.

Follow the link below:


http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=53057&cid=6

First HP Now Xerox: Is Tiered Color Pricing The Future of Color CPP?

HP started tiered pricing with their Edgeline product. With low enough color density your expense per color page could be as low as that of a black print. If the color increased you fell into the accent color range or professional color range, and were charged accordingly.

The tiered approach had a lot of fans on both sides of the transaction. The vendor selling the CPP had great comfort that they were being fairly compensated for the quantity of supplies they would be providing. The users of the product were comfortable that they weren’t paying too much for color prints, particularly on those documents with only a few words in color.

We’ll have to wait to see what path HP takes with the development of the Edgeline. Now that Xerox has entered the tiered color pricing game other OEMs are sure to follow. The link below will take you to an article on Xerox’s new ColorQube 9200 series and the “Hybrid” pricing approach.

http://socialcomputing.ulitzer.com/node/952771

Don't Overlook the Hand that Feeds You

Continuously working with business throughout the year gives us the opportunity to observe the practices of the successful ones and identify areas that we all could improve upon. An area many times lacking focus and attention is the value our existing customer’s bring to the business.

In a good economy we should never take for granted our customer base but in a business environment like the one we are living through now it is critical to implement an effective customer retention strategy.

As business’ spend slows we are all looking for ways to offset declining revenues and our focus often shifts to new business or our competitor’s accounts. So as you look for new opportunities your competitor’s are doing the same by targeting your existing base. Holding on to your base should be your number one priority.

Responsibility for customer retention does not live and reside only with the sales professional assigned to the account; it resides with all members of the organization. Actually leaving customer retention to the sales professional might be part of your customer retention strategy but it is the weakest part of that strategy. With turnover being as high as it is, with quota attainment being the sales professional’s number one priority and with expectations set to achieve the goals set by the organization, sales professionals often don’t spend nor have the proper amount of time to focus on existing customers.

Two methods that can add to an effective customer retention strategy are two of the areas we cover in the BTA Sales Management Workshop (www.BTA.org), effective account planning sessions and top customer visits. Effective account planning sessions provide the organization with a process driven towards engaging multiple members in an account, understanding the current business situation, exploring new business (share of wallet) and identifying steps to implement a stronger relationship with the account. Account planning sessions are the process focused on reviewing all accounts on a periodic basis.

Like account planning sessions, top customer visits are driven towards engaging multiple members in the same account but in this case it is also driven to establish a sound business relationship with multiple levels of the customer’s organization. By establishing contacts at different levels of the customer’s organization you are expanding the knowledge, expertise and value you bring to the customer. You are also focused on how you can be more effective for your customer’s and what their challenges and goals are. Top customer visits enable you to engage all members of the leadership team in effective customer retention. Assign each member of the team 12 accounts (one per month) and you will see customer retention grow.

Want to protect your base, focus on your current customers with an effective customer retention strategy and you will find retention levels growing and more time available to pursue new opportunities.

If you would like to learn more about the next BTA Sales Management Workshop in Chicago on May 12 & 13 visit: http://www.bta.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=2408

Lexmark International, Inc. Q1 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

One of the juiciest place to get information on the industry is in the quarterly presentations provided by the public companies and in the transcripts of their calls with analysts. The below link will take you to Lexmark's latest call with the analyst community.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/132076-lexmark-international-inc-q1-2009-earnings-call-transcript?page=1

Highlights include significant year over year and sequential revenue declines in both laser devices and laser supplies.

Developing An Effective Print Management Sales Process

Part two of this six part series was recently published in ENX Magazine. You can follow the link to view this article.

http://enxmag.com/2007/new%20site%202007/website/2009_MONTHS/april2009/article_DevelopingEffectivePrintManagement_tcallinan_apr09.htm

If you would like to launch a print management / MPS program at your company please contact the professionals at Strategy Development or attend the BTA Print Management Workshop:

http://www.bta.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=2127

Service Technology Solutions

A recent industry research report indicates best-in-class service organizations (top 20%) are more than twice as likely as all others to have embraced technology solutions. These leading service organizations, having already placed there bets, are experiencing real savings and operational excellence. Of the remaining best in class service organizations, almost half have indicated they will be investing in service technology solutions within the next 12 months.

So, what are today's most beneficial technology enablers?

• Mobile Field Service - automated dispatch, parts management, real-time data access for technicians (service history, parts inventory), signature capture, sales at the time of service, communications.
• Scheduling and Routing - automated call assignment and routing based on technician location, customer entitlements,training, parts availability, traffic patterns.
• Remote Product Monitoring - Automated service call generation using equipment generated service alerts, supply fulfillment, billing meters.
• Forecasting and Planning - use of advanced F&P technologies that review history, trends, and real time developments to plan staffing (technicians) and inventory (parts/supplies).
• Business Intelligence and Analytics - service performance reporting & benchmarking.

The adoption of the right technology, using a thoughtful strategy, is critical to enabling service organizations achieve success. If you have questions about service technology solutions and how to justify the required investment, please contact me at woodard@strategydevlopment.org

Sea Change For the Copier Dealer

For years making a healthy profit has been a fairly easy formula for the principal of a copier dealership: Increase your unit placements, provide high quality customer service, and reap the benefits of the profitable aftermarket stream (defined as supplies, service and parts). Actually, it is a model similar to many, car dealerships being one that comes immediately to mind. Hold that example as we progress through this article.

This model of success was formulated during the late seventies and throughout the eighties as the industry flourished with technological advancements, product extensions, and year over year increases in units sold.

Many times the dealer channel has been told that there was a Sea Change occurring. First, companies like Alco (eventually IKON) and Danka were acquiring the independent dealer channel with the promise of leveraging efficiencies of scale. Some dealers wondered how they were going to compete against these behemoths. That fear never materialized as the Goliaths impaired themselves with poorly executed strategies.

Next, the transition to digital was going to be the tar pit of the copier dealership as network companies controlled the network. Remember the saying; whoever controlled the network controlled the output? Then came production units and the pundits who said that dealerships could never understand the space or afford the investment to be successful. This led to those that said the direct operations would be the death of the copier dealer. In reality, those direct operations that were not run to produce profit seem to be hurting the manufacturers themselves, but that is another subject.

I am confident that the Sea Change I am referring to is not a mirage: Year over year unit sales are declining—and rapidly. As detailed in a ChannelWeb article (see previous post) , Gartner reported that year over year fourth quarter shipments of copiers and printers in the professional segment, as opposed to consumer segment, declined by 25.3%. I saw a report by another research firm—included in a presentation so I am not quoting it since I did not see the original—that showed 2008 copier unit placements decreased 200,000 from 2007 and a projection that they would decrease by another 190,000 units in 2009. Placements were projected to decrease from 1,355,000 in 2007 to 963,000 in 2009. In case you are curious color was down year over year and projected to fall again and overall units were forecasted at 813,000 in 2012.

The dealer community has adapted to the roll-up years, the transition from analog to digital, into the color world, the proliferation of direct operations and the product extensions into the production space. And many of the dealerships around the country will adapt to the dramatic decrease in unit sales. The same can be said of the manufacturers: Many will adapt.

The other side of that equation is that there are quite a few that will not adapt. On the manufacturer side—and this has been said for years by many industry players but I think the time has finally arrived—there is simply too much distribution.

So back to that car dealership comparison; when we were buying 15 million + cars it was hard for a dealership or manufacturer to make a fatal mistake. Manufacturers produced inferior products and wasted billions of dollars in a multitude of areas. Car dealers were happy as the manufacturers drove traffic into their showrooms through big incentives. Then, unit sales fell 30% or more in a short period of time (sound familiar), the manufacturers cut back on incentives they could no longer afford to fund, and car dealerships (and soon it seems manufacturers) begin to fail.

The copier industry has a long and rewarding future for those dealerships that plan well. The second half of that statement is very important. If the predictions are accurate copier placements will decrease by 40% over the period 2007 – 2012. Combined with lower average unit selling price, the proliferation of printer based MFDs, and A4 units replacing A3 and you have a significantly lower revenue stream. Offsetting those decreases are color pages and capturing the prints made on the printers—print management or MPS. I believe the latter is a significantly larger revenue stream than the former.

But dealerships will also need to address high general and administrative expenses. At Strategy Development we believe that dealerships need to strive for a 10% G&A within the next five years. Our operations consulting practice is helping dealers put the plans in place to achieve that goal. We also believe that you need to maximize the return on aftermarket; our service consulting practice is helping dealerships achieve that goal. Our MPS practice has helped scores of dealerships launch successful print management initiatives; a must have to thrive in the future. And finally, and most important, you need a solid plan that ties together all of the aforementioned moving parts so that you are one of the dealerships that thrive through the Sea Change.

Get your plan in place, execute, and thrive!

This piece was also published in Document Solutions Daily (www.kworkpublishing.com)