{"id":16670,"date":"2016-03-01T13:02:27","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T18:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/?p=16670"},"modified":"2016-03-04T12:34:21","modified_gmt":"2016-03-04T17:34:21","slug":"mps-history-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/feature-articles\/2016\/03\/mps-history-lessons\/","title":{"rendered":"MPS History Lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"

MPS advocates and early adopters discuss lessons learned about marketing MPS over the years.<\/em><\/p>\n

MPS has now been around long enough now for it to possess an established a track record within the document imaging industry. Indeed, there\u2019s a wealth of dealers offering MPS to their customers, some doing well, others stumbling and fumbling, but trying to get a handle on it just the same.<\/p>\n

\"Kevin

Kevin Morris, OneDoc<\/p><\/div>\n

We thought it would be interesting to connect with a few dealers who are doing it well along with some of the leading advocates of the MPS movement to get their perspectives on how the market, MPS offerings, and the perception of MPS has changed over the past several years as well as lessons learned marketing MPS.<\/p>\n

Even though the industry has been marketing, promoting, and dishing about MPS for a number of years now, Kevin Morris, president, OneDOC Managed Print Services, LLC in Oklahoma City, OK, contends that most [customers] still don\u2019t know what MPS is. That\u2019s a good lesson for anyone marketing MPS.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the reality from a client perspective,\u201d he says. \u201cFrom a provider perspective, just about everybody in the industry is involved in it. MPS has definitely changed from the perspective of increased competition, especially in the enterprise market. \u00a0Everybody is in that market and there\u2019s a lot of companies that don\u2019t really provide MPS calling it MPS. It\u2019s just re-labeled service and supplies agreements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morris has been knee deep in the MPS world since 2002, and whether it\u2019s been OneDOC, the company he founded in 2009; OneSource Document Management, the company he founded in 2003, or Print, Inc., where he served as a MPS consultant from 2002-2003, the organizations he\u2019s been involved with have been on a mission to do things differently than everybody else.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as our company, we\u2019re not a whole lot different than we were back then as far as how we attack our market,\u201d says Morris. \u201cIt\u2019s just a different perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Nathan

Nathan Maust, ASI Business Solutions<\/p><\/div>\n

When it comes to dealers who offer MPS programs, Morris doesn\u2019t think that\u2019s changed all that much.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just another way of marketing a whole bunch of equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nathan Maust, a major account executive with ASI Business Solutions in Dallas, TX, knows MPS and he\u2019s seen some changes in regards to market perception since 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of companies from an end user perspective that were burned by MPS engagements, so when you approach them from a break-fix, toner, auto fulfillment [perspective] it\u2019s a message they\u2019ve heard millions of times and they\u2019ve become resistant to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the reasons that ASI\u2019s approach to MPS is not a device centric, page-focused managed print offering, but focused more on intelligent print management, print governance, and addressing end user printing behaviors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a message the market is much more responsive to,\u201d states Maust.<\/p>\n

\"Pat

Pat Russell, ImageNet Consulting<\/p><\/div>\n

Pat Russell, President and CEO of ImageNet Consulting, sees the improvement in the software offerings as being the most positive change.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately our goals are the same, and that\u2019s managing the print environment for our customers.\u00a0 The change has been more with the software piece that goes with it, such as uniFlow, PaperCut, etc.\u00a0 PaperCut seems to be getting a lot of traction [recently] because it\u2019s very reasonably priced and easy to install. I would say that\u2019s been the biggest change in the 10 years we\u2019ve been offering [MPS] \u2014 more efficiencies around the software solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest change the market has seen is the massive commoditization of MPS,\u201d opines Christian Pepper, director of marketing and business intelligence at LMI Solutions.<\/p>\n

\"Christian

Christian Pepper, LMI<\/p><\/div>\n

When Pepper first started making presentations on managed print he\u2019d ask resellers how much they charged for a monochrome print. \u00a0He discovered the average price was about 2.5 cents per page. Fast forward a few years later and the average price had dropped to about a penny per page or 8 mils.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many MPS providers taking on monochrome fleets and charging a half a cent per page for supplies and service,\u201d observes Pepper. \u201cThat\u2019s the most dramatic change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started almost 13 years ago there was great promise about all that MPS could do, but it only delivered on two [things],\u201d states West McDonald, vice president of business development, Print Audit. \u201cOne was billing per page and the second was auto toner fulfillment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where MPS and MPS providers have faltered are automated service management and providing customers with quarterly reviews. That may be why there\u2019s less than a 30 percent customer retention rate for dealers offering MPS, according to estimates from Photizo Group analyst Ken Stewart.<\/p>\n

\"McDonald

West McDonald, Print Audit<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIn other words, 70 percent or higher are going to do it and then leave,\u201d says McDonald.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the problem?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t done enough work on delivering on the promise we made in the first place,\u201d responds McDonald. \u201cSecond, the world has changed. Fifteen, sixteen years is a long time, especially when technology is involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explains that the original concept for MPS was built around limited technology and focused around the devices.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we live in a world of micro-manufacturing and cars that park themselves and every device under the sun is monitored and managed in this Internet of things,\u201d observes McDonald. \u201cBut MPS hasn\u2019t evolved to catch up to that. The market for managing people\u2019s print is still there, but based on the [original] model we built for MPS, its days are limited.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ken_Stewart_2012-small\"

Ken Stewart, Photizo<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe more things change, the more things remain the same,\u201d states Photizo\u2019s Ken Stewart. \u201cMPS hasn\u2019t changed much in terms of its original value proposition, but regardless of how the industry is messaging and morphing the offering, I don\u2019t think customers are receiving it. The technology providers have matured and the offerings have become more streamlined, but it\u2019s a race to the bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even for customers who understand MPS, Stewart says what Photizo is seeing from the many providers, whether they be the OEMs or the dealer channel, is that each simply wraps their own bow around the same package.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so many variations of how people define MPS it can be hard to compare all the programs in the market,\u201d concurs Sarah Custer, director of service and solutions sales for Supplies Network. \u201cWhen you look under the hood there are a lot of differences on how operational elements are executed. If anything the bar is raising and there\u2019s less room for someone just manually billing for clicks at the end of the month [and marketing that as MPS].\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Custer_Sarah_PC\"

Sarah Custer, Supplies Network<\/p><\/div>\n

Custer has found buyers to be more educated about MPS than in the past. Another change, at least for those with a working knowledge of MPS, is that customers are looking for what Custer describes as a more operational sophistication in their engagement such as an online portal that provides a snapshot of the environment including device level detail and critical information such as when supplies are being shipped and needed service and maintenance information.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen a lot of change with MPS over the last several years,\u201d says Lindsay Bohon, vice president sales, GreatAmerica Financial Services Corp. \u201cWhen MPS came into the market it was exciting, it was innovative, and the initial hype led to a flurry of sales and marketing tactics.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t long before resellers became disillusioned and frustrated for a number of reasons, the least of which were a lack of sales incentives, compensation discrepancies, and revenues that were less than initially expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019ve seen it plateau and those who have honed in, added solutions and different strategic [options] to their MPS offerings have become successful,\u201d says Bohon. \u201cThe MPSA has recognized the change in the MPS model by redefining their definition of MPS and the change includes adding business processes and information as a more integral part of the definition.\u201d \u00a0(See sidebar for the MPSA\u2019s definition of MPS.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Devon

Devon Thompson, PrintFleet<\/p><\/div>\n

Devon Thompson, manager, customer experience with PrintFleet, has been with the company for seven years and has followed the evolution of PrintFleet\u2019s product line from a program that took a basic snapshot of a print environment to where the product is today, providing resellers with true automation and a focus on data analytics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the biggest changes,\u201d states Thompson. \u201cAnother major change I saw was the transition of resellers moving from \u2018simply\u2019 box selling to providing a solution, and truly understanding how they are bringing efficiencies with these tools\/solutions for their customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also witnessed PrintFleet shift from providing simple integrations with partners to being truly connected to those partners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe partnerships are so much more robust, not only with our partners in the industry but encouraging our customers to have any number of partners to create their ideal solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mitch

Mitch Filby, First Rock Consulting<\/p><\/div>\n

Mitchell Filby, managing director of First Rock Consulting and author of Rest in Print: from office printing to the rise in managed services<\/em>, finds that everything<\/em> regarding MPS has changed during the past several years.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnd customers, especially in the medium to large enterprise markets are now searching and looking for Managed Print Service providers and most believe that a MPS solution is what they need to assist them gain added value and cost savings and operational efficiency. That was not the case 5 to 10 years ago. The market perception of MPS has now become a reality and the level of maturity of MPS has increased significantly over the last three to four years. This maturity is at both ends of the scale\u2014the customer and the provider\u2014both have refined and matured their view of what MPS should be and what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Driving this change in perception within the target markets are C-level executives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of CIO’s and CFO’s and Chief Procurement Officers (CPO) understand the value proposition to some point about the MPS offering,\u201d says Filby. \u201cMPS in many ways looks like, smells like, tastes like, and on the surface is represented like other Managed Services offerings the client has purchased or invested in before. \u00a0In some way customers adopted MPS faster than most providers understood it. They were clearer (mainly CIO’s) what they wanted to achieve from MPS. The customer wanted a way to move from a transaction play that was led by a manufacturer or was dominated by a certain technology footprint. They wanted a provider that managed their environment regardless of the logo on the box. They just wanted to pay or be charged for the outcome that they desired or expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Toshiba

Bill Melo, Toshiba<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhen we first started our offering around 2004 it was an immature market, the term MPS wasn\u2019t coined or popularized yet, and most importantly for several years we were educating customers about what this even was, why it made sense, and what value they got out of it, and how it would work from a Toshiba perspective,\u201d recalls Bill Melo, chief marketing executive, Toshiba America Business Solutions\/Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions. \u201cAmazingly, even though [dealers] went out and repaired MFPs every day doing the same thing for printers seemed bizarre to them as comical as that might seem these days.\u201d<\/p>\n

He acknowledges that MPS was initially a vendor driven market for several years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good part was you got to educate your customer and be a consultant to them and there were a lot fewer competitors in those days, and the pricing was more the functionality of the value you could create rather than 10 people bidding on a deal,\u201d says Melo.<\/p>\n

The other change he\u2019s witnessed regarding the perception of MPS is that many customers are familiar with MPS and have already had some experience with it whether that experience was good, bad or indifferent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is unfortunately becoming more of a commodity than it used to be although there are still a lot of moving parts, still a lot to execute, and still to some degree it can be consultative, and that\u2019s a big difference over the past couple of years,\u201d observes Melo. \u201cWhen we first started, we were making stuff as we went along. We got to take some of the early arrows and make some mistakes but along the way we got a lot of good experience and now it\u2019s kind of a \u2018machine\u2019 for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the biggest lesson OneDOC\u2019s Morris has learned, even if it\u2019s something he had a strong inkling about back in the early days, was showing the customer what made his organization\u2019s offering different from everyone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a reason it\u2019s called \u2018Managed,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of our competitors don\u2019t really manage anything. We do. We go in and look at workflow, how they move information from Point A to Point B, how they create, distribute, and store documents. We try to show people ways to reduce their document output. The typical dealer wants to put as many pages under contract as humanly possible. We don\u2019t look at it from that perspective. We try to do what\u2019s truly best for the client. When we go into companies we tell them up front, we don\u2019t warehouse equipment because we don\u2019t know what your needs are. A lot of my competitors, regardless of your need, are going to try to sell you what\u2019s in their warehouse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another lesson Morris has learned over the years is the credibility that comes from industry accreditations, such as the CompTIA Managed Print Trustmark.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are probably only 100 dealers nationwide who have that CompTIA Trustmark,\u201d reports Morris.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing we learned is that it\u2019s not the same as servicing copiers,\u201d adds ASI\u2019s Maust. \u201cThere are a lot more processes, a lot more moving parts, inventory management both at ASI and the end client level, and more importantly much more process driven engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explains that there\u2019s a lot more analysis and reporting required in order to make MPS a profitable and valuable engagement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first got into MPS, it was more like here\u2019s a cost per page for all these given printers and let\u2019s roll with it and see how it goes,\u201d says Maust. \u201cNow it\u2019s our MDOM (Measure, Design, Optimize, Manage) process that\u2019s become critical for treating every client engagement as a managed process and as a managed service.\u201d<\/p>\n

For ASI it\u2019s all about better defining the process and bringing more detail in terms of reporting to its clients.<\/p>\n

\u201c[That\u2019s something] a lot of dealers talk about, but here at ASI that\u2019s actually a measured process and something sales people are held accountable on and something where we continue to get measured feedback from our clients in terms of \u2018I never had this kind of visibility or accountability with any other company I\u2019ve worked with in this space.\u2019 Our technology review process is really our secret sauce in client engagements.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the biggest lessons that Print Audit\u2019s McDonald has learned from dealers who have been successful at marketing MPS is that they do a good job with assessments.<\/p>\n

\u201c[They\u2019re] not just walking around the floor and looking at printers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Another lesson is that successful MPS dealers make sure they\u2019re providing their customers with quarterly business reviews.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose two things alone, understanding what the solution should be in the first place and then following up once a quarter to make sure they\u2019re on track are the biggest lessons I\u2019ve learned watching some of the most successful companies offering managed print,\u201d says McDonald.<\/p>\n

He cites a third element and that\u2019s a vendor neutral proposition where the dealer supports multiple brands of MFPs and printers within their MPS offering.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf those three things are done correctly they\u2019ll be able to increase their win rates from 30 percent to 70 percent,\u201d opines McDonald. \u201cA lot of it is filtering out those opportunities on the front end which aren\u2019t opportunities. They\u2019re also getting better at closing accounts they might have lost because they understand what they\u2019re looking for, and they\u2019re following up with [customers] and measuring against what they promised.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery situation can be different,\u201d cautions ImageNet\u2019s Russell.\u00a0 \u201cWhat may be a great solution for one business may not be the same solution for another. There\u2019s not really a one-size-fits-all for any organization. Sure there are some commonalities, but we need to make sure we\u2019re not just interrupting somebody\u2019s business.\u00a0 We\u2019re making sure the business is more efficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russell continues, \u201cFor some customers, decentralization of print is a better fit. For other customers, consolidation is a better fit. There\u2019s a big difference between managing services and billing for a click, and providing technology solutions to improve our clients\u2019 bottom line.\u00a0 We\u2019re not just there to collect a meter and bill you for it every month.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the biggest lessons when it comes to marketing MPS is to not assume that you know everything,\u201d opines LMI\u2019s Pepper.<\/p>\n

He cites an LMI specific lesson as an example. Early on LMI Founder Gary Willert couldn\u2019t understand why people would outsource managed print to a third party, giving up that opportunity to be sticky with a customer and managing their print for an extended period of time. By listening to its customers LMI learned the reasons why they should<\/em> do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we are the consumable manufacturer and infrastructure provider, we are better equipped to manage the risk associated with MPS,\u201d says Pepper. \u201cThis provided [dealers with] a predictable margin and enabled them to take on customers outside of their geographical area of service coverage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I work with successful providers, coming from a provider myself who was successful, it starts with the messaging and the story we tell\u2014an articulate story where we explain to them what they can expect to experience,\u201d states Photizo\u2019s Stewart.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important in Stewart\u2019s opinion to understand what you are and what you aren\u2019t when it comes to marketing MPS. It\u2019s also essential to be operationally efficient depending on what type of customer you\u2019re targeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we see that demarcation of the market\u2014high-value providers that serve fewer customers but provide higher-value solutions and are more consultative versus those that just offer higher-volume solutions,\u201d explains Stewart. \u201cI still see a lot of providers in the middle and the waters are not quite hot enough to cook them just yet, but give them a few years and it will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the early days of Supplies Network\u2019s MPS program West McDonald (funny how that name keeps popping up whenever MPS is mentioned), then with another company that Supplies Network was partnering with, used to say, \u2018When you see one network\u2026you\u2019ve seen ONE network\u2019. Experience has demonstrated every environment is truly unique.<\/p>\n

That lesson has been instrumental in Supplies Network\u2019s approach to the market.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve learned that we are dealing with so many different sets of expectations at the reseller and the end user level we had to build a flexible and adaptable program that allows many variations while still keeping that operational structure to allow them to scale while accommodating all environments,\u201d states Custer. \u201cIt turns out all end users have some unique need specific to their environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another lesson Supplies Network has learned in terms of supplies replenishment is that, surprise, surprise, printers lie.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think everything is going great in terms of monitoring the device and when they need a supply, but\u00a0 there are tons of anomalies that can occur at the model level even down to the level of firmware that\u2019s installed on a printer where you can get erroneous readings and faults for replenishment,\u201d reveals Custer. \u201cYou have to understand each and every model that you\u2019re managing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lindsay

Lindsay Bohon, GreatAmerica Financials<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI look back at the market share lead we could have had in this space had we really gone all in [at the beginning] because a lot of our competitors didn\u2019t start doing this until five or six years later,\u201d says Toshiba\u2019s Melo. \u201cWe\u2019d have had a pretty significant share of the market if we had gone at it as much as we are now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The top three lessons GreatAmerica has learned about MPS surround compensation, the importance of properly analyzing the customer\u2019s environment, and the importance of quarterly business reviews.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompensation plans always becomes top of mind whenever you think about any new program that a dealer is bringing to market\u2014ensuring that it\u2019s driving the long-term service revenue for MPS and most important, tying in the short-term hardware goals,\u201d contends Bohon. \u201cThat depends on [the dealer\u2019s] go-to-market strategy\u2014whether it\u2019s that land grab approach or rip and replace. The various ways MPS are offered to the market demands different compensation models.\u201d<\/p>\n

Honing in on the analysis, Bohon says that\u2019s critical before finalizing a service agreement, particularly getting a handle on all the devices in that environment and being aware of whether they\u2019re overused or underutilized as well as the toner costs.<\/p>\n

Like some of her peers, Bohon emphasizes the importance of quarterly business reviews.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing in and being in front of that customer, reporting and communicating on not only the service value you\u2019re bringing to that environment, but also the device replacements needs that are going on to ensure efficiency metrics are met.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest lesson is understanding how truly important and invaluable the data we collect is,\u201d says PrintFleet\u2019s Thompson. \u201cIt\u2019s become the core focus for PrintFleet and what our software program is built around.\u201d<\/p>\n

This has enabled new partnerships with the likes of IBM and Photizo in regards to Predictive Analytics as well as PrintFleet\u2019s new relationship with MWAI.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us it\u2019s focusing on the data and on the partnerships that\u2019s going to drive more value for our customers with the product,\u201d adds Thompson.<\/p>\n

The other lesson that PrintFleet has learned from working with resellers is that they want the program to be a fix all, press the button, and it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of heavy lifting and a lot of work that has to be done, truly understanding how you\u2019re going to differentiate yourself in the marketplace,\u201d observes Thompson. \u201cWhat value are you going to drive? Are you going to use a basic MPS program or are there other initiatives you\u2019re going to try besides the software program it enables? That\u2019s what we see dealers struggle with and where we can help them based on what we\u2019ve learned over the past 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not to go all negative, but one of the many lessons that Filby has learned over the years is that some MPS providers still don’t get it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe it’s about managing the reward and recognition, but this will ultimately impact your business and you will lose market share, which in this industry is still one of the key ingredients to future sustainability,\u201d acknowledges Filby. \u201cWe still see MPS providers focused on the solution (products) not the client’s problem or what the client is trying to achieve. This becomes evident in the client’s eye very fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also learned that MPS clients have become adept at sitting back and watching the different MPS providers slug it out in a race to the bottom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis ultimately results in the customer winning and other providers knocking themselves out of contention,\u201d says Filby. \u201cUltimately, the provider winning the opportunity does this at a much lower rate than they would have it there was limited competition. On this point we may be seeing less experienced sales people come in and ratchet the service cost down to either win the business or hurt the opposition. Maybe this points to a more assertive sales style from a hardened and competitive industry. Either way, the customer likes the end outcome. Why wouldn’t they?\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the biggest and most optimistic lesson Filby has learned is that MPS still has a long way to go, which is exciting for the industry and the customer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is still an enormous opportunity for both the customer and provider,\u201d concludes Filby.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

MPSA Definition of MPS<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThe active management and optimization of business processes related to documents and information, including input and output devices.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

This is an update from the past definition: \u201cThe active management and optimization of document output devices and related business processes.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MPS advocates and early adopters discuss lessons learned about marketing MPS over the years. MPS has now been around long enough now for it to possess an established a track record within the document imaging industry. Indeed, there\u2019s a wealth of dealers offering MPS to their customers, some doing well, others stumbling and fumbling, but trying to get a handle on it just the same. We thought it would be interesting to connect with a few dealers who are doing it well along with some of the leading advocates of the MPS movement to get their perspectives on how the market, MPS offerings, and the perception of MPS has changed over the past several years as well as lessons learned marketing MPS. Even though the industry has been marketing, promoting, and dishing about MPS for a number of years now, Kevin Morris, president, OneDOC Managed Print Services, LLC in Oklahoma City, OK, contends that most [customers] still don\u2019t know what MPS is. That\u2019s a good lesson for anyone marketing MPS. \u201cThat\u2019s the reality from a client perspective,\u201d he says. \u201cFrom a provider perspective, just about everybody in the industry is involved in it. MPS has definitely changed from the perspective of increased competition, especially in the enterprise market. \u00a0Everybody is in that market and there\u2019s a lot of companies that don\u2019t really provide MPS calling it MPS. It\u2019s just re-labeled service and supplies agreements.\u201d Morris has been knee deep in the MPS world since 2002, and whether it\u2019s been OneDOC, the company he founded in 2009; OneSource Document Management, the company he founded in 2003, or Print, Inc., where he served as a MPS consultant from 2002-2003, the organizations he\u2019s been involved with have been on a mission to do things differently than everybody else. \u201cAs far as our company, we\u2019re not a whole lot different than we were back then as far as how we attack our market,\u201d says Morris. \u201cIt\u2019s just a different perspective.\u201d When it comes to dealers who offer MPS programs, Morris doesn\u2019t think that\u2019s changed all that much. \u201cIt\u2019s just another way of marketing a whole bunch of equipment.\u201d Nathan Maust, a major account executive with ASI Business Solutions in Dallas, TX, knows MPS and he\u2019s seen some changes in regards to market perception since 2004. \u201cThere are a lot of companies from an end user perspective that were burned by MPS engagements, so when you approach them from a break-fix, toner, auto fulfillment [perspective] it\u2019s a message they\u2019ve heard millions of times and they\u2019ve become resistant to it.\u201d That\u2019s one of the reasons that ASI\u2019s approach to MPS is not a device centric, page-focused managed print offering, but focused more on intelligent print management, print governance, and addressing end user printing behaviors. \u201cThat\u2019s a message the market is much more responsive to,\u201d states Maust. Pat Russell, President and CEO of ImageNet Consulting, sees the improvement in the software offerings as being the most positive change. \u201cUltimately our goals are the same, and that\u2019s managing the print environment for our customers.\u00a0 The change has been more with the software piece that goes with it, such as uniFlow, PaperCut, etc.\u00a0 PaperCut seems to be getting a lot of traction [recently] because it\u2019s very reasonably priced and easy to install. I would say that\u2019s been the biggest change in the 10 years we\u2019ve been offering [MPS] \u2014 more efficiencies around the software solutions.\u201d \u201cThe biggest change the market has seen is the massive commoditization of MPS,\u201d opines Christian Pepper, director of marketing and business intelligence at LMI Solutions. When Pepper first started making presentations on managed print he\u2019d ask resellers how much they charged for a monochrome print. \u00a0He discovered the average price was about 2.5 cents per page. Fast forward a few years later and the average price had dropped to about a penny per page or 8 mils. \u201cThere are many MPS providers taking on monochrome fleets and charging a half a cent per page for supplies and service,\u201d observes Pepper. \u201cThat\u2019s the most dramatic change.\u201d \u201cWhen I started almost 13 years ago there was great promise about all that MPS could do, but it only delivered on two [things],\u201d states West McDonald, vice president of business development, Print Audit. \u201cOne was billing per page and the second was auto toner fulfillment.\u201d Where MPS and MPS providers have faltered are automated service management and providing customers with quarterly reviews. That may be why there\u2019s less than a 30 percent customer retention rate for dealers offering MPS, according to estimates from Photizo Group analyst Ken Stewart. \u201cIn other words, 70 percent or higher are going to do it and then leave,\u201d says McDonald. What\u2019s the problem? \u201cWe haven\u2019t done enough work on delivering on the promise we made in the first place,\u201d responds McDonald. \u201cSecond, the world has changed. Fifteen, sixteen years is a long time, especially when technology is involved.\u201d He explains that the original concept for MPS was built around limited technology and focused around the devices. \u201cNow we live in a world of micro-manufacturing and cars that park themselves and every device under the sun is monitored and managed in this Internet of things,\u201d observes McDonald. \u201cBut MPS hasn\u2019t evolved to catch up to that. The market for managing people\u2019s print is still there, but based on the [original] model we built for MPS, its days are limited.\u201d \u201cThe more things change, the more things remain the same,\u201d states Photizo\u2019s Ken Stewart. \u201cMPS hasn\u2019t changed much in terms of its original value proposition, but regardless of how the industry is messaging and morphing the offering, I don\u2019t think customers are receiving it. The technology providers have matured and the offerings have become more streamlined, but it\u2019s a race to the bottom.\u201d Even for customers who understand MPS, Stewart says what Photizo is seeing from the many providers, whether they be the OEMs or the dealer channel, is that each simply wraps their own bow around the same package. \u201cThere\u2019s so many variations of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[82],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16670"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16865,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16670\/revisions\/16865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}