Rule No.1 for Medium to Large business – Continue to build your MPS capability

Posted on November 4, 2013

MPS is growing both in size and scope, moving down market from traditional enterprise accounts where it began into large and midsize businesses. But with growth comes competition, and differentiating in a services business is always a difficult task. Meanwhile, the market has seen some commoditization of MPS – particularly in basic fleet-management services, where opportunities for differentiation are limited.

For the most part, MPS today is promoted as a means to reduce print costs, drive print reduction and, to some extent, improve overall sustainability. Most MPS providers take this narrow view on the MPS value proposition because it tugs at the heart of businesses focused on reducing costs. It is an effective message for capturing competitive devices, thereby increasing the number of pages under contract.

Most market research firms continue to position MPS as a growth opportunity, although the aggressive growth rates that were projected just a couple of years ago are no longer the norm. Of course, the future of MPS is tied directly to the future of office printing. If office printing is declining, what are the prospects for MPS?

There is no question that office print volumes are declining. The challenging economy has put pressure on businesses to reduce costs, and printing is one area that has seen a substantial impact. Hardware placements have declined steadily, and it is unlikely that we will see unit shipments reach prerecession levels ever again. Most market research firms are predicting slight declines in page volumes over the next few years, but market indicators suggest that we might see even more aggressive declines.

In short, today’s office printing market is saturated, with overcapacity and underutilization of current products to boot. This is one of the reasons why MPS resonates so well with customers looking to gain control of their printing fleet. Yet the overall market remains challenging for providers looking to grow their business. The installed base is declining slightly, with fewer pages printed per device. The result is a market with fewer pages, lower CPC rates and shrinking supplies profits.
http://theimagingchannel.com/articles/2013/10/01/palmer-mps-strategy.aspx

2013 MPSA Leadership Awards Winners Announced

2013 MPSA Leadership Awards Winners Announced

22-Jul-2013 5:03 PM |

Charlotte, N.C. – July 22, 2013 – The Managed Print Services Association (MPSA) is proud to announce the winners of its 2013 MPSA Leadership Awards.

The MPSA Leadership Awards were established in 2010 to honor those companies that have excelled in various areas related to managed print. Winners serve as shining examples to the community of their commitment to and expertise in managed print services (MPS).

Awards submissions were vetted and scored by an esteemed judging panel of nine industry leaders chosen from the call to membership, led by a member of the MPSA Standards Committee who ensured impartiality and adherence to guidelines. The company scoring highest in each category was deemed winner of the respective award.

“This is far and away the best run, most contested MPSA Leadership Awards, ever. It’s a  credit to the MPSA membership and our evolving industry on a global scale,” said Greg Walters, MPSA president. “If one wishes to see the future of MPS, just look at the list of winners.”

The 2013 MPSA Leadership Awards winners are:

• Best MPS Innovation: Print Audit, printaudit.com
• Direct Managed Print Services Plus Provider: Ricoh, ricoh-usa.com
• Independent Managed Print Services Provider: Flo-Tech, flotech.net
• Independent Managed Print Services Plus Provider: Xtandit, xtandit.nl
• Managed Print Services Infrastructure Provider: Supplies Network, suppliesnetwork.com
• Professional Services Provider: Photizo Group, photizogroup.com
• Software Provider: Office Document Consulting, officedocumentconsulting.com
• Regional Managed Print Services Provider: Xtandit, xtandit.nl

Winners will be officially recognized and awarded crystals at the MPSA Leadership Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, July 30, 2013, at CompTIA’s ChannelCon event at the Peabody Orlando Hotel in Orlando, Fla.

“The MPSA extends a hearty congratulations to all of this year’s winners,” added Walters.

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About the MPSA:

Founded in 2009, the Managed Print Services Association (MPSA) is a global, nonprofit organization that provides independent communications, collaboration, education, standards and success to MPS professionals. The mission of the MPSA and its members is to address and optimize businesses’ office document management while enhancing the growth, efficiency and profitability of the MPS segment through advocacy, marketing, education, research, standards and a general community of interest.

Using Print Management as a Productivity Tool

Submitted by Corey A Smith on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 13:54 The success of your company can very well depend on the amount of work that your office is getting done or has the ability to get done in a given day or week. The amount of tasks that can be completed in a given day are directly tied to productivity levels. That is why it is very important that productivity levels are as high as they can be in your place of work. The formula for this is simple, the higher the productivity levels, the more your office is able to handle.
But making sure your office is being productive at all times is challenging. There are many factors that weigh into making sure that an office is productive and the work is being done efficiently. While we know there are certain things as business managers that we don’t have control over e.g. worker productivity, our clients’ productivity, etc., there are certain aspects of the office that we do have control over. Examples of what we can control include how we use our print management system.
Print management functions to streamline all paper usage in the office and makes the most efficient use of your office equipment. This means there are added benefits to those companies that employ a sound print management system and those that aren’t are suffering the consequences.

Some benefits of print management include:

• Consolidation of Devices- This means that you are working to diminish the redundancies of having too many pieces of office equipment in your office. Consolidate your devices into one easy-to-use multifunction system or enjoy the benefits of having fewer printers in the office.
• Streamlining your Printing- Don’t worry about sending something to print and ending up on the other side of the building. Managed print sets up your office equipment in a way that promotes efficiency.
• Printing Less- Print management can show you ways to cut down on paper usage and print more efficiently in your office. The amount of paper that is saved will more than make up for the cost of the service in the long run.

The benefits of a print management system in your office far outweigh the negatives. Invest in productivity today and see the difference for yourself. Contact me  to learn more!

Document-Related Risks Infuse the Entire Organization

Document-Related Risks Infuse the Entire Organization
Posted on June 19, 2012 by Dominic Keogh

Ineffective document processes have harmed three of four organizations in the past five years, as was detailed in last week’s post written by Joseph Pucciarelli. That’s the tip of the iceberg, however, so we’ll dig a little deeper into our findings here and in our next few posts. The goal is to help you successfully address document-related challenges in your own organization.
Documents, often overlooked, are really the lifeblood of the enterprise, the study affirms. Over 40 percent of business activities rely on information captured in documents, our research found. These document-driven activities span customer-facing processes in sales and marketing; non-customer-facing processes in HR, manufacturing, and other back-office operations; and processes that manage risk around business continuity and information security. Forty percent may even be a conservative estimate: “I don’t think there’s a process out there that doesn’t have some sort of document or documents attached to it,” the VP for Global IT at a large cosmetics manufacturer told us.
Many of these document-driven processes – between 31 and 39 percent – continue to rely on paper. Although that may sound like a problem in the digital age, the medium is not necessarily the problem. Paper-based processes in this study emerged as some of the most effective activities. Many electronically based processes turned out to be the least effective.
Whether paper or electronic, document processes generally need improvement, the study found. Consider these findings:

• 45 percent of respondents reported that their document-driven processes related to risk mitigation were inefficient or ineffective;
• 39 percent reported that non-customer-facing document processes were lacking; and
• 36 percent reported that customer-facing document processes were inefficient or ineffective.

As you can see, problems are not isolated to any one business area; they run across a wide spectrum of processes. As a result, organizations are exposing themselves to a high degree of business risk.
“It only takes one mishap to damage a reputation,” in the words of one study participant, a VP with responsibilities for marketing/product management at a global financial services firm. Where are your vulnerabilities? Where is that one mishap most likely to occur? How likely is it? How serious would the impact be?

HP unveils new managed print services

Hewlett-Packard is planning to expand its managed print services solutions to partners with new offerings slated for later in 2012.ByManda BandaPublished February 16, 2012

The vendor has also updated its workstation line with the introduction of the HP Z1 Workstation, an all-in-one model that fits in a 27-inch LCD panel but allows easy replacement and upgrading of the internal components.

The new offerings were presented to partners in back-to-back keynote sessions at the HP Global Partner Conference, currently underway in Las Vegas.

Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president of HP's Imaging and Printing Group, told partners that the amount of digital data being created, both in corporate offices and in the cloud, is growing very quickly, and that 50% of an average worker's time is spent on managing data.

About 6% of the average enterprise's budget is spent on imaging and printing, and of that amount, about 10% goes to hardware and supplies, 15% to services and 75% to solutions, Joshi said.

Consequently, HP is introducing new technology to help push solution providers up the stack of value-added business, he said.

"If you are only in hardware, we want you to move to supplies," he said. "If you are only in hardware and supplies, we want you to move to services. If you are in hardware, supplies and services, we want you to move to solutions."

HP already has some managed print solutions that solution providers can use to improve their business, Joshi said. For instance, he cited ePrint, a relatively new mobile print solution from HP that allows anyone with an Internet-enabled device to send print jobs from their iOS or Android devices to a cloud-enabled print centre for later pickup or delivery.

"We want to make sure whatever device you have, you can have access to printing," he said.

Joshi also introduced the HP Smart Marketing Suite, a new solution that optimises and automates enterprise marketing content workflows. HP Smart Marketing Suite, which is expected to be available to partners sometime in 2013, includes consulting services to assess client marketing process inefficiencies and implement new modular marketing software applications based on HP's cloud-based storage and computing platform. Joshi also unveiled the HP Smart Production Suite, a new managed offering that automatically looks at print job requirements and available managed printing services to configure the content and make it ready to be printed in the most optimised way. HP Smart Production Suite is slated to be released later this year.

Todd Bradley, executive vice president of HP's Personal Systems Group (PSG), also addressed partners.

Bradley opened his presentation by thanking partners who stood by HP during the uncertainty that surrounded that company's decision last August to explore spinning off its PSG before committing to keep it as part of HP.

"It's fair to say you've stuck with us, and grown with us, in what has been an extremely challenging year," Bradley said.

Despite the challenges, HP still remains the world's largest PC maker, and is focused heavily on both new technology and advanced industrial design in its mobile PCs, Bradley said. "Just wait 'till you see what we do with Windows 7 and with ARM," he said.

Bradley shared the stage for a good part of his keynote to Jim Zafarana, vice president and general manager of HP's Commercial Solutions Business Unit, who used the time to introduce the HP Z1 Workstation.

Make Plans Now to Attend Transform 2012 in Orlando

Find out more about our presentation @ Transform 2012

Take Steps in 2012 to Keep Your Printing Environment Secure

Take Steps in 2012 to Keep Your Printing Environment Secure
by Andy Jones, director and general manager, Global Document Outsourcing, Xerox Europe

All of us know that information is a key corporate asset that should be protected, yet no one these days seems too surprised when high-profile data breaches via lost laptops or USB sticks make the news. These stories have drawn attention to flimsy security policies as well as the unreliability of human behaviour. While many organisations have taken steps to limit data loss from devices such as laptops and smart-phones, a more hidden security risk still prevails: the printing environment.
The risks involved with printing documents do not always make headlines, but the fact that a printer offers a connection to an organisation’s entire network should give any business pause for thought.

Understanding the Print Security Gap

Employees use printers to print, fax, copy, scan and send valuable company information across the enterprise network every day - often without a second thought. Today’s multifunction printers (MFPs) offer more data-handling features than ever, including hard drives for storing documents and scan-to-e-mail services, making them as sophisticated as desktop PCs. Enterprises routinely attach MFPs to networks, giving them all the flexibility, and security vulnerability, of any computer on a network. Ultimately today’s MFPs pose the same risk as any unprotected device.

At Xerox, we work with companies to protect their ideas and reduce the chance of theft through a document breach. One manufacturer contacted us after discovering that highly confidential research and development documents were stolen. The company told us that an investigation suggested that the leak occurred in the printing environment. While unfortunate, we helped the company take the necessary steps to secure its environment, and prevent this type of incident from happening again.
By working with many clients to successfully mitigate these types of risks, we have developed a system to help our clients quickly identify specific needs. Using a layered model, we walk clients through a series of questions to determine how best to secure their particular environment. The model’s first layer addresses the security aspects of the IT environment. For example, we carefully review what steps need to be taken to secure the IT environment in order to protect networks and devices from unauthorised network access. As mentioned above, MFPs should be treated like any other device with storage capability.

Remember, today’s MFPs can store print image data which presents a security risk if they’re not wiped before disposal.

The model’s second layer tackles the security of the physical workspace. Conventional wisdom suggests that the best security is to educate users. However most users don’t pay much attention to security, especially when they find it a hindrance to doing their job. Therefore it’s important to put in place a transparent and easy-to-use security solution, which includes measures such as secure print. With secure print, a job is only printed when the user physically types in their unique PIN number and releases the job.

In more extremes ecurity environments there may be a need to physically isolate devices and use operators to handle highly sensitive or secure output. To increase security even further, print governance tools, which add banners and watermarks to printed pages, may also be used. For some of our clients, we have been able to control some of our printing devices to mark pages in a way which can include unique codes. This enables operators to individually identify pages and also prevents copying.

As these examples demonstrate, there is a wide array of security measures available to meet a company’s needs. Whilst requirements vary dramatically across industries (an investment bank’s needs are different from a healthcare provider or manufacturer) we’ve seen an increase in the number of companies that are aware of the risk, and have begun taking some level of action to make their print environment and company secure.

Securing the Print Environment with Managed Print Services
As we entered the millennium, businesses realised that the internet age brought with it more end-user printing. Due to increasingly large volumes, many global businesses looked for ways to radically reduce printing costs. For some, this meant handing over all or part of the print management challenge to a third party. In addition to reducing printing costs, boosting productivity and supporting environmental targets, these companies discovered that managed print services can play an important role in securing confidential and sensitive information.

Here’s why:
When they outsource their printing, businesses engage a partner to assume the potential risk involved with printing. To do so, the print partner must maintain a trustworthy and secure print environment – after all security is one of the things the print vendor is selling to its customers.

Xerox has facilitated this type of secure outsourced printing environment with many organisations, including a major U.S. government customer. In this particular project, the client worked on 17 campus locations across the United States from Florida to California. The customer was required to maintain a high-security deployment environment with several unique constraints including:
• the campuses were co-located on military bases
• the environment faced ongoing attempts at infiltration by agents of foreign governments to obtain technology secrets
• the environment required restricted facility access to U.S. citizens
• the customer faced continuous auditing for compliance with security.

We offered a multi-pronged approach to security, incorporating people, which included a dedicated security analyst, as well as standards and technology. To date all security audits have passed; 95 percent of devices are in secure state; there have been no violations of customer facility policies; and, most impressively, there have been no security incidents resulting in the loss or compromise of data.
These days all organisations, whether in the public or private sector, need to make sure they have processes to support security protocols. They need secure print practices across the board and should certify that every printing device is at the correct, custom level of security for their organisation.
Xerox can help deliver this through our managed print services. We’ve watched our customers gain visibility, control their spending, and enhance document security. This helps them free up budget for innovative projects that can improve efficiency and drive competitive advantage.

Quocirca analyst Louella Fernandes has written a very comprehensive report on closing the print security gap, and it’s definitely worth a read if you’re interested in learning more about this topic.

Top 10 Tips for Implementing Managed Print Services

By Craig Le Clair
1. Know That Implementing Managed Print Services (MPS) Is a Work in Progress: Managed print services are not something you buy and install, but rather a life cycle that you engage in to gradually optimize a diverse and fragmented environment.
2. Assemble the Right Team: Focus on change management and governance by engaging IT, facilities and line-of-business owners early.
3. Balance RFP Criteria Among Device, Process and Management Criteria: Vendor selection should highlight key business drivers beyond cost and standard service-level agreement (SLA) goals.
4. Emphasize Print Policy Software: While policies for color printing get all the attention, the most dramatic savings can occur with global settings for duplex printing.
5. Avoid Billing Surprises: It's bad enough getting the bill, but it's even worse if you can't understand it. Firms should question providers about how billing works â€" particularly for global initiatives.
6. Don't Fall for Fluffy Treatment of Environmental Requirements: Make suppliers provide specific data on their environmental approach and focus on reducing pages printed, as this has by far the highest environmental impact.
7. Carefully Weigh Your Pricing Options: While all managed print services have some price per image (PPI) component, there's no "one size fits all."
8. Beware of Color: Users can get hooked on color printing, which will have higher PPI rates and can erode projected savings.
9. Resist the Tendency to Rush the Assessment Phase: Assessment sets critical goals such as realistic user-to-device ratios, as well as key metrics to monitor and improve service.
10. Get Ahead of Compliance and Security: It's only a matter of time before auditors focus on security and compliance holes in the office environment.

The independent managed print services approach

By: Louella Fernandes, Principal Analyst, Quocirca
Published: 25th November 2011
Copyright Quocirca © 2011
Nearly every enterprise – including commercial businesses, educational institutions and government organisations – relies on printing to support essential business processes, whether it is back-office operations such as accounting or payroll or front-office activities such as sales and marketing.

Regardless of how dependent an organisation is on printing, IT departments struggle with similar management challenges: providing reliable print services that meet organisational expectations while containing operational costs.

Too often, organisations own a broad range of print, copier, scanner and fax equipment, often from different vendors, requiring different software, consumables and supplies. Devices may often be outdated and inefficient, and few organisations know how many assets they have, how they are being used, and how much it costs to own, maintain and operate them.

This makes it increasingly difficult to optimise efficiency and control costs, and creates a huge IT and administration headache. Organisations facing staff shortages or lacking the correct technology expertise do not have the resources and skills to keep on top of print management issues, leaving them exposed to spiralling print costs, reduced productivity and increased risk due to unprotected devices.
This has prompted many businesses to move to a managed print service (MPS) to ensure more efficient and effective print infrastructure operation and management, from the office to the print room.

A managed print environment can deliver strategic business advantage, supporting cost reduction imperatives and environmental demands along with improved compliance and reduced risk. Today, the strongest uptake of MPS has been among large enterprises (1000+ employees). Our recent research suggests that half of European large enterprises have implemented or are piloting MPS.
The emergence of independent MPS providers that offer vendor-agnostic, best-of-breed technology, software and services is promising to expand the penetration of MPS beyond the exclusive domain of large enterprises.

This channel provides an important role in delivering impartial assessment services and unbiased MPS recommendations. Services such as multivendor break-fix, support and supplies replenishment enable organisations to protect existing hardware investments rather than moving immediately to a standardised print environment.

By retaining the flexibility to add devices from multiple vendors, independent MPS providers can innovate with the latest technology and introduce new capabilities independently of any single incumbent printer or copier supplier.

While hardware vendors will have a vested interest in moving the customer to a standardised environment, most of the major MPS vendors are able to support and manage a multivendor environment at the initial stages of an MPS engagement, sweating the assets as needed.
Not many organisations operate a standardised fleet at the outset. It is therefore vital to select an MPS provider that can provide an impartial assessment of the print environment.

However, if an organisation is planning to move to a standardised environment, a hardware-centric MPS may be the best approach. This can be supplied by a hardware vendor, SI or independent MPS provider. Many hardware vendors will use channel partners to deliver MPS midmarket.
Vendor-neutral providers can often negotiate the best prices on equipment and supplies, delivering quality at lower cost.

It is in the interest of an independent MPS provider to offer the right device for the purpose, regardless of brand. While a single-vendor strategy forces an enterprise to settle for a single vendor's offer for each area of the enterprise, a multivendor strategy enables a true best-of-breed approach across the organisation.

Pricing for traditional MPS contracts is often based on minimum volumes. We have found that is the top inhibitor of MPS adoption. Independent MPS providers often use different pricing models such as pay-per-print, so customers do not pay for pages they have not printed.

Although hardware vendors have been the predominant MPS suppliers for decades, the market is at a tipping point, evolving to encompass a wider range of providers. Independent firms should take advantage, particularly if they have the resources and infrastructure to design and deploy MPS.
This window of opportunity is limited, though: the technology that enables independent MPS providers to move up the MPS stack is also available to competitors such as SIs, managed services providers and hardware vendors, which are using the same or similar technology to move down the stack.

As MPS providers look to gain further mid-market traction, we expect further consolidation in the market. Specifically, we expect hardware vendors to acquire more independent providers to strengthen their multivendor MPS delivery and service capabilities. A report is here.

Highest Share of Managed Print Services Providers Report Using Print Audit Facilities Manager in CompTIA Study

With an expanding Managed Print Services industry, more dealers and VARs are using Print Audit’s Facilities Manager to implement their MPS strategies.

• EmailPDFPrint

Calgary, Alberta (PRWEB) November 05, 2011

CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry Association, recently published a study surveying 400 Managed Print Services providers and IT personnel in end-user companies. The purpose of the report, entitled Examining the Print and Document Management Market, was to further the understanding of print and document trends from the end-user perspective, as well as to profile Managed Print Services provider firms. The study identified Print Audit’s remote device management service, Facilities Manager, as the leader in the North American market with a 40% share among Managed Print Services providers using a third-party (non OEM) solution.
As a multi-award winning product, Facilities Manager is used by dealers worldwide to remotely collect meter reads, automate supplies fulfillment and report service information for managing fleets of printers, copiers, fax machines and multi-function devices.
According to the study, the Managed Print Services industry will continue to grow because of its impact on reducing infrastructure costs associated with printing, improving productivity and environmental sustainability. The study also found that most companies expect their print volumes to increase or remain the same and of the companies not currently using Managed Print Services, 35% are expected to adopt a MPS strategy over the next year.
For more information on the CompTIA study, please visit http://www.CompTIA.org
About Print Audit®:
Established in 1999 and headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Print Audit is the fastest growing print management company in the world. By providing businesses with innovative and practical print management software solutions, the company has helped customers recapture over $200 million in printing and photocopying expenses while saving an estimated 190,000 trees a year. Print Audit has offices located in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, South Africa, Australia, Brazil, Canada and the United States.
For more information about Print Audit, please contact 1-877-412-8348

Manage what you measure

Manage what you measure




A print management strategy allows businesses to control expenses by outsourcing management of the printer fleet. The usage-based, outsourced model ensures they only pay for the prints they use and, best of all, there is no capital expenditure required since the agreement is to manage the existing fleet.



Companies cannot manage what they cannot measure. A managed print services strategy should begin with a comprehensive assessment of the current situation to uncover the total cost of ownership (TCO) of your office printing. This assessment provides both a baseline, to measure improvement, and a snapshot of the current situation to discover opportunities to improve. Ascertaining the current situation also gives organisations a benchmark against which to measure the effectiveness of their programme.



Proactively managing printers also enables companies to introduce carbon footprint reduction strategies. Reducing paper use not only reduces the volume of trees consumed, but also helps offset the rising cost of printer paper. There are several means of reducing paper use, including duplex printing and electronic forms among many others.



Some companies are concerned that optimised printing will negatively impact productivity. But a properly implemented managed print strategy boosts productivity. At the most basic level, employees face less distraction from printers that are broken or out of toner. Unlike most IT departments that simply respond to broken systems, a preventative maintenance strategy combined with an automatic supply restocking programme ensures your fleet is operating consistently. Re-deploying the right systems to high-volume locations can also enhance productivity.



Perhaps the biggest cost savings can be found in a more productive IT department. IT resources are costly and it doesn't make sense to use them to fix mechanical devices such as printers. Instead of fielding calls from frustrated users with printer issues, IT employees can focus on core initiatives like security and new software deployments.

Managed Print Services more than Purchasing decision

By Clint Bolte on February 10th, 2010

Recent posting by Purchasing.com to suggest that growth in Managed Print Services is being facilitated by the Corporate Purchasing Department is a shallow interpretation.

The Managed Print Services concept had its beginning with the management of corporate copier fleet(s). It began three decades ago with the bulk procurement – often leased – of remote analog monochrome copiers throughout multi-floor corporations or the corporate campus. In-plants were part of the successful implementation in many installations as they provided the daily operational management of delivering supplies to departments and monitoring the maintenance performed by the equipment manufacturer or distributor. The bulk buying contracts moved quickly to include the procurement of associated supplies and maintenance.

The copier technology improved and expanded in four directions; (1) inexpensive (under $100) desktop units that got hidden in the “other” column of departmental budgets and purchased by the user, (2) the integration fax, scan, copy, and print capabilities into a multi-functional device (MFD) or a multi-functional printer (MFP), (3) networking of these disparate units as the intranet took off, and (4) more cost effective multi-color digital printing.

Innovative corporate server mounted software escalated the “management of the copier fleet” to include (1) charge-back accountability, (2) feature usage for potential future upgrade justification, (3) and forewarning or “red-flagging” of needed maintenance back through the network to the copier manager. The current Managed Print Services definition has taken on a green tinge, as the next level of corporate administrative document strategy is to print less and therefore save trees.

This is accomplished by (1) training users to utilize the scanning and electronic faxing of documents on the MFDs to reduce the number of hardcopies made and later thrown away, (2) getting rid of the small desktop units altogether as their toner cartridges and therefore cost per copy are relatively expensive plus leaving a huge carbon footprint, (3) utilizing MPS software, which converts all digital copiers to a duplexing default mode rather than single sided copying (simplex) further saving paper.

Human Change Is Significant To Take Full Advantage of MPS

While each of these steps may seem to be incremental improvements, the overall MPS program is being perceived to be a significant cultural shift for many corporations. As a result of the human change magnitude and yet potential cost benefit, the MPS concept is gaining attention of specialized consultants to justify, prepare RFPs, and select the most qualified, full service digital print engine manufacturers or value-added resellers (VARs). Outsourcing of the management function is another issue on the table.

The inaugural gathering of 150 copier fleet aficionados committed to better control, cost reduction, and improved knowledge worker efficiency met this past spring in San Antonio, Texas. Digital print engine manufacturers, specialty software vendors, value-added resellers, consultants, and a few corporate end users heard Managed Print Services presentations on best practices and successful case studies. The MPS market research and strategic consultancy, the Photizo Group, organized this first topical conclave.

Corporate in-plants were not mentioned during this conference as playing any real or potential role in the successful implementation of the next level of distributed digital copier fleet management or Managed Print Services. The reason why is simple. The 16 digital print engine manufacturers, value-added resellers, and consultants all want to sell the implementation services along with the hardware and software.

The lessons learned of firms who are embracing MPS are simple. It becomes very obvious that the skills leading to successful implementation are often resident with in-plant organizations. This is an opportunity that in-plants must proactively and aggressively pursue well in advance of their corporation’s copier fleet renegotiation cycle.

The Photizo Group pegged the 2007 MPS market in North America to be $5.2 billion or about 14% of the total NA imaging market. They expect a 20% year over year growth for the next five years with MPS climbing to 35% of the total imaging market in 2012. One to three percent of corporate revenues, depending upon SIC category, are being spent on hard copy printing.

Converting a stagnant market to one of growth suggests a shifting or broadening of objectives by the corporate end users and an enlightened new business model by the manufacturing channel. Here are the proposed change elements from the low hanging fruit all the way up to moving the mountain;

1. Corporations of virtually all sizes have no idea how much they are spending in this space. The low cost of some desktop devices are under the corporate asset radar. Hence, most firms have much more equipment than they realize. As larger pieces of leased copier equipment come up for renewal, the clear, knee-jerk objective is to get control of this growing amoeba.

2. Contacting any of the sixteen hardware manufacturers and many of the VARs selling and servicing the equipment, a firm’s purchasing and/or IT departments learn that free equipment utilization assessments are available. Surprisingly simple software is linked to the print network and USB data capture ports are added to the stand alone devices to determine how much simplex/duplex, mono/color printing and by whom and how much downtime is experienced.

3. Proven cost savings venues are plentiful:
a. Economy of scale buying of equipment and supplies,
b. Moving the assets off the balance sheet as part of a cost per copy (cpc) contract,
c. Reducing head count by outsourcing the service,
d. Utilizing pop-up software on all equipment to encourage users to save money, such as default duplexing and sending the job to the least expensive device for printing, is a user behavior change initiative,
e. Utilizing the scan and fax features of the multi functional printers (MFPs) reduces unnecessary printing by capturing and moving documents electronically, and
f. Total chargeback capability via user code or card, i.e., no free copies, also contributes to fewer copies being made.

4. Process improvement adds to knowledge worker productivity:
a. Office mapping to assure that the appropriate equipment is convenient to all employees adds to efficiency and savings,
b. Client productivity and satisfaction climb with automatic software feedback embedded in the hardware; (1) forewarning potential maintenance problems improves up time and (2) controlling supplies reduces idle inventory investment,
c. Software queuing work (with user permission) to low production demand periods (nights) increased hardware utilization and
d. More energy efficient hardware, fewer copies, and recycling add to the corporation’s overall environmental efficiencies.

Free Assessments Aren’t Free

Ken Roche, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for the Print Operations Group (POG), offered several best practices for MPS benchmarking and assessment. Realize that “free assessments by VARs and/or manufacturers are not free” because of their inherent conflict of interest. They want to replace the prospect’s existing equipment with their own and prospect’s supplies sources also with their own. A clear and concise request for proposal (RFP) and service level agreement (SLA) based upon the actual current spend, integration with the corporate wide strategic objectives, quantifiable and continuously monitored key performance indicators, and issues addressed with the supplier on at least a quarterly basis are essential to a successful relationship. POG is one of several independent MPS consultancies with no ties to manufacturers or suppliers.

Measuring and compiling the key performance indicators of the copier fleet is the job of the specialty software. While some hardware manufacturers offer their own solutions, the independent VARs hold a strong market share. They include PrintFleet, PrintAudit, MWAi, fmAudit, Netaphor Systems, DocuAudit, and Compass Sales Solutions. The costs of their software can vary from $150 down to $9 per workstation depending upon the total volume of stations. This annual fee is typically rolled into the cost per copy (CPC) agreement. Many of these software vendors also provide training and marketing services to VARs, who are constantly improving their MPS skills. Hence, the end user may find this to be negotiable. Why can’t in-plants serve this same valuable monitoring and training function as the VARs?

Some best practices for MPS programs include gap analysis of where the user is and where they want to be. It includes four critical steps: (1) measuring the current state, (2) gathering end user input (and buy-in starting at the C-level), (3) identifying industry benchmark metrics, and (4) setting measurable objectives. He added that the end user input “was not creating a wish list.” A reliable source of metrics can be independent consultancies such as POG, Print Access, Newfield IT, and Photizo. Because the bar is always rising with users reaching for the business process enhancement stage, Crowley recommended that the MPS contract length not exceed three years. Again how much of this task cannot better be performed in house by the in-plant?

Purchasing's role managing print grows

Q/A with OfficeMax explains trend
Susan Avery -- Purchasing, 2/9/2010 4:16:49 PM

Even as the economy begins its recovery, there is growing interest from companies in outsourcing activities they don't consider to be core competencies, as a way to reduce costs and improve internal efficiencies. Think of sourcing processes for some categories of indirect goods and services such as MRO, travel and print. Recently, Purchasing interviewed Jim Durkin, executive vice president of North American sales at OfficeMax in Naperville, Ill. on trends he is seeing in the outsourcing of managed print services (MPS). Here are excerpts from the conversation:

PURCHASING: What is managed print services?

JIM DURKIN: We think of managed print services as business process outsourcing and, then, the fulfillment of supply, service and parts as it relates to a customer's total print environment. A customer's total print environment is made up of multifunction devices, copiers, printers, all the office devices that are attached to their network.

Services the client chooses helps determine a program and fees that are charged for it. Traditionally, this cost per page fee consists of the cost of the equipment, service over time and supplies fulfillment to keep the equipment running.

We also consider, and what is unique to OfficeMax, document outsourcing and document management. We have a business unit that is separate from our managed print services group. It's our digital print business that's branded ImPress. This is for customers who produce large runs of print documents such as presentations. They can come into one of our stores or go to our website to do this.

We talk with clients about how to optimize their print fleet. If they have people running high-velocity print jobs on their network, there may be more cost effective ways to do that. We look for ways to do the jobs at our production facility. We take advantage of services we provide outside of managed print services.

PURCHASING: There is a growing trend among companies in the recession to do more outsourcing. Is this something that you're seeing? Why the interest in managed print services now?

DURKIN: Absolutely. We are seeing a large increase and we expect to continue to see that over the next five years. Gartner has done some forecasts and they project some significant increases in how companies procure print and a big migration to the managed print solution as a way to do it. We see it as a strong and growing trend.

As we talk with clients, they are looking for innovative ways to save money and take significant costs out of their business, or if they are challenged because they have already taken significant costs in terms of headcount and workflow out of their business, they are looking to push off work to suppliers like us.

PURCHASING: What do companies spend annually on print?

DURKIN: HP and Gartner say companies spend up to 3% of annual revenue on print. One challenge, and I don't want to be misleading here, we do use the figure in our discussion with customers as a starting point to give them a sense that there are a lot of dollars spent on print, is that the numbers are really all encompassing and can include offset printers a company uses. A managed

print solution is not going to replace that. MPS can include outsourced document management. So, print as a category is very large.

It also varies significantly by vertical market. If you look at paper-based industries like healthcare and legal that print a lot of office documents they will have a much higher percent of that 1% to 3% range as sitting under the MPS umbrella. As you think of that figure, 5% to 15% or 20% of that is addressable in the MPS space.

PURCHASING: Which functions are responsible for managed print services programs and what is purchasing's role?

DURKIN: Because these devices are on the network, it is almost always IT that manages the print category. Plus, there's software on the network that helps manage the fleet that IT also oversees.

Traditionally, procurement has had very little to do with IT (which manages the network) and facilities (which manages areas like print and furniture). But what we see now is that IT and facilities are turning more to procurement for its expertise in contact negotiation, supplier selection and supplier management. So, while it's primarily an IT-led activity, we are seeing procurement more involved than in the past. I think that the driving force there is that as people are challenged to drive costs out of their operation they are turning to the professionals in the organization and saying, "Help us benefit from your expertise in terms of supplier selection, negotiations, competitive bid processes and so forth." We are seeing procurement playing an important role there but it is almost always owned by the IT group.

PURCHASING: That said, what do you find to be some of your clients' biggest challenges today?

DURKIN: Change management is one. Any time management tells employees that it wants them to use certain print devices and that it's going to benefit the company, it needs to communicate the cost impact and why it is so important. We've seen some clients do very effective internal communication campaigns to gain support for their print initiatives. Cost is a key driver. Clients tell us that while employees may be frustrated that they've taken away their printers, they respond that they rather "lay off printers than people."

We've also seen clients use a sustainability message to gain buy in to their print initiatives; they switch to devices that use less energy or they ask employees to make double-sided copies that reduce their paper consumption. Finding something that captures the emotion of their internal folks in communication and managing that change really becomes a key part of gaining support for it.

PURCHASING: What are benefits of managed print services?

DURKIN: It goes back to the driving forces for doing it. With an MPS program, companies don't consume expensive IT resources to manage the break/fix portion of the printer fleet. They can outsource that and have us do it and do it very reliably for them in a lower cost model. They reduce their cost over time by optimizing the printer fleet.

Companies may also be able to consolidate a couple of devices into one because of the new equipment that's available in the marketplace. Certainly energy consumption is another.

PURCHASING: How do you help clients meet their companies' environmental goals?

DURKIN: I think MPS plays a very big role. Often times, our clients tell us that one thing that they are challenged with sustainability initiatives is that there a tension between cost and achieving their goals. The beauty of MPS is that it reduces costs and helps achieve sustainability goals.

One way it does this is by developing a process for upgrading equipment when it's past its useful life-most new equipment is far more energy efficient. Another is by determining the optimal number of devices per employee. We often see customers with three employees to one printer. It's different for every customer but we think of an optimized environment as being 10-12 employees per device. So, we can take devices out of a print environment, which reduces energy consumption. It consumes energy when it is plugged in, it consumes energy even if equipment sits idle.

Then there's all the supplies that go into the devices. As you optimize them you reduce the consumption of supplies used in the print environment. We can suggest remanufactured toner or an OEM toner. We do it differently with different customers based on their preference but we can absolutely deploy remanufactured toner which has a sustainability and cost savings component.

The last thing I would highlight is how a company sets up its printers. The whole idea of setting defaults to black and white copies and double-sided printing which reduces paper again is cost savings and a sustainability initiative all at the same time. One of our clients has an initiative to reduce paper consumption by one ream per employee per year. They did an internal campaign around that as they were launching it and have a sustainability goal around it, but it's also has a cost-saving goal as well.