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Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Managed print Services Truth #7 & #8 - Be Defiant, Be Basic "Thinking Out Loud"


Two defining qualities of any cutting edge, evangelist of change - what once was MpS - is Defiance of the status quo and the ability to cover the basics

7. Be defiant

Test everything every day. Your processes can always be better, and your costs reduced. Take a page out of Six Sigma or any one of the hundreds of business books, scale it down, and apply the lessons to your everyday business process. Make quarterly reviews mean something internally. And if you ever hear the phrase, “This is how we always do it,” refer back to that Lyra chart.

Transformation is continuous, and your improvement should be too. The number of imaging providers will decrease by half or more. Copiers are not what they used to be. Be ready for anything by challenging everything. MPS is bigger than toner and service, so you need to be ready to shift and move at the drop of a hat. What was done in the past simply does not apply today, so challenge the existing.

8. Be basic

Think about the days when you knew nothing about copiers or toner. Remember how it was to make it up as you went — how you demonstrated over-jammed originals, around faulty color and through spilled toner? Call up the days when there were no rules in toner — or copier — sales. What did you have? A phone, the Yellow Pages, Rolodex, and some ideas? A pager? What the heck is a pager? How did you survive?

I hate to say it, but get some of the grind work done; that means calls and marketing — in the trenches. Because like never before in history, we — providers and prospects — are on the same page. The field is level. It comes down to two people making something happen — a basic relationship built on solid intent.

Monday, December 29, 2014

Managed print Services Truth #5 & #6 - Be a Leader, Be Open


Titles don't make leaders.  Cutting your own trail doesn't make you a leader - but you sure won't be a follower.

5. Be a leader

If you’re employed at a dealership that promotes MPS but the guy at the top doesn’t know the difference between remote monitoring and remote machine management, quit. It’s time for executive management and ownership to climb down off the ivory tower and get dirty. The good ones will; the leaders already have.

If you are ownership, get out and explain to your team how you’re going to move the company forward, and then do it — every day. Reach out into the trenches, deliver equipment, make sales presentations and take service calls.

If you’re in sales, put together your plan for success and present it to your fellow team members on Monday morning. Don’t ask your manager if you can; tell him that you are. If you get push-back, quit.

Now is the time — if you decide to stay in this industry — to ride out the storm. Let it all hang out. It won’t be easy; there will be doubters and naysayers. Stay the course. If the system is gamed against you, get out.

Leadership comes from all levels, and vision leads to profit. It’s not the other way around.

6. Be open

Educate yourself about everything other than print. You probably know more than you need to about copying. What about telephony and tablets? What about asset management and PC support? Rack versus blades? Would you be surprised to find out that some customers who utilize managed services are happy to simply receive a phone call telling them that one of their servers is broken? A phone call.

Do you know how naive you sound when you say you’re in MNS versus managed services? What’s your level of comfort with RMM or the difference between copier service SLAs and managed services SLAs? Why are you compensating copier service differently than MPS engagements? Plug into some new LinkedIn groups or subscribe to print magazines from outside the industry. Tweet, for goodness’ sake. Be open to new ideas. Get to know whatever it is you need to know.

Sunday, December 28, 2014

#3 & #4 Managed Print Services Truths: Be a Partner, Be Lean "Come With Me Now"


Continuing our journey into the 10 Truths of MPS we look now to partnerships and overhead.

3. Be a partner

The tough times are making everybody re-evaluate their position in the ecosystem, and the best way to survive is to gather together with like-minded people. Partnerships open up your services portfolio; good partnerships bring with them even more connections and synergy. Isolation leads to desperation. Partner with your clients, toner provider(s), OEMs and fellow employees. If HP can work with third-party toner suppliers, why can’t you partner with a managed services provider? Or better yet, how hard can it be to become a tablet reseller? Today, it is all about partnerships and teams. Build a team that includes players from all over — from network infrastructure experts, software application specialists, property managers, bankers and shop owners. Full press your personal network and choose those you deem worthy.

4. Be lean

Tough decisions are coming, if they haven’t already. The economy is making a rebound unlike any other time in history, and the recovery will not include a spike in manufacturing jobs or employment. Look to reduce your overhead.

Do you really require a demo floor? Really? No, really? It may look nice, but ... really? Is it a stipulation of your dealer agreement? If so, throw that Lyra chart in front of them and push back. Nobody holds inventory anymore, so why are you? How tight are you on trunk stock and warranty exchanges? How many service calls have you made over the past 12 months on your fleet of laser/cartridge-based devices compared to your traditional copiers? Do you need so many technicians? Do you need three dispatchers? How many people in accounting?

I am not recommending you fire everyone in sight. I am recommending you look at the costs that could be reduced or shifted over to some of your partners and possibly move traditional infrastructure talent into your sales team.

For example, in my practice, I did not want to stock toner, take orders or coordinate the shipment of and maintain an inventory of toner cartridges. I did not want to — nor did I believe I should have to — bear the overhead cost. I evaluated every single fulfillment program out at the time from front to back. I looked at their process and the infrastructure the value-add provided and talked with the people on the ground.

I made the shift and demanded much from my new, integral partner — from delivery and customer relations to report generation. When I found somebody I could work with, that company became a full-fledged member of my team. It worked and reduced my overhead immensely. Lean, agile, clear.

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Talk Managed Services - "Lost Stars"

November 2011.

This article is over three years old but the concepts and ideas prevail.  Not simply for the new people in the industry, but for all of us.  Gearing toward the IT world seems to be a universal attempt that never ends.  We keep going through the same scenario, altering and adjusting as we go. It isn't insanity, it's evolution.

Enjoy.
GRW
Would you like to sell more MPS? Start talking “Managed Services” not “Managed Print Services.”

Thinking the magic is in the “P” deserves a deeper look. Like it or not, the service we are offering for printing—the marking of paper with toner—is simply a symptom of our client's business process, an afterthought.

The “P” is an unsustainable aspect of the ecosystem dwindling with each passing day. Managed services are growing. Think I’m wrong? Take a look at the latest news from the IT side of the world.

Look up companies like ConnectWise, LabTech, Level Platforms—companies that provide client support and remote monitoring products to VARs and managed service providers. For them, managed-print services are the buzz, that Hot New Thing, just like it was for us—four years ago.

When companies like these finally see recurring revenue can be had at a 42 percent margin, how long before they add toner delivery and on-site support to their standard service level agreements?

And what will happen when they figure out, for instance, how to craft a 36-month, 90-day deferred, FMV (Fair Market Value)/dollar out, with a buy-out leasing deal—working with more than Cisco Capital Finance and Hewlett-Packard Financial Services?

They’ve heard our racket—living in a world of run rates, volume discounts, and five-point margins; MPS looks pretty good from their vantage point.

The battle lines are drawn. MPS is out of the corporate backwaters. All the noise we’ve made over here, in our small pond, is attracting the attention of some pretty big players. Remember the phrase, “…own the network, own the account…?”

These guys invented, installed, and support the network.

True, they loathe printers and copiers, recoiling at the thought of talking with “copier people.” They underestimate us.

Our edge is—or at least it should be—in vision, flexibility, and deal crafting.

Big thing is they see us coming.

Friday, December 26, 2014

10 Timeless Managed Print Services Truths - "I Wanna Get Better"

This piece first appeared in December of 2014, on The Imaging Channel.

After five years of managed print services, one would imagine a standard set of MPS rules would rise out of the fog. (I know, you’ve been doing MPS for 25,000 years) The debate over what exactly MPS stands for — not the acronym, but the vision and real value of managed print services - rages on.

Do you remember the great device-to-technician-ratio discussion of 2008?

Copier dealers had well-established ideas developed and honed for decades, but they didn’t apply in MPS. There are a number of “rules” associated with toner yields as well, but have they made you money or did they cost the last MPS manager his job? It is easier to see guidelines take shape rather than hard rules. Benchmarks are almost the same: MPS benchmarks are difficult to establish, and best practices simply hold us accountable to somebody else's model.

Four years later, at the 2012 Lyra Imaging Symposium, vendor scorecards showed lower profits and a majority of the industry OEMs have been utilizing the same rules since 1979. Today, they find themselves 41 percent behind Q4 2007 numbers. Stunning, isn’t it? What’s it called when one plays by the same rules expecting different results?

Roll in the evolution of less print: From 1991 to 2001, printing paper shipments increased 27 percent, but from 2000 to 2009, they decreased 27 percent; it is not that difficult to see.

MPS contributes to shrinking print and copy volumes, which in turn reduces the prospects’ need to buy OEM toner, parts, and machines, resulting in fewer printed pages, fewer printers, fewer copiers, and fewer virgin cores.

This has been and remains the biggest Catch-22 with MPS — the one issue OEMs can’t seem to get their minds around quickly enough: MPS contributes to the reduction of machines in the field, yet every single OEM has an MPS program in hopes of reducing the other OEMs’ machines in the field. Suicidal? No. Madness? Indeed. Transformative? Absolutely.

MPS moves fast

Time is accelerating as well. Yesterday’s enterprise was about print, copy, 60-month leases, CPC contracts, locking customers in, flexing, selling more capabilities for the same price, auto-renewals and built-in obsolescence — and that was less than 36 months ago.

Back in 2013, World Expo presented managed print services to a hungry audience. We were re-exposed to the MPS basics of toner, service, remote monitoring, and cost-per-image billing. Back then, discussing VARs and "managed network services" was fresh and new.

MnS is nothing more than managed services.

Technology evolves faster than we comprehend. It took a decade for everyone in America to have a car, a phone, and indoor plumbing. In only 12 months, back in 2010, Apple sold 14.8 million tablets and then matched that entire year in one quarter on the way to 40 million units in 2011 — which already seems a decade ago.

Everything converges and accelerates into the future at a dizzying pace.

There is barely enough time to breathe, let alone establish a set of rules. The good news is there are natural laws that — when recognized — can help us keep our bearings as we boldly move through this unexplored space.

Consider the following a few suggested guideposts along your MPS journey and business transformation.


1. Be aware
2. Be adaptable
3. Be a partner
4. Be lean
5. Be a leader
6. Be open
7. Be defiant
8. Be basic
9. Be the ruler

10. Stand or fall


1. Be aware

The first rule is simple: Know who you are, your world, and your place in it. Self-awareness is the foundation of all change. For example, if you are strong when it comes to delivering toner, use this as a foundation to grow on.

When you look at your client base and see a vertical, use that information as an additive to your business personality and value proposition. Take a deep dive and perform an assessment of your entire business operation.

Are you flexible, open, and adaptable enough to look at how you have been running your business and then change it?

Caution is recommended here; there are just a few full-scale business assessments in our industry. “Full-scale” refers to every facet of your business: finance, sales, inventory, infrastructure, partnerships — everything. This is different than the standard “How are you selling?” and “How does your service desk work?” evaluations.

This transformation from copiers to MPS to managed services is a magnifying glass. If your current systems are flawed, adding a new process will turn cracks into crevasses.

Also, get to know your customer’s environment outside of printing. Look at the workflows, recognizing choke points and other areas for improvement from a business perspective — not a toner, services, or print perspective.
  • Are they looking to move to IP phones or tablets? 
  • Check to see if they are outsourcing their IT support today and how much they pay. 
  • Do they feel the money is well-spent? 
  • Do your customers use Twitter? 
  • Do they write or read blogs? 
  • Be aware of your world and the world around you. Open your eyes.
2. Be adaptable

The days of churn and burn are nearly at an end; this option is a dead end, but that doesn’t mean doom and gloom. The opportunities and directions are endless, but flexibility in all phases is necessary to survive and thrive. Compensation, for instance, has been reasonably stable over the decades.

Can you look at paying for performance differently? Are you flexible, open, and adaptable enough to look at how you have been running your business and then change it? For instance, if you are under the traditional toner supply model with notifications coming directly to you, consider and be open to a different model. If you see more documents heading toward screens instead of paper, would you consider reselling or partnering with a tablet's OEM? Adapt or die.

Join us over the coming weeks as we review the remaining "Timeless Truths".  Oh, the fun we will have.


MBA's will lose you money & karma is for those who wait..."Chocolate"



"Shark Tank" is the latest "walk in a room, be berated and leave" TV show.  Think, The Apprentice, The Voice, and The Gong Show all rolled up into 47 minutes of thrill packed demonstrations.

Entrepreneurs (everybody is one now days) pitch their idea to the 'sharks', asking for funding in exchange for ownership.  If the sharks like what they see, they may bid against each other in an effort to get a piece of the possible up side.  If they don't like a proposition, they drop out.

One of the sharks, Barbara Corcoran, was interviewed by LinkedIn revealing some interesting ideas about intuition and partnering.  Barbara built a real estate empire in New York, employing 1400 folks before selling her company for about $60 million.  Today, she advises and runs up and coming businesses.

She knows what she does best and where her weaknesses lie - when hiring or partnering, she seeks out those who have qualities she does not and utilizes her intuition on all decisions. She doesn't actively seek out MBA's - she's lost money with them in the past.
"She didn’t wait for karma to come around and bless her at some later point; she got mad and she fought for what she wanted now."
I equate her attitude toward MBA's similar to my view about benchmarks.  Why utilize other people's  academic musings.  The world changes so quickly, book knowledge or user surveys cannot keep up.

Sure, standard mechanisms of accounting and finance apply; there are plenty of talented people excel in the science of 'double-entry'.  When the environment is stable, meandering or static comparing today to yesterday in order to see tomorrow, is prudent.

But it ain't that way anymore, is it?  Turbulence is everywhere.  Looking aft only tells you where you've been and listening to people who measure tomorrow from yesterday is a siren call.

I follow her example and advice: let others live the normal.  Believe in what you feel as much as what you think - most of all, hear yourself.

What are you doing in your business?  Are you adding up the numbers, working harder to get more done?  Are your wheels spinning?

If you could alter anything, what would your gut tell you to change?



Contact Me

Greg Walters, Incorporated
greg@grwalters.com
262.370.4193