What the HP Split Tells Us About HP's Managed Print Services

It's an outhouse.  Made out of the shipping container for Edgeline.

For years the definition of managed print services has been bandied around like a beach ball on Labor Day Weekend. Your definition of MPS rotated around your particular strengths.

For instance, if you refilled empty toner cartridges, your MpS is all about less expensive toner. If you're a copier dealership, your MpS may orient around centralized MFD's and optimization means a single brand of devices. Still, if you are a big box, office supplies vendor, your MpS is all about desk side toner delivery.

My definition of MPS tries to be encompassing: my monitoring software is in on a screen inside my NOC, right next to the CCTV and Level Platforms. My optimization, for example, includes reducing the number of devices in an accounting department to zero and implementing digital workflow systems and dual monitors.

So, back in 2009, my MPS included everything from ink and service delivery, staff augmentation, Sharepoint, laptop imaging, and unified communications. I was a big HP house. I sold only HP toner, servers, laptops, printers and...oh yeah, Edgeline multifunction behemoths.

#HP $HPQ to Cull PC's & Printers: New Company Called, "HP, Inc." - Get It?

"Ah ! well a-day ! what evil looks
Had I from old and young !
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung."
--- Coleridge

In 1991 Lexmark was formed when IBM divested its printer and printer supply operations to an investment firm. On November 15, 1995, Lexmark was publicly traded .  Today the company is trading at $41.59 has a revenue around $3.7B and about 12,000 employees.  Back in the 90's, Lexmark boasted a revenue of nearly $2.0B.

IBM was in the midst of one of the greatest corporate transformations in history.  The company was in turmoil; internal leadership changes, intense competitive pressures, economic headwinds and a fractured self-image.  They didn't know who they were, what they did or how to do whatever it was they were going to do, better.
Crazy times, the 90's.

Today, another great technology firm finds herself in the throws of transformation - HP offers everything from servers, clouds, PC's, laptops, printers, supplies and services. But its not enough.  More accurately, its just too much. What IBM grew through, HP is now experiencing - you can't be everything to everyone.  If that were all, it would be bad enough, but its worse.  HP, Microsoft and the rest of the WinTel realm can no longer dictate demand. Their rule is not as relevant as in the past.

Take printers, for example.  HP brought the laser printer into the business world and for a decade or two, HP was synonymous with printing.  But in 2007, the winds of change were upon us.  No matter how much marketing tries to accentuate the shift from toner to ink, black and white to color, desktop to mobile, hard copy print will never rebound;  sinking more resources against the tide is folly.

What made HP great, is holding her back.  Print is the albatross.

Some will herald the move as great strategy - it might be - for sure, this is a responsive tact, not one that bends the market to HP's will.

Nothing, not even the company who brought the laser printer to nearly every desktop in the land, can reverse the trend.  Printing is dying.  Not because we've all decided to stop killing trees, or understand printing decreases the ozone layer or bringing on the next ice age.  HP is a victim of the shift in How We Work:

• No more desktop PCs
• No more servers
• Fewer laptops
• We do not print the same
• We communicate differently
• Fewer printers
• Almost no copiers

Today, we communicate under glass more than ever before. Generations of young adults live in a world without PC's, rotary phones, black and white TV, newspaper delivery or a printer.  Like generations before them understood life with electricity, they've never known a world without the internet.  Why in the world would they ever want or need to print anything?  Why?  Ask them.

Tablets, smart phones and new workflows, oh my.

"No one in the printing industry, or outside it, had any idea that the iPad would come along and destroy three- to four-thousand-year-old human traditions concerning paper," explained Gary Peterson, chief executive at Gap Intelligence, a San Diego-based research analysis firm.

No one except us...here.

In light of this expected turn, to all the paperless deniers, I ask this:

• If employees print 10,000 images each/year...
• If mobile print is a viable option...
• If global print volumes are rising...
• If OEMs can re-establish the relevancy of print...

then...

• Why did International Paper shutter it's biggest, 8.5x11 sized paper producing plant if print volumes are increasing?
• Why did HP layoff 40,000 employees when the second coming, mobil print or ink, is just around the corner?  Think of layoffs as The Rapture.
• Why is less than half of Xerox's revenue generated through equipment sales?
• Why would a leading copier manufacturer build an erasable copier?
• Even without printing capabilities, Apple still sold more than a dozen iPads

Denial.

"HP profits are reliant on selling "consumables" like inkjet cartridges, so the company can't be eager to see that business sidelined by the new prominence of tablets and smartphones. Even though mobile device make it easier to skip the printer in some cases, for example with electronic boarding passes and mapping apps, McCoog doesn't see printing as an endangered business.

Yeah, right.

What does this mean to all of you selling copiers and MpS?  Keep doing what you're doing, your resume clean and enhance your PERSONAL ACUMEN every day.  The change isn't coming, it is already here and you've got to improve yourself beyond the box and away from marks on paper.

Perhaps two decades from today, we'll look back and remember how HP built a great print business, sold it off and turned into the technology powerhouse Bill and Dave envisioned.


1991 -

What Will Happen to Managed Print Services When Aliens Land on Earth?

9/2014

Long ago, before the Star Wars Generation grew old, people who discussed alien planets, time travel, robots with brains, or life created in a petri dish would be labeled as "off", "introvert", odd, strange, socially awkward, clumsy, etc.

Not today.  Today, it's not so geeky to talk about anything in the context of science fiction.

Signs -

In the 2002 movie "Signs" Mel Gibson plays a reverend who after losing his wife, rejects God and Faith.  Aliens play cat and mouse for a few days utilizing crop circles as navigation symbols.  The invasion is concentrated around these designs; Mel's family lives on a farm and has recently been a victim of other worldly graffiti.  As more and more indicators reveal themselves families begin to suspect the worse.

The movie is a tapestry of past, present, and future events all woven together leading to the ultimate ending where all the pieces fall into place; hindsight is 20/20.  Everybody saw the signs, but nobody put them all together until the very end.

With this in mind I pose this question with all seriousness and grace - in a cold and analytical manner:

Do you See The Signs?

If not, let me point out a few of the Crop Circles in our cornfield:

• Recharger: Gone
• Lay-offs: Prevalent, secular
• 3D Printing: The latest 'Adjacency' does not make marks on paper
• IBM sells off Servers - "...its the Cloud, stupid..."
• Dealers offering Coffee and Water Services - no, really, its true
• Old Content - We're telling each other the same thing again and again, expecting new results
• Self-implemented MpS engagements; fewer clients need our services
• MIF reductions - If your numbers are up, you're simply trading MIF with a competitor
• Financial: Sharp, Panasonic, Kodak, HP - if the exchange rate wobbles, look out
• Show attendance:  ITEX, Recharger, BTA; each was much bigger than they are now
• Paper plants closing: International Paper announced the closure of one of its biggest plants in 2013 - primary output was 8.5x11
• IBM sells off SDN - googlitize it
• IPad: Almost as many sold as cases of paper, just kidding, but you get the point
• E Signatures - from car loans, to insurance forms, to lease payments everybody is doing it except you
• Google sells off Motorola - patents more valuable than the hardware
• Kids these days - all Thumbs and not a newspaper to be seen
• Lawsuits - desperation; it's like hoping for a penalty when you are down 3 points, late in the game.

There Are Two Groups -

"People break down into two groups when they experience something lucky. Group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck.

Just a happy turn of chance.

I'm sure the people in Group number two are looking at those fourteen lights in a very suspicious way. For them, the situation isn't fifty-fifty. Could be bad, could be good. But deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they're on their own.

And that fills them with fear. Yeah, there are those people. But there's a whole lot of people in Group number one.

When they see those fourteen lights, they're looking at a miracle. And deep down, they feel that whatever's going to happen, there will be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope.

See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky?"

Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?"

"Swing Away, Merrill"

What signs are you ignoring?  Do you see crop circles, but blame the "kids down the street" for little late-night shenanigans?

Is it a coincidence that International Paper is shutting down paper plants, that HP refers to IPG as the "once cash cow", newspapers and magazines shift away from print, that industry show attendance dwindles, MIF falls off lease, and dealers now provide toner and coffee services, all while hardware margins shrink?

It's not so cryptic. The more difficult conundrum is figuring out which group you're in...

"Do you believe it because it's true or is it true because you believe it?"

Stop Doing These Four Things & Sell More Managed Print Services

Selling managed print services and managed services is not brain science, it's more like Rocket Surgery.

What year is this, 1989?

Maybe you know of these, maybe not.  The point is, I'm hearing more and more about how the better MPS selling organizations are replacing failed existing MPS engagements.  The losers are not covering the basics like toner delivery, prompt service and correct billing let alone workflows and business acumen.

As always, these are my views and mine alone - take 'em or leave 'em.

"I shall call him, Mini-Pad and His Big Sister shall be Maxi -" #Apple

Originally posted 7/9/12

Kindle, schmindle, I want a PC in the form of an iPAD!

I want the comfort of Windows 1.0 and enough ports to plug in my optical mouse AND trackball- while you're at it, throw in parallel port to boot.

And I want it to print to any and every printer in the world. Dare I say, an Epson LQ-2550 and an IBM 4019 Laser printer.

Yeah, print to those, you goofy, goof-ball.

Those Win8, hockey pucks won't print.Not because they can't, because NOBODY WILL WANT TO PRINT.

Will Win8 be a bust?  Will it lock up, like every other Windows version? Has there been a history of new interfaces confusing the hell out of everyone? Whatever.

Who is The World's Best Managed Print Services...in the World

I love the phrase, "It ain't bragging if its true..." - my high school football coach used it often.

I've noticed a trend over the past few months in our little niche: Robo-Boasting.

Self-promotion is great.  I get that and if you're proud of your MpS, I say get that story out there.  But don't do it through a robotic channel.

Bragging -

So many software, OEMs, dealers, toner pirates, distributors, consultants and analysts either claim to be or report to know the best Managed Print Services something-or-other.  The twitter-feed is chock-full of MPS robo-brags and self-promotion, it is blinding.  Observed from the outside it looks like one huge Love-fest. (I was going to use 'circle-jerk' but that might seem offensive)