Simon Tune, general manager, Business Development and Marketing Operations, Xerox European Reseller and Supplies Group
Resellers are realizing now is the time to embrace managed print services (MPS), shifting from traditional transactional hardware sales to a contractual approach that drives recurring revenue and longer term customer relationships. For the reseller, this means offering MPS either as an additional service offering or a complete transformation of what they offer today.
Most small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) are constrained by resources and the haphazard nature of print management activities creates inefficiencies and diverts employees and resources from core business activities. Printers can place a huge administrative and support burden on staff – along with loss of productivity as a result of time spent on dealing with printer downtime and manual ordering processes for supplies.
MPS is an appealing way for SMBs to combat these challenges and resellers can’t afford to ignore the steady growth in MPS adoption, and for those resellers who have relied on customer ad-hoc purchasing of ink and toner, the threat from MPS is real as more SMBs move to contracts that combine hardware with supplies and services.
Fortunately there are ways of bridging the gap that can help resellers protect their supplies revenue and provide a stepping stone to broader MPS contracts when ready.
Automated Supplies Management First Step in Building MPS Offering
The emergence of cloud-based MPS solutions provides resellers, who lack an MPS infrastructure, with a low-cost and simple approach to capture wider and ongoing supplies revenue opportunities. Automated supplies replenishment tools can often be the vital first step for resellers who are not quite ready to make the full leap to MPS, but want to protect their supplies revenue.
As an example, Xerox Supplies Services (XSS) is free and easy-to-use software that allows resellers to monitor supplies usage and proactively replenish when supplies are depleted.
By installing the XSS Discovery Agent software on a customer’s network, resellers can monitor the levels of ink and toner cartridges on the entire estate of printers and MFPs. When pre-set thresholds are reached, the reseller is notified to replenish the required consumables.
Through the XSS portal, resellers have direct access into their distributor’s stock system, allowing them to provide replacements immediately – against a pre-existing agreement or a new customer order – that can then be shipped directly to specified locations. XSS can also be used to trigger service alerts, so it can be used as an integral part of a reseller’s maintenance services offerings.
Automated supplies replenishment allows the reseller to be proactive and differentiate itself in an increasingly commoditized market; other benefits include:
- Protect and build a broader supplies revenue opportunity without any investment in tools or infrastructure.
- An opportunity to develop ongoing relationships with customers and provide a proactive, single point-of-contact for their printing needs.
- An entry point for resellers and their customers to expand to a broader MPS agreement.
- Reduced administrative burden for customers through proactive/just-in-time delivery of ink and toner.
- Multivendor management through a cloud-based solution offers an opportunity to manage supplies and service for a wider printer estate – and build this into future MPS contracts when needed.
- By selling and delivering both OEM and compatible cartridges where appropriate, resellers can benefit from potentially greater margins.
As managed print service adoption gathers pace, resellers who are not participating are in danger of losing their supplies’ revenue as customers choose contracts over ad-hoc purchasing of supplies.
Ultimately, automated supplies management is a contract-free and effective way for resellers to build their MPS business. It can provide the foundation for an MPS platform and help resellers offer streamlined processes that can be replicated across all new and existing customers – translating into more revenue/profit for the reseller.
Resellers simply cannot afford to ignore the MPS opportunity, particularly as businesses become more receptive to managed services through broader acceptance of cloud computing and mobility.
MPS is a work-in-progress for many resellers, but the barriers are quickly coming down as vendors provide the infrastructure and tools to help resellers make the leap. Now is the time to take advantage of these tools before the competition moves in.
