{"id":12027,"date":"2015-04-21T09:34:23","date_gmt":"2015-04-21T16:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/?p=12027"},"modified":"2016-09-15T10:03:49","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T17:03:49","slug":"do-people-still-use-copiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/the-week-in-imaging-twii\/2015\/04\/do-people-still-use-copiers\/","title":{"rendered":"Do People Still Use Copiers?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bostonI was driving to Atlantic City last Friday with a buddy that owns a technology company and he asked me that question.\u00a0 This guy is no dummy: Wharton MBA, has owned his technology company for 25+ years, so he has had to reinvent himself numerous times, owns 50+ rental houses and an insurance brokerage he funded and serves as chairman.\u00a0 The last person to ask me that question was a highly respected attorney who wrote the textbook for his practice area used in law schools. Do people still use copiers?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not difficult to see why people may ask that question. The use of paper is changing dramatically. About six weeks back another friend, a realtor, had a client that was going to put in an offer for a house. That realtor told me that she loved DocuSign and I asked her why. She said it saved her hours of time to get her transaction closed. In the \u201cold days,\u201d two months back, she would have had to prepare all of the paperwork, print out two copies and then drive to her client\u2019s location to have them sign the documents.\u00a0 Once they were signed she needed to drive to the realtor representing the seller and drop the paperwork off.\u00a0 Presumably, that realtor took the paperwork to her client to have signed, had them retain a copy, then went back to her office and made a copy of the other original for her file before driving that original back to my realtor friend, who made a copy for herself then drove the original to her client.<\/p>\n

My friend went on to say that with DocuSign she prepared the paperwork electronically and e-mailed it to her client with an authorization to sign the contract using the DocuSign application.\u00a0 After her client signed they e-mailed the agreement back to my realtor friend and she then e-mailed it to the other realtor with an authorization for her client to sign using DocuSign.\u00a0 Once the buyers authorized the agreement they had their own copy, which they didn\u2019t need to print, and could e-mail \u201can original\u201d back to their realtor, who could download and save a copy before e-mailing it to my realtor friend, who could download and save a copy before e-mailing it to her client. Not a single mile driven, not a single page printed when two months back it would have been 100+ pages and dozens of miles of driving.<\/p>\n

Nobody in the transaction gave a second of thought to not using paper, yet paper was eliminated.\u00a0 Convenience is what drove the change in behavior and the lack of paper use was an outcome of the behavioral change.\u00a0 As I think about it the transaction was made totally green because not only did they eliminate paper, but they also eliminated the use of gasoline and the emissions from the car. But again, \u201cgreen\u201d wasn\u2019t the goal just an unintended benefit of the change.<\/p>\n

My answer to the question \u201cDo people still use copiers\u201d is a resounding \u201cYes,\u201d but that yes is qualified with less and less and I believe that trend will accelerate.<\/p>\n

About three years back, I worked with a start-up MPS provider in San Francisco. Having helped scores of companies launch true MPS practices\u2014those focused to major accounts\u2014I thought I was pretty good at selecting the target market based on employee count and industry vertical.\u00a0 San Francisco proved some of my past experience didn\u2019t pertain. This MPS provider would call on new technology companies, companies in business less than five years but with 250+ employees and they would have one copier and five printers. \u00a0That\u2019s a 40:1 ratio of employee to device in a knowledge worker environment, meaning every employee had a computer, and most of the devices weren\u2019t even copiers.\u00a0 Some of the companies only had printers.\u00a0 This wasn\u2019t one or two companies, but rather almost every new technology company they called on.\u00a0 It was amazing to me, but it also showed me what the future could look like; Companies that don\u2019t develop processes around paper don\u2019t need output devices.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not trying to yell \u201cfire\u201d in a crowded theatre because most legacy companies\u2019 processes are paper based and people are slow to change. You want a perfect example of that?\u00a0 How many reading this article\u2014in the \u201cdocument management business\u201d\u2014are still paper based?\u00a0 I have worked with dozens of \u201ccopier companies\u201d where the sales professional doesn\u2019t have access to the customer\u2019s present documents without going to a filing cabinet despite the fact that the company sells DocuWare or some other document management software.\u00a0 They sell it, but haven\u2019t implemented it internally in all of their processes.<\/p>\n

Tech companies are clearly leading that change both internally and through the products they sell. Highly regulated industries like healthcare and banking are making the transition as well. So what should the traditional copier company do at this point?\u00a0 I believe there are four areas of focus.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Get your G&A expenses to below 10%<\/li>\n
  2. Focus on gaining market share in the traditional core business of print<\/li>\n
  3. Hire\/train your sales professionals to a new model<\/li>\n
  4. Help companies eliminate paper and sell them the software solutions and consulting services that help them reduce paper usage<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Some will say \u201cHow about service returns\u201d?\u00a0 I didn\u2019t mention service because the industry seems to have that dialed in. I don\u2019t encounter many copier companies that don\u2019t have service margins in the 47% and up range, with many in the 55% range. The only thing I\u2019d look at with service is how much of your margin is coming from contracts where the customer isn\u2019t hitting their minimums. I think every service leader and business owner should know this figure cold, and it should become part of your company dashboard.\u00a0 I say that because I don\u2019t see it continuing.\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine that customers won\u2019t start demanding more flexible contracts as they come to realize their paper usage is dropping.\u00a0 Forewarned is forearmed so plan for that day and make certain your service operations are performing without that revenue.<\/p>\n

    We are in a high profit business, but we, unfortunately, have high expenses to go along with those high profits. With sales expenses hovering in the 30% of equipment range and G&A in the 17% of total sales range they become unsustainable as the industry continues to mature. Work to automate processes and get your G&A to sub 10%.<\/p>\n

    For all of the changes going on with paper the print business is still highly profitable and does produce a lot of cash, when run correctly. In the Boston Consulting Group chart the imaging business would be in the lower left, cash cow.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t mean you cannot grow the business; You can.\u00a0 But you need to grow by taking market share from your competitors.\u00a0 As with all companies trudging through maturity, consolidation is one approach to gaining market share and I strongly encourage those companies with the business model in place and that generate enough cash to continue to buy competitors and add to your print devices in the field.\u00a0 Each device produces predictable monthly revenue and that is highly desirable.<\/p>\n

    Driving your expenses down will provide you with a competitive advantage to take customers from your competitors.\u00a0 Each device you capture will produce that predictable annuity stream for you so gaining those customers has to be a focus for your sales team. Unfortunately, most companies in the imaging space are not good at managing their sales team. You want to verify if you fit this model?\u00a0 Just answer a few simple questions:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Do you have a few highly tenured sales professionals that produce the majority of your equipment revenue and profits?<\/li>\n
    2. Do you have difficulty in getting new sales hires to stay? Do you have one highly tenured group and then a group with less than one year?<\/li>\n
    3. Can you look out a month or two and predict with some degree of certainty what your equipment revenue will be a month or two out?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

       <\/p>\n

      If you answered yes to the first two and no to question 3 you have a really poor sales process in place.\u00a0 If you answered no to the first two and yes to question 3 you have a really good sales processes in place. For those that are in, or close to, the former I\u2019ll detail out how to develop a professional and productive sales organization in part two of this article in next week\u2019s ENX\/The Week in Imaging.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      I was driving to Atlantic City last Friday with a buddy that owns a technology company and he asked me that question.\u00a0 This guy is no dummy: Wharton MBA, has owned his technology company for 25+ years, so he has had to reinvent himself numerous times, owns 50+ rental houses and an insurance brokerage he funded and serves as chairman.\u00a0 The last person to ask me that question was a highly respected attorney who wrote the textbook for his practice area used in law schools. Do people still use copiers? It\u2019s not difficult to see why people may ask that question. The use of paper is changing dramatically. About six weeks back another friend, a realtor, had a client that was going to put in an offer for a house. That realtor told me that she loved DocuSign and I asked her why. She said it saved her hours of time to get her transaction closed. In the \u201cold days,\u201d two months back, she would have had to prepare all of the paperwork, print out two copies and then drive to her client\u2019s location to have them sign the documents.\u00a0 Once they were signed she needed to drive to the realtor representing the seller and drop the paperwork off.\u00a0 Presumably, that realtor took the paperwork to her client to have signed, had them retain a copy, then went back to her office and made a copy of the other original for her file before driving that original back to my realtor friend, who made a copy for herself then drove the original to her client. My friend went on to say that with DocuSign she prepared the paperwork electronically and e-mailed it to her client with an authorization to sign the contract using the DocuSign application.\u00a0 After her client signed they e-mailed the agreement back to my realtor friend and she then e-mailed it to the other realtor with an authorization for her client to sign using DocuSign.\u00a0 Once the buyers authorized the agreement they had their own copy, which they didn\u2019t need to print, and could e-mail \u201can original\u201d back to their realtor, who could download and save a copy before e-mailing it to my realtor friend, who could download and save a copy before e-mailing it to her client. Not a single mile driven, not a single page printed when two months back it would have been 100+ pages and dozens of miles of driving. Nobody in the transaction gave a second of thought to not using paper, yet paper was eliminated.\u00a0 Convenience is what drove the change in behavior and the lack of paper use was an outcome of the behavioral change.\u00a0 As I think about it the transaction was made totally green because not only did they eliminate paper, but they also eliminated the use of gasoline and the emissions from the car. But again, \u201cgreen\u201d wasn\u2019t the goal just an unintended benefit of the change. My answer to the question \u201cDo people still use copiers\u201d is a resounding \u201cYes,\u201d but that yes is qualified with less and less and I believe that trend will accelerate. About three years back, I worked with a start-up MPS provider in San Francisco. Having helped scores of companies launch true MPS practices\u2014those focused to major accounts\u2014I thought I was pretty good at selecting the target market based on employee count and industry vertical.\u00a0 San Francisco proved some of my past experience didn\u2019t pertain. This MPS provider would call on new technology companies, companies in business less than five years but with 250+ employees and they would have one copier and five printers. \u00a0That\u2019s a 40:1 ratio of employee to device in a knowledge worker environment, meaning every employee had a computer, and most of the devices weren\u2019t even copiers.\u00a0 Some of the companies only had printers.\u00a0 This wasn\u2019t one or two companies, but rather almost every new technology company they called on.\u00a0 It was amazing to me, but it also showed me what the future could look like; Companies that don\u2019t develop processes around paper don\u2019t need output devices. I\u2019m not trying to yell \u201cfire\u201d in a crowded theatre because most legacy companies\u2019 processes are paper based and people are slow to change. You want a perfect example of that?\u00a0 How many reading this article\u2014in the \u201cdocument management business\u201d\u2014are still paper based?\u00a0 I have worked with dozens of \u201ccopier companies\u201d where the sales professional doesn\u2019t have access to the customer\u2019s present documents without going to a filing cabinet despite the fact that the company sells DocuWare or some other document management software.\u00a0 They sell it, but haven\u2019t implemented it internally in all of their processes. Tech companies are clearly leading that change both internally and through the products they sell. Highly regulated industries like healthcare and banking are making the transition as well. So what should the traditional copier company do at this point?\u00a0 I believe there are four areas of focus. Get your G&A expenses to below 10% Focus on gaining market share in the traditional core business of print Hire\/train your sales professionals to a new model Help companies eliminate paper and sell them the software solutions and consulting services that help them reduce paper usage Some will say \u201cHow about service returns\u201d?\u00a0 I didn\u2019t mention service because the industry seems to have that dialed in. I don\u2019t encounter many copier companies that don\u2019t have service margins in the 47% and up range, with many in the 55% range. The only thing I\u2019d look at with service is how much of your margin is coming from contracts where the customer isn\u2019t hitting their minimums. I think every service leader and business owner should know this figure cold, and it should become part of your company dashboard.\u00a0 I say that because I don\u2019t see it continuing.\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine that customers won\u2019t start demanding more flexible contracts as they come to realize their paper usage is dropping.\u00a0 Forewarned is forearmed so plan for that day and make certain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1638],"tags":[155,247,275,339,346],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12027"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12027"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12200,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12027\/revisions\/12200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}