The “M” in MPS – Are all Vendors Alike?

So you are thinking about Managed Print Services for your organization and looking for a vendor? How do you decide who will provide you with the best program?

The Challenge

As you interview vendors you are going to notice that all of them have great sales presentations with lots of promises of cost reductions, fleet optimization and reducing the time you and your staff spend managing your printing environment. The MPS marketing strategy is mature enough today that most everyone knows all of the buzz words and catch phrases, so how do you differentiate one from the other?

There are a number of factors to consider but if you are looking for a comprehensive program that will deliver on all the promises of MPS – and there are many – I suggest you take a good look at the “M” in your potential vendor(s) program.

The Problem (an opinion)

Now let me simply state the problem as I see it today: most vendors are not delivering on the full promise of MPS. As I have stated in previous postings here my experience is that once they take over the service and supply of your network laser printers and begin to collect the resulting income stream there is limited effort to improve your environment beyond selling you additional hardware – which may or may not improve your environment?

A Cause

As someone who interfaces between the client and service providers I have come to some conclusions as to one of the major causative factors and it is the “M”.

To explain this let me use two real world examples:

I have one client I work with who is contracted with a vendor for a comprehensive managed program. This vendor has an entire team of personnel assigned to the task of supporting their MPS clients and dedicated to solving problems, analyzing data, providing recommendations for improvement and implementing strategies and policies.

While not perfect, this vendor is making very good faith efforts to deliver on the MPS promise.

Another client is contracted to a different, still substantial vendor but the contrast is the account management team is the sales representative, service manager and branch manager. While these are all good folks they simply do not have the bandwidth to provide the level of management support required for a comprehensive MPS engagement.

The differentiator between these two vendors is not the promises they made or the benefits they presented but rather the commitment they have made to delivering on them.

This is not a unique case, I see this differentiation among a number of the vendors I have dealt with and client engagements I have been involved with.

How do I Determine Which Vendor has the Best “M”?

The simple answer to the above question is “by asking the right questions and performing the appropriate due diligence” when considering your vendor options.

I can tell you that after assisting a number of clients with this process you can determine who is going to provide the best management in advance. Whether your process is a simple client/sales engagement or a full RFP process similar to those I manage for clients, the right questions will yield responses that provide all the clues you need.

If you are looking for a comprehensive program to yield long-term benefits and if your only contact is the sales professional, sales manager and service manager then beware – demand to find out who will be supporting your program and what their roles will be. Make sure these folks are not merely clerical personnel who they have brought from the office to impress you but support resources you can reach out to and depend on.

For more information please feel free to contact me at (ghawkins@buscomgroup.com ) at your convenience.

Print Management versus Device Management - One Last Try

My first three posts developed the idea that MPS was more than device or fleet management - discussing the roots of the confusion and the reason(s) it should be important to providers and end-users alike.

It was my intent to move on to more granular discussions of MPS at this point but some of the responses from various sources causes me to make one last attempt to differentiate the parent from the child.

Managed print services (MPS) should do just that; manage print or the print environment. Some of the responses pointed out that MPS is more than CPP programs; it is management of the fleet and fleet strategy. This indicates they missed the point of my postings which leads me to pose the question; "how does device or fleet management fully equate to managing print?” Does it not manage print devices - a subset of managing print? In fact, the term MPS was coined to define a broader set of services than fleet management. I hope the folks who responded by offering various definitions of fleet management as MPS take a moment to read the earlier posting Managed Print Services, Blind Men & Elephants

Since users generate the documents to begin with and their workflow and behaviors determine the methods of output how can we as providers or end-users maximize our print environments without managing user behaviors, workflow and change. How does one maximize the fleet without knowing the sources and characteristics of the documents? Are we trying to just reduce the costs and resources required to print a page or possibly reduce the number of pages, implement a least cost printing strategy or improve productivity?

For those who thought this was all about semantics, it is not! It is important for all parties to realize the full potential of MPS so they do not limit the scope of their strategies to just devices and fleets. End-user clients can maximize their print environments and providers can build a complete set of complementary services. This obviously does not mean every end-user or service provider will implement all possible MPS components but the key idea here is that they should be armed with the awareness that lets them "choose." If MPS is constantly limited to managing the fleet or fleet strategy what choices will be available?

There was at least one suggestion that it did not matter how you defined MPS or what service mark you applied to your offering but rather how you consummate the client engagement. I completely agree with this observation and would suggest that a robust service offering which includes more than just fleet management can significantly increase the ability to meet the client’s needs.

Stay tuned to this blog for expanded discussions of MPS offerings which may shed some light for those with a view limited to device management or management of the fleet and the fleet strategy. I certainly appreciate any and all feedback; the discussion is necessary and excellent. I especially welcome comments from those who are in fact taking MPS beyond the devices and fleet.

MPS – A Contrarian Viewpoint?

First off, let me acknowledge that some of the following assertions and observations are generalizations but that is germane to this posting.

It appears to me that the majority of participants in this industry equate managed print services with cost-per-page or device (fleet) management programs which include supplies, fix/repair services and some degree of usage reporting. If this observation is correct then my view of MPS is contrary to the industry in general.

I have been arguing for some time that MPS is actually a collection of service offerings designed to help clients design, implement and manage a digital document output environment rather than just manage output devices. Further, I would outline the MPS roadmap as follows:

• Assessment services
• RFP & bid management
• Supply sourcing and management
• Fix/Repair services
• Technical support
• Hardware placement
• Workflow design & implementation
• Strategic management services

The question you should be asking is “why is this important to me or my clients.”

While CPP or device management programs may reduce end-user client expenses they do not necessarily solve the underlying problems – a lack of environmental management. A comprehensive MPS engagement on the other hand will address these causative factors and deliver additional benefits such as efficiency, productivity, sustainability and additional savings.

If, as a service provider, you ignore the MPS components other than device management you are not only short-changing your own business but your client(s) as well.

Maybe even more important is the following question:

“As device management services mature, what will be my differentiator other than the cost of my services; will I be able to compete with other service providers who offer more robust managed print services?”

We have seen margins decline in both traditional MFD and printer markets; what makes us think that competition will not bring the same results to device management services?

I realize that every dealer may not have the resources to enter this market with a full set of managed print services but at least you should be aware of the long-term prospects so you can plan accordingly. Enter the market now with what you can do but plan your offerings to fit into a larger professional services practice or develop partnerships to supplement your capabilities.

A case in point is the practice of providing free print assessments to capture the supply and service revenue from network printers. If you are investing the time why not execute them with enough value to charge a reasonable fee? If margins do decline will you be able to continue to bear the costs associated with assessments? The rush to free assessments reminds me of the rush to provide free copier trials as that industry matured or no-charge networking support for MFDs: where did that get us all?

MPS services provide value to the client if executed with their best interest in mind and most reasonable clients expect to pay for services which deliver measureable benefits to their organization.

It seems to me that providing MPS components free of charge indicates you are trying to sell services using a hardware (or supplies) sales model rather than the appropriate model for a professional services offering.

I invite you to view my version of the MPS Roadmap on my LinkedIn profile at http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=3614067&trk=tab_pro