Copier dealers are coming to get HP partner’s MPS customers and their IT spend.
As more office technology dealers enter the managed print services (MPS) space, HP channel partners who have been providing managed print services under the HP Partner Managed Print Services program are feeling the pinch. In response, HP has announced the HP Managed Print Specialist Resell Program, a program that provides partners with access to HP’s cloud-based network tools and infrastructure to manage the selling process and retain direct contract ownership with their customers. The program includes various sales options and tools to partners who are more invested in a MPS business and sales force without requiring them to make a substantial investment in infrastructure.
HP’s Partner Managed Print Services was introduced 18 months ago, built around the acquisition of Printelligence, a print management software company, along with additional investment. Under this agent model, HP assists its partners by providing sales support, break/fix services, and toner replacement and delivery at what Bill Avey, vice president of HP Partner Managed Print Services, calls “very high service levels”.
HP and the partner jointly handle account planning, call on customers, provide quotes and proposals, and when successful, close deals. The partner receives an agent fee over the course of the contract for the revenues that are generated. “The contract is between HP and the customer even though they’re still very much that partner’s customer,” emphasizes Avey.
This new program is somewhat of a defensive measure. “We have a lot of legacy HP partners that we’ve worked together with to build a strong printing business together over the last 25 years,” notes Avey. “We have partners that drove on the hardware sales, that drove on the software sales, and that drove on services, and in each case these folks were finding that managed print was a tremendous opportunity, but also a real threat as copier companies began entering into the [MPS business] and looking to take more dollars out of the IT channel and into a direct operation.”
Under the reseller model the contract is now between the customer and the partner. “This enables the partners to not only get the operating profit that flows out of the agent fee, but the top-line revenue recognition that goes along with that as well,” says Avey. “Behind that is the relationship between HP and the partner, enabling that partner to still take advantage of HP’s infrastructure and delivery capabilities. We believe that will provide our resellers with a simple model to drive overall growth in their business.”
Avey points out that it doesn’t have to be one model or the other and that some partners will operate under both models depending on the customer and customer location. For example, an HP partner may use the resell model when dealing with local customers and the partner model when working with customers in another geography.
The HP Managed Print Specialist Resell Program has two primary components. The first is HP Bundled Page, which includes all the components of a managed print service engagement from break/fix, to toner replenishment and delivery, to remote monitoring, to management reporting. Those components comprise the click that HP sells to the reseller. The reseller can then mark up those clicks and resell them to the customer.
The Bundled Page offering is powered by the Express Decision Portal, which allows partners to contact HP and receive on a contract-by-contract basis a custom quote for each individual customer. “This will be customer facing content and they can use that to either feed it into their own proposal generator or add their own branding and bring it to the customer,” says Avey.
HP will allow its resellers to choose their level of integration and programming and will provide them with management tools so that over time the customer can go in and see what’s happening with their fleet. Additionally, the partner will have an appropriate view of their customers and the total fleet they manage.
“And with the appropriate privacy restrictions in place, HP will be able to view that as well so we can deliver great service and supplies fulfillment to that customer,” states Avey.
The initial rollout of the reseller model is here in the U.S. with a roll out of the program in Europe and Asia Pacific to follow.
