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Executive Debrief
Are your margins being
attacked?
Companies are noticing the cost drain from their network printing. And they are responding. PrinterRx tells them what their costs are and where they can save. In turn,
these corporations are pressuring their Managed Service providers and dealers to reduce their invoices. Have you found some
of your customer's monthly billing decline by up to 4 times?
Or corporations are reducing the number of vendors that
support their printing network. The corporation is looking at one stop
shopping - for assets, consumables & service. Are you that one stop or is your
competitor?
38% of VARs will go out of business this year if they
do not make significant changes to their business.
Grant's Tech Tip
What's in the printerRx new
release?
In a few short days, printerRx 2.25.9 will be released. Some highlights of the new release include:
-Cost Centers
-Automatic detection of toner cartridge change
-Enhanced viewing options
-New reports: Toner discard & toner yield
-Faster search
-New printer status type of "inactive"
For more
answers to your questions refer
to:
PrinterRx
Support portal
PrinterRx training highlight
Customizing printerRx appearance
Items that can be customized include:
-color coding thresholds
-language
-currency
These items can be customized by selecting printerRx status in the Administration section. In the pWeb Users section of the panel that appears, select the Preferences link to access the screen to change preferences.
The "Setting up User Preferences" training module provides
more information.
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Threats to your Managed Print Services business
In our last
newsletter
we completed the best practices for managed print services. This month we will discuss threats to your Managed Print Service business. Corporations are getting smarter, or at least they are taking
notice of the costs they are paying their vendors. They want their costs reduced, but they do not want the every day hassle of supplying and maintaining the printers.
As a result the Dealers and Print Service Providers are being squeezed. At least some are. Others are growing their business. Who are these others?
These others are Service Providers who are delivering a unique service that
manages all aspects of a corporation's network printing. Their service is
streamlined and efficient with cost controls and automation processes built in.
When margins are being squeezed, how can you grow your
business? There are really only two ways: decrease expenses or increase revenues.
Decrease expenses: As your margins are being
squeezed by competition and by pressure from your customers, you can cut costs
by reducing input costs. This implies renegotiating your supplier agreements for
hardware and consumables. Unless you are a major reseller for the
hardware/toner manufacturer, good luck! Or you can reduce human resource
expense. What we are talking here is increasing the productivity of your
service & support technicians. Each individual must do more services in less
time. - Automate manual jobs. Decrease driving to sites. Optimize site visits.-
printerRx is a tool used to automate activities and schedule events to increase the productivity of your technicians.
Increase revenues: You may increase revenues by adding new customers and by selling more services to existing customers.
Since you already have a dialogue with existing customers, it should be easier to increase your service revenue from them, than selling to a new customer.
With a managed print service tool such as printerRx, you can gather the details of the "unmanaged portion" of your customer's printer fleet. How much would that information be worth to you? A step towards expanding your existing business.
As a quick fix, some hardware
manufacturers are introducing Cost per Page programs to their resellers and VARs. But beware of the contract terms.
Of course you have a choice to do nothing. But your competitors who are addressing their revenue threats will survive.
Corporations are getting smarter about their network printing costs.
Managed Services Value Proposition
How do you evolve your value proposition from a product model to a service model?
When selling your product offering, the printing devices
are commoditized, so that the relationship with the manufacturers is what is
being leveraged. Your deliverables have become price points. We have made printers a commodity to the point where even the brake fix service offerings have become
a commodity. Hey, let's face it, its much easier to sell functions, features,
speed & options. Even your services exist to sell the printers.
Causing the relationships with the customers to be based on price.
When you are providing managed services, your deliverable becomes your unique customized IT service. The processes that your have established with the
people you employ to deliver the service are your leverages. But to get there you need to define your core offering, which
incidentally, becomes your reason to exist.
You are no longer selling printers, you are managing printing environments. You provide a service that ensures your customers' IT printing are accessible, reliable and
appropriate. And at a reasonable cost! You and your customer become partners delivering and reducing their printing
requirements.
So let's get on with defining our Value Proposition for
Managed Services.
Get more information on a printerRx solution
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