In late October, ECi Software Solutions announced a strategic alliance between its FMAudit managed print services (MPS) software and Office Document Consulting Inc. (ODC), a firm specializing in managed print services. In case you weren’t familiar with ODC, they offer OEM and dealer channel MPS development, including sales training, operations restructuring, dealership financial models, MPS compensation program to software development.
As a result of the alliance, FMAudit customers can perform an MPS analysis and develop a strategy to engage the sales process faster using ODC’s MPS in a Tablet. The service provides a tablet that is customized and preloaded with all the resources needed to sell MPS, including a drag-and-drop feature for mapping that eliminates the traditionally long period of time associated with printing each device data page and manually mapping devices. Data analytics gathered from FMAudit are pre-populated in the tablet, reportedly making it easy to analyze current costs and develop a proposed cost-per-page MPS program. During the assessment phase, prospects can see a live demo of MPS industry statistics and processes specific to their business needs. Sales personnel will be able to provide analysis in the field using today’s technology, reducing the time from traditional assessments and in turn, increase closing rates.
To delve a little deeper into this partnership and this new tool for selling MPS, I spoke with Amanda Chiancone, FMAudit product manager. This sounds like a neat application, what was the inspiration?
Chiancone: Yes, this is a neat application. We wanted to help our customers fully utilize and expand the FMAudit product package and decided to partner with ODC. We realized our customers could use this to be more successful in their MPS engagements. It is something that’s different and fresh in our industry all the while being easy to use.
Tell me about your relationship with Office Document Consulting, is that new?
Chiancone: Our relationship with ODC is not new, they have been a customer and a proponent of FMAudit-provided consulting services for clients for a number of years. However, it is the first partnership of its kind for our two organizations.
How exactly will this work for the dealer sales rep?
Chiancone: It’s an easy to use mobile platform to simplify the prospecting engagement and proposal phase. ODC integrates with FMAudit to account for devices in the environment and performs a full print assessment with current and proposed costs, maps the output environment, and generates presentations. All the resources needed to sell MPS, including industry specific videos, white papers and additional information are contained on a tablet.
Will this demo be easy for the customer to understand?
Chiancone: Yes. From my experience at the dealer level for many years, it is important that customers understand what is being offered to them. MPS can be easy or intricate depending on each environment. Though the concept of MPS is similar, programs can be different and it is important that the customer understand how their environment is currently structured and what the proposed program deliverables will include.
What kind of MPS industry statistics might a prospect be seeing and what types of processes?
Chiancone: We are expecting that our customers will have greater success in managing their MPS programs. BTA indicates that 50 percent of dealers that begin offering MPS fail. Our goal is to help these groups succeed. FMAudit Professional Services team notes that 37 percent of dealers “clicks” are either unmanaged or managed by a competitor. We want to offer solutions that help dealers get well over the 50 percent mark. The “classic” process of walking around gathering configuration pages, manually accounting for devices, and managing excel spreadsheets for current and proposed processes should be alleviated.
What kind of impact do you think this will have on dealers using FMAudit?
Chiancone: We know that roughly $157,000 of unbilled monthly revenue is out there with unmanaged or competitively managed devices. By offering an application that assists in performing a comprehensive analysis and shortening the sales cycle we can help dealers achieve these types of numbers. Dealers that are using the solution have expanded their FMAudit portfolio by adding devices to their contract base.
What kind of time savings are you talking about for a sales rep using this?
Chiancone: A 30 percent time savings just in mapping.
What does a dealer need to do to get this?
Chiancone: Contact the FMAudit sales team or me directly at achiancone@fmaudit.com and we will begin the process.
Is there any charge?
Chiancone: There is no upfront fee, but yes, there is a charge per tablet per month in addition to the dealer’s FMAudit monthly fees.
Do you have dealers using this now?
Chiancone: Yes, we do.
Any feedback from them yet?
Chiancone: [They’re telling us it’s] simple to use, all of the sales reps are actively engaged in selling MPS, the tablets allow us to be competitive and different from others in the industry, and the proposal that is generated is very professional and the data is concise and impressive.
