Still Not Selling Managed Print Services? Here's Why You Should

By The Business Solutions Network

Not only is selling managed print services (MPS) a good way to earn incremental recurring revenue, it’s one of the best ways to keep competitors away from your customers.

Managed services providers (MSPs) like the idea of expanding their offerings and making more revenue per customer. But, when it comes to managing copiers, fax machines, and multifunction peripherals (MFPs), some MSPs are still hesitant to go there, even though the customer demand is definitely there.

A 2015 survey conducted by Quocirca revealed that 51 percent of organizations are either already using or planning to use MPS. Furthermore, of those currently using a fully outsourced service, 90 percent indicated being satisfied or very satisfied with the management and performance of their print infrastructure. Given the choice, most end users would prefer to work with fewer vendors. It’s one reason why companies standardize on one brand of computer, office equipment, or phone system.

End users recognize that having fewer vendors and service providers to deal with means fewer relationships to manage and often cost savings, too. “If you don’t own everything in the workplace, you’re opening up the opportunity for competition in your core business,” says David Weeks, global channel manager at SolarWinds N-able. “The simple truth is MSPs should be in managed print to protect their businesses. Copier companies are getting into IT managed services; it is a logical extension of the services they have have been providing for years. MSPs need to move into the MPS market to keep the competition out.”

Eric Wederbrand, vice president, product management, SYNNEX, concurs and says that MSPs that ask, “How much incremental revenue can I earn by adding managed print to my managed IT services?” are asking the wrong question. “A better way of looking at it is by asking yourself how much opportunity are you leaving on the table for your competition if you don’t offer it.”

Tips For Increasing Your MPS Margins
Perhaps you have already looked into selling MPS but didn’t find the margins compelling enough to make it worth your while. Similar to managed services, the value of your MPS goes beyond merely monitoring devices and responding to notifications when something breaks. There are other value-adds you can bundle with MPS to drive up your margins. “One way MSPs can differentiate themselves and increase their margins is by automating the fulfillment of consumables, which is a service infrastructure that is readily available through select distributors,” says Wederbrand. “The impact of managed print on end users is dynamic; it increases productivity, lessens strain on their internal resources, and eases scalability.”

MPS also can have a major impact on the way customers conduct business, including their document workflows and security and privacy procedures. For example, MPS software can ensure the security of every print, copy, and scan job. The software can, for instance, hold documents in a secure server until users authenticate at the printer to ensure documents are never left unattended in an output tray. MPS also allows organizations to manage the life cycle of documents across the enterprise, which is essential for compliance and information governance. By creating an audit trail of the users and documents involved in printing and scanning, MPS can help organizations enforce company policies regarding the retention, destruction, and distribution of information.

Watch Out For MPS Pitfalls
Most experts agree that the move to MPS is not difficult, especially for MSPs that are already familiar with selling subscriptions and services. But there are a few pitfalls service providers need to watch out for. “The most common mistake we see stems from miscalculating the toner yield and cost per page,” says Weeks. “MSPs should address this first, and we recommend pricing on a cost-percopy basis, which includes all the toner, drums/ cartridges, and services as well as the capital investment to purchase the device. Customers want to pay a per-device charge to use printers. They no longer want to buy them.”

SYNNEX’s Wederb rand adds that it is important to understand the difference between managing devices and managing the flow and impact of documents. “When MPS first developed into a practice, the biggest pitfall was underestimating page requirements in a cost-per-page [CPP] agreement or not understanding white space requirements,” he says. “As the market has matured and customers’ needs have become more complex, we are seeing another pitfall emerging, which is taking on too much too soon. This ‘boil the ocean’ approach hinders MSPs’ ability to fulfill their MPS service level agreements, which is why we recommend taking a phased approach to MPS. The best place to start is by looking at the largest areas of improvement that can be made to your customers and determining your customers’ thresholds to making the necessary changes.”

Print Is Not Dead ... It’s Just Evolving
Despite the continued progress into the digital era, Wederbrand and Weeks concur that the printed page is alive and well and will continue to be so for years to come. What is happening, however, is that organizations are no longer viewing print as a separate or stand-alone business function, and MSPs should do the same.

What matters to end users is having access to information — in print or digital format — so that employee workflows are optimized and customers’ needs are being met. What industry organizations such as CompTIA are suggesting is that MSPs should start thinking about the next phase of MPS, which is managed content services (MCS). MCS encompasses traditional print management services, but it also considers adjacent topics such as document workflow, print optimization, and business process automation. By taking a broader view of how print and other data are being used by end users, MSPs can provide more valuable and lucrative services, and they can further differentiate themselves from their competitors.