Why All The To Do About Printed Page Coverage

For year’s copier vendors have been selling pages on a cost per page (CPP) basis without regard to an end user company’s page coverage. In so doing they have been able to achieve nice profit margins that allow them to provide quality service, an easy to understand pricing model, fund growth and provide a fair return to the stakeholders.

With copier unit placements dropping rapidly the traditional copier dealers are now moving into the printer world, bringing with them their CPP model. But many dealers are suddenly talking about page coverage area. After selling pages for years why worry about coverage area now. More important, how do you calculate coverage area? Do you take a month’s worth of samples and send them to a coverage area lab for analysis? Do we calibrate print management sales reps’ eyes to ensure they can accurately calculate coverage area?

I believe there are many players driving page coverage, all with a bias. Statistics tells us that with a normal distribution curve 95% of N fall within two standard deviations. Of the remaining 5 percent, half would fall into the “greater than expected” profit range and the other 2.5 percent would fall into the lower than expected range. Do you usually manage your process to the 2 percent?

Moreover, it appears as if there is more evidence that page coverage is not the big concern it is made out to be. Xerox, in discussing the hybrid pricing approach on their ColorCube 9200, estimates it can bring the average cost of color copies down by 62 percent.

So using my deductive reasoning, since Xerox has stated that a normal color page will be in the range of any other copier, but there will be savings with pages with less coverage, doesn’t is stand to reason that Xerox is counting on significantly more pages having low coverage? That is something to consider.

Here’s the link to this and other information on the ColorCube 9200, which does look like a nice device:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?&entry_id=39738

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