Managed Print Services (MPS) are increasingly being adopted by organizations looking to enhance how they manage printing and imaging resources. To date, most MPS strategies are focused too narrowly on reducing cost per printed page, and not enough on end-user needs. Print and imaging vendors and dealers must help organizations shift their focus on MPS to achieve the strategic goal of balancing between digitizing more business processes and managing paper-based workflows.
Work habits are changing, and much of this change is being felt in the conversion from paper to digital.
The office printing market is under pressure from a variety of forces. One look at how mobile technologies have permeated the entire office ecosystem can demonstrate that quite clearly.
These factors have steered the office market’s transition to MPS. As traditional printing continues to decline, manufacturers and dealers are promoting MPS as a way to drive growth. Unfortunately, the value proposition for MPS today remains focused on reducing printing to lower costs, and many dealers are taking a short-sided view to the market opportunity. In many ways, the entry-level market for MPS has evolved to become a “land grab” strategy with providers utilizing MPS as a way to steal pages from competitors.
The basic problem with the “land grab” approach is there simply are not enough pages to go around. Multifunction printers (MFP) in the field or pages under contract remain the primary measurement criteria for most MPS providers today. In order to drive profits through MPS, providers consistently look for ways to take cost out of the system and to push cost-per-page rates lower and lower. In many ways, MPS has become a business driven on price—a commodity.
It has become clear that a better value proposition for MPS is required, not only to expand into the broader market, but to create a sustainable business model for providers.
The good news is MPS has grown significantly over the past few years, and experts are predicting this trend will continue for at least the next several years. Global revenues from MPS reached $11.03 billion in 2011, according to independent market research firm IDC, with printer and MFP vendors accounting for 73 percent of the total, while the channel dealers/resellers and professional service providers accounted for 27 percent. Most market research firms, including IDC, predict double-digit compound annual growth for MPS over the next five years.
Vendors look to capitalize on the growth of MPS but they do so by leveraging the “reduced cost” value proposition to take market share from their competitors. But ultimately, the goal of any managed print engagement should be to drive worker productivity by creating the most efficient and effective document workflow environment. This is critical for providers because as revenue from click-charge contracts continues to erode, the opportunity to replace that source of income lies in value-added workflow services.
This requires a completely different selling motion and approach to the customer. It requires a shift in taking an MPS strategy focused on lower print costs to leveraging customer relationships to deliver value and process efficiencies.
Including MPS software in their offerings will better position print and imaging dealers and their customers to achieve the full potential of MPS initiatives.
Software that works in multi-branded MFP environments is an indispensable component of any successful MPS engagement. Only the right assessment and monitoring tools and software can provide insight into how users interact with their MFP resources and give organizations the ability to influence user behavior in document input- and output-related tasks.
Dealers can leverage MPS software to equip organizations to address the following five key business challenges:
1. Runaway Printing Costs. Organizations are looking to gain control over their print environment equipment, consumables, replenishment, repair and IT operating costs. MPS software provides activity tracking and analysis capabilities for all printing, photocopying, faxing and scanning to identify improvement areas and cost savings. It can deliver results that include improving placement of devices to avoid print and scan backlogs, and rerouting print jobs that don’t require the highest quality output to lower cost devices.
2. Network and Data Security Vulnerabilities. With company confidential information moving through workflows every day, organizations need to establish a chain of custody for every document. MPS software can ensure the security of every print, copy and scan job. For example, it can hold documents in a secure server until users authenticate at the MFP so documents are never left unattended in an output tray. MPS software also authenticates user access at MFPs during scanning to enforce network authentication and permissions when individuals connect to business applications.
3. Tackle Information Governance Risks. Effectively managing the lifecycle of documents across the enterprise is essential in managing records management and statutory compliance risks. MPS software can help organizations be sure personnel adhere to company policies regarding the retention, destruction and distribution of information. The software also provides activity tracking to create a useful audit trail of which people and documents were involved in scanning and printing.
4. Address Business Continuity. Organizations cannot risk that a business disruption – ranging from equipment failures and user error to devastating natural disasters – will result in valuable information assets being permanently lost. MPS software ensures that document capture processes conform to corporate data protection policies so information is backed up and recoverable in the event of an outage. These policies need to cover scanned documents both at the server and desktop levels to mitigate business risk.
5. Stop Counterproductive Workflows. A key part of any MPS strategy needs to be analyzing office and departmental workflows to identify where automation can streamline processes and optimize productivity. Scanning provides an on-ramp for adding paper-based information directly into business applications. It creates searchable digital files which eliminate the labor required when users hunt for information manually – office workers on average spend 16 percent of their time searching for information. Print management capabilities also improves workflows such as preventing abuse of high cost-per-page devices by redirecting documents to the most cost-effective output system.
An effective MPS strategy will leverage integrated software and tools to help print and imaging dealers go beyond cost savings and turn customer printing resources into a source of productivity improvement—in other words, a strategic business asset. As a result, vendors and dealers can strengthen their customer relationships to become an indispensable partner. Driving value and profits for customers translates to repeatable, long-term business that is not easily replaced by competitors.
