Edward Crowley, CEO and founding partner of the Photizo Group, to Speak At Lyra 2009

The 2009 Lyra Imaging Symposium: Collaboration, Customization, and Innovation in the "New" Imaging Industry features two days of illuminating industry information and primary research results, helping attendees to critically examine how the industry will change over the next five years.

With comprehensive presentations and a full offering of recreational activities, the Symposium is an ideal venue to debate, discuss, network, and challenge conventional wisdom with the industry's leading players. The 2009 Lyra Imaging Symposium arms attendees with actionable insights on the industry today and a top-to-bottom analysis of what lies ahead..."


Managed Print Services -

Steve Reynolds, senior analyst at Lyra, and Edward Crowley(pictured right), CEO and founding partner of the Photizo Group, will join together to examine the role of managed print services (MPS) in the digital imaging industry and discuss why MPS is resonating with customers more than ever before and whether the MPS trend has staying power potential.

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The agenda appears exhaustive and chuck full of interesting issues permeating our industry. It's just down the road from me, perhaps I shall crash it.

Do them proud, Ed.

NanoClusters and InkJet Printing - The Print Process is Not Used to Print But to Manufacture

11/2008

The key to a "bottom-up" production of possibly the first heterometallic gallium-indium hydroxide nanocluster was the substitution of nitroso-butylamine as an additive in place of nitrosobenzene.

The above sentence is not made up - it is part of an article here.

But the reason I have been following NanoTechnology as it interrelates to printing - is simple.

One day most IC boards, video displays, light sources, and electrical devices will be as thin as a piece of paper and will have the ability to be manufactured on demand - with the help of Nanoclusters, thin-film, and Inkjet applications. See "State-of-the-art inks and other materials are opening up new applications for inkjet as a manufacturing tool."

Stop for a second and think - ink is applied onto a surface, if we replace the ink with a substance that could say, conduct electrical current, and we could control the current within the structures "printed" on a surface in an elemental sense we would be able to "print" fully functional, custom, IC boards.

We could print/spray/inkjet, on the surface of a sheet of paper, shingle, or car roof, a solar collector(Konarka demonstrates micro/nano inkjet-printed solar cells). And with wireless power, transfer the captured power to other, flat, "printed" lighting sources - a "light bulb" as thin as a sheet of paper.

Oh but wait, there is so much more.

The computer of the future could be 'painted' into your desk surface, or briefcase, or the lap of your trousers. ( see Inkjet printers could be the chip factories of the future, squirting out circuits made from layers of organic semiconducting ink.)

HUH?

HD video displays "spray-painted" onto walls - this would add a dimension to "tagging".

Cell Phones, applied to clothing, tattoos that light up at night, cars that change colors - or show running video all over its surface...

Well, before all this BladeRunner stuff hits, I guess we can look forward to nanotechnologies assisting in regular, boring, photo-prints:

"Photo-quality papers with ink-receptive mesoporous layers that are based on inorganic solids fulfill the requirements of present-day high-speed inkjet printer much better than those based on organic polymers..."

Experiments indicate that the presence of nanosized polynuclear aluminum complexes in the ink-receptive layers of new paper can help to improve the permanence of photo-quality images. This means colors stay longer on paper containing nanosized polynuclear aluminum complexes.

I still want one day to be able to change the color of my Rover as easily as I change the color scheme on my Windows...

Interesting? See:

Nano Packs

Click to email me.

How Your I.T. Contacts Look at Print Volume

11/2008

This IT professional illustrates the internal challenges those on the outside never see or appreciate. This is a long post, but get through it, it's worth the read.

Also, kudos to rIKON: The "IT's Fault" Perception and Karma - Written by Jay Rollins, Off the TechRepublic site, here. 

"So this week on the new job was interesting. As with many organizations, IT’s arch-nemesis, marketing, was having issues. They were trying to print these ginormous files on a teeny-tiny color printer and could not understand why they kept getting errors. Every time they would try to print to this printer the expected “belch…puke…putter” sound was heard and out would come a screwed-up rendition of what they were trying to print. And only one out of the 600 copies they requested. 

The challenge in this day and age is that everyone and their grandmother expect to be able to click “print” on a file and it just magically happens. And because 99.999% of printing is just that, “magic,” it becomes increasingly painful to listen to marketing complain to the CEO that they can’t do something as easy as printing a file. 

Now we all know that the phrase “it depends” comes into play here. My astute colleague at my new job reminded me that any PC has the potential to blow up any printer given the right opportunity. So how do you react? They just attacked you in front of the CEO waving the “incompetent” banner! You can’t come back and say that you can’t print a 10GB PDF to a home office printer and not expect a buffer overflow. That just sounds lame and you can see everyone’s eyes glazing over before you utter the words. Besides, we’re IT. We don’t look for quippy comebacks because we’re solution-oriented. We’re all about customer service. Right? 

Here comes Karma. I’m all about the root cause. 

We don’t have any desktop publishing expertise on staff, but one of our enterprising senior guys called up a graphic artist buddy of his to get some pointers. But before that happened, one of our other key guys already started looking at outsourcing solutions. Finding the experts in the field and making it their problem was a brilliant stroke of genius. We looked at the volume of printing that marketing was doing and called up our IKON partner. 

They came to the table with a proposal that was about even with what marketing was spending on their newsletters and calendars. But I followed my own advice and reviewed the entire accounts payable for the company. I discovered a ton of other printing the company was doing outside of marketing that actually made the IKON solution stand out. There were challenges. I was trying to keep marketing from chucking the problem over the wall to IT. I sent them the section of my spreadsheet of every vendor that I thought was a printing vendor. For anything that contained or referenced the words “print,” “promotion,” “publisher” or “press,” I asked them to identify vendors. In order to make this proposal work, we needed to establish rules and controls to fully realize the benefits of the IKON solution. 

All printing had to go through the centralized print shop. Accounting needed to be made aware that printing at Kinko’s could no longer be expensed. If the teams could not plan a week ahead to schedule their printing, then the old adage of “Your lack of planning does not mean my crisis” comes into play and there are no excuses. Additionally, one of the top five issues in the helpdesk gets outsourced. We were both stakeholders. But marketing continued to push back. I came to realize that this IT organization was all about customer service. 

They did everything for the business units even to their own detriment. I came from the school where you try to get the business unit to have some skin in the game, but we had our own customer service scores to attend to. So I found myself on the horns of a dilemma. I needed to make the changes in the organization to start making the business units more accountable for their projects, but at the same time, ensure our internal customer service scores did not suffer. 

After all, this was no small sum of money we were talking about.

"Then I started thinking about it. Sure, Marketing is the big customer for this, but we have the opportunity to save $300k per year if we include some of the other printing into this project. It calls for cross-functional coordination and involvement."

This isn’t a marketing project. It’s an IT project. 

Marketing had the opportunity to pick up a huge win for the company, not just for marketing, but they kept pushing it back on IT. But IT can see the true value of the project because we’re not looking within a silo. We are looking at this from an enterprise architecture standpoint. We’re all about killing multiple birds with one stone. Marketing got their dig in at the beginning of the issue, but IT turned that lump of coal into a diamond. 

Short-term claims of incompetence don’t ring true in the eyes of management anymore. We rose from the ashes of adversity! We overcame the obstacles! We….are getting cornier as I continue, but you get the point. Score: Marketing 0, IT 1. So I have had my fun here. This is an illustrative example only. IT will never succeed if there is a scoreboard. The “us versus them” thing is so counter to “team” it isn’t funny. When the time comes, I am not presenting this as an IT victory. 

I am presenting it as a marketing victory. Why? Because I need marketing on my side for long-term success. Marketing drives the business. They generate sales and revenue. I need to make them look good in the eyes of management. These little successes will give marketing the courage to try new things and start thinking outside of the marketing silo. They start looking at the company in its entirety and truly start believing that their job makes a difference. They start believing that and great things start to happen. Sales increase, productivity increases, salaries increase, and bonuses increase. 

 Karma.

 -----------------End Post "

I know this is a long post, but this is a typical situation. 

IT people think of their users as "customers" and they will do anything to keep those customers happy. Also, you can read that IT is sometimes perceived as a negative in some organizations - ok, a negative in most, and IT people don't like to be the "bad guy"(again most don't but some do like the "Henchman" persona)

InfoTrends - It's All About the Solution

And it's Deja Vu all over again.

I found this excerpt from an Infotrends article in Europe.

Very interesting but not all that surprising.

— InfoTrends —

Solutions Capture More Pages and Fuel the Office Equipment Market

In years past, InfoTrends has written documents regarding the adoption rate of solutions within the office equipment market. At that time, solutions were really in the early stages of adoption, and OEM vendors and ISVs were in their initial posturing stages as they were trying to determine how best to take advantage of solutions and how they would eventually fit into their overall marketing and sales strategies. While solutions are still in the early stages of technology adoption today, we have seen significant growth in this category over the years and believe that solutions have yet to reach their full potential for penetration within this market.

Although many dealers understand that solutions should be an integral part of their strategy, most are still in the process of figuring out how to incorporate them into their range of offerings. Their propensity to fall back on the hardware products they are used to selling is hindering them from migrating to the next level and fully embracing the true solutions sale.

One of the biggest issues is sales cycles. Hardware sales cycles have traditionally been shorter than a solutions sales cycle. Another problem is that many companies set monthly quotas and sales people are usually trained to focus on hardware as they can bring the numbers in at the end of the month. In reality, a sales person would not be able to push a solution in 30 days; the cycles are getting shorter, but it still may be impossible in such a short period of time. A solution sale is like creating a good bottle of wine. It is a slower process that needs a certain amount of attention and caring before it is ready to be consumed. Nevertheless, within the office equipment market, hardware is becoming more difficult to differentiate as vendors are bringing to the market devices with equivalent functionalities and performances.

There have been some disruptions in the market with HP’s Edgeline and Xerox’s solid ink, but it seems that these technologies need more time before they gain great acceptance in the industry.

One trend is for sure: hardware is becoming more difficult to differentiate.

It is becoming more of an easily replaceable commodity or accessory, and vendors are dropping their margins at a consistent rate to remain competitive in this saturated market. Hardware revenues are expected to plummet in the next five years and, as a result, some vendors have already started to realign their sales focus from “hardware placed” to “pages captured,” from “printers” to “printing.”

Solutions and professional services have been welcomed as the Holy Grail of the office equipment market as they can be a huge differentiator in a hardware sale.

According to Clayton Christensen’s terminology, solutions can be defined as “the disrupting innovations” capable of changing the dynamics and evolution of value in the office equipment industry.

On the wave of Web 2.0, end-users are also increasingly changing the way they create, manage, and digest documents and information. Customers are sitting in the driving seat and they are inevitably looking for a tighter control over their document workflow. They require effective device utilization, reduced costs, and a single-source supplier for their equipment needs. They want to drive their entire document life-cycle and decide how to consume the originated contents and information.

As a consequence, solutions have been deemed strategic in addressing these customers’ requirements as they can help capture more pages, reduce Total Cost of Ownership, and enable a seamless and effective document management. On top of that, InfoTrends has been talking about solutions as a key driver in pulling hardware sales and professional services engagements. The popular chart below shows very clearly the European solutions crossroads, predicting that by the end of 2009, the roster of hardware only players would be cut down to 50% of the field.

The preceding is an excerpt from a report entitled Western European Network Document Solutions Forecast: 2007 - 2012. To learn more about this report, visit our online store or contact Robyn Wuori at 781-616-2100 ext. 103 or via e-mail at robyn_wuori@infotrends.com.

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European report, but the phrase remains the same - All copiers are the same, all of them, every single one.

Be Brave, Be Bold

TIPS FROM THE FAST GROWTH 100

I ran across this article, by By Jennifer Bosavage, ChannelWeb and it seemed pretty relevant -

She mentions three points, the second struck me -

2. Don't Overstrategize

"... some organizations' cultures lead managers to discuss goals and strategies ad nauseum. At some point, action needs to be taken. "We devote 10 percent of our time to strategizing and 90 percent to execution..."

Well. Ok.

Seems to me, that a bunch of Sales Managers and Managers in general should take a look at the way they manage.

And the Selling Professionals too - do we plan our week, all week?

Is it all planning and little execution?

Click to email me.

The Impact of IKON Being Acquired by Ricoh

2008-11-12 17:11:39 - On 27th August 2008 it was announced that IKON Office Solutions had agreed to be acquired by Ricoh,

which was then given clearance from the European Commission on 24­th October 2008. This deal was then made final on 31st October 2008 when shareholders agreed to the acquisition. As a result of this merger, IKON is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Ricoh.­ ­ ­ ­
­
It has been said that Ricoh have had a long standing relationship with IKON. With the amount of area coverage that IKON already have, Ricoh will be able to expand their US distribution ne­tw­ork by a substantial amount. The European Commission, upon deciding that there were enough competitors for all the products concerned, were able to give clearance for the acquisition of IKON by Ricoh. They found that no competitors of Ricoh are dependent on IKON's distribution.

However, IKON is a substantial company, with around 24,000 employees in more than 400 locations throughout North America and Western Europe, so ­the acquisition of IKON by Ricoh is bound to have some effect o­n the industry.

Before the merger, IKON sold and leased a range of products from manufacturers such as Canon, Ricoh, Konica Minolta and HP. It seems that Canon could be the manufacturer that is hit the hardest, as, according to Reuters­ (uk.reuters.com/article/innovationNewsTechMediaTelco/idUKT3216620 ..)­ 60 percent of the products handled by IKON were Canon machines, where as only around 30 percent were Ricoh before the acquisition.

Ricoh have said that they will replace all Canon machines with their own printers, photocopiers and multifunctional devices within 3 to 4 years.

This acquisition may leave some IKON customers in a difficult situation, because, although Ricoh have said they will continue to service other manufacturers of machine, they will eventually be replacing all their machines with Ricoh devices. This means that any customers using Canon machines will either have to change suppliers or manufacturers if they require a new device. For some customers this could be a difficult decision to m­ake as they could be loyal to Canon and very ha­ppy with the machines they already use, but see changing their supplier as a daunting task, especially if they have a large number of devices.

Fortunately there are some Canon suppliers that are prepared to make the transition as easy and as hassle free as possible. Some Canon suppliers are already seeing the effects of the merger, with an increase in the amount of enquiries coming from current IKON customers, perhaps indicating that some customers who already have Canon equipment are willing to stay loyal to Canon, even if this means changing their supplier.

The acquisition of IKON by Ricoh (­http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Ricoh-Completes-Acquisition-IKON-Office/story.aspx?guid={E4612AE5-D69D-4EC5-B735-AFA902F9197B})­ is bound to have some effect on the photocopier industry as I­KON is such a large company, covering a substantial area of North America and Western Europe. What will be seen ­is the effect this merger will ultimately have on Canon.

Already it has had some ­positive effect on some Canon dealers, especially those, such as Falcon Copiers, that already have a large customer base and are an established company with many years experience specialising in Canon equipment, making the transition from IKON to a new supplier seem an easy choice to make. Jon Tribe from Falcon Document Management says "Many IKON customers with a mix of Canon and Ricoh equipment will see a transition period where Ricoh service base takes president over canon. This is where a Canon specialist dealer can save the day." It is suppliers like these that will not only give existing IKON customers the chance to keep using Canon equipment, but also help lessen the impact on Canon. ­

Managed Print Services and the Economy

MPS and the economic landscape - what can it all mean?

Even with the financial woes of the 70s, 80s and 90s as a comparison, all indications are that this little "blip" on the financial radar is closer to an E.L.E. than any other time.

"Unemployment surged by 603,000 in October to 10.1 million, the highest level in 25 years, according to a survey of households. In the past six months, unemployment has leaped by 2.45 million, the largest increase since 1975.

"A stumbling economy seems to have been kicked down the stairs," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute. "This is what a deep recession looks like."

Two issues:

What can this mean for output devices and office equipment sales?

And

What does this mean for the burgeoning Managed Print Services segment?

Not good for the first issue and better for the second.

It's simple really, with the "commoditization" of hardware and the reduction in margins, aren't we looking for the ultimate angle?

The "angle" is lowering costs? Lowering the costs for your customers right now is the most important issue.

Think about it, if you are reducing your clients' costs associated with printing, on a fleet of machines for a good number of employees - the savings your plan, your idea, your "solution"(gag) brings to the table may be enough to save one persons job - and there by helping to feed that person's kid or mom, or grandmother. Letting that one person go to Wal*Mart, or In-n-Out to spend money. And those Wal*Mart and In-n-Out employees get paid because your end user, and thousands of others, went their job.

You think sales people don't do anything?

You think your "job" isn't important?

You think we need more "change"?

When we sell, we change something, we always have - hopefully for the better.

Go Change Something.

The Economic "Crisis" Hits Home - American Express Part Duex

Third-Party Lenders IBM, De Lage Landen Cut Channel Credit

First it strikes customers and prospects, now the channel. 

From a Channel Web article, dated 11.10.08, by Scott Campbell - 

"Within the last week, Jay Tipton, vice president of Technology Specialists, saw credit lines cut by both American Express and IBM, moves that forced him to scramble to find replacement lines. "It takes time away from selling for me to work on this," Tipton said. "I don't know what I'm going to do. That's what I have to figure out."

Tipton said he got a call from American Express last week informing him that his line, which approached $30,000, had been reduced to about $10,000.

Technology Specialists used the line mostly to pay recurring bills, he said. "It got cut down to where things started bouncing," he said..." American Express told Tipton it was concerned that his monthly charges were too high. He said a slow summer caused him to delay a payment, but he had caught up by October." 

 And this regarding an entity I have written about before, De Lage Landen Financial: 

"...Meanwhile, Michael Bidwell, vice president of Know Problem Business Technologies, said a $25,000 credit line he had with De Lage Landen Financial Services through D&H Distributing was cut overnight last week,

"I ordered on Monday. I ordered on Tuesday. When I tried to order on Wednesday, they called to tell me it came back refused," Bidwell said. Bidwell said he called both parties, who blamed each other over the ending of the program. "They point fingers at each other but they never sent an e-mail or placed a call to their dealers," 

Bidwell said. It's likely that De Lage Landen pulled the program because it didn't make economic sense for the lender with so few customers utilizing it. Calls to De Lage Landen were not returned..." 

 For the independents and smaller channel VARs this is an issue. For your customers, this is an issue. For the larger hardware providers, K/M, RiKON, CBS, Xerox , this could become an issue - if not already.

Did Ricoh or Canon Win Regarding IKON?

Armchair quarterbacks - from some who have actually been on the field -

Over at the Document Imaging Networking Executives group on LikedIn, a discussion is brewing regarding the buyout.

The question posed by group founder, Jamie Schorr:

"Did Ricoh really “win” IKON over Canon or did Canon make a decision not to play?"

One of the responses to this question from Joe Salkin , Vice President of Sales and General Manager at Duplicating Products, seems pretty poignant:

"Canon made a decision not to play. Canon was given the option to compete for the business but decided not to bid. Canon has never wanted to own IKON or anyone else for that matter however I am sure they didn't want Ricoh to have IKON either. If Canon wanted to buy IKON they could have years ago at a much lower price.

Over the last 3 years IKON's business with Canon had shrunk about 30% based on increase sales of color by Konica Minolta Color products sold by IKON vs. Canon products, and by Canon not replacing the Production Color products that Xerox picked off. 2nd I don't think Canon had much faith in IKON's Management Team, or their ability to manage their sales force. Therefore I don't think Canon wanted the headaches that came with the buy of IKON. Remember just 5 years ago IKON was a $7B company and today they won't do $4B.

I do believe Canon is going to miss the 2500 sales reps on the street, and all the business that IKON got for Canon in National Accounts that Canon will now never be able to get on their own. However over the next 5 years you will see Canon introduce new and better products, get their costs more in line with the competitors, buy up dealers across the country, and open CBS stores across the country to replace IKON/Canon sales. They will take a shot over the next 5 years but each year that will be less and less until Canon makes all or most of it up.

Last but not least Canon made up a huge part of IKON's install base and many of those customers are loyal Canon users, like Canon products, feel Canon products are the best, and will want to stay with Canon products. Therefore while IKON/Ricoh will do everything in their power over the next 4 years to flip that base to Ricoh I can assure you many and maybe most of that base will want to stay a Canon user, therefore those customers will leave IKON/Ricoh and buy from either CBS but most likely a Canon Independent Dealer to stay with Canon.

In other words in 5 years from now the big winner out of all this might just be Canon. They kept 75% of their base, and picked up additional share by opening up new CBS stores, buying up dealers, and being more aggressive on the product and marketing end of the business model and they were not the ones who paid the $1.7B for the mess that Ricoh just got. Canon will lose share in the National Account game but they will get back the placements in accounts that pay more for their products.

The next 5 years will be interesting. One thing I can guarantee you Canon will not lay down and just give up share, they are going to be coming out swinging harder than you have ever seen them. From a person who sell both Ricoh and Canon today its the best thing that could have ever happened."

HP Card and Discounts - Total Care Access Card

Interesting...what is this thing they speak of?


I hadn't heard of this, but I saw a quick announcement and decided to pass it along.

In a nutshell, this looks like a "membership" card offering discounts and goodies - if anyone has seen or used it, let me know.

The HP Total Care Access Card provides exclusive access to software, services and discounts from HP and industry-leading vendors, making it easier for small businesses to manage, protect and grow their businesses while saving money.

"Our small business customers have told us they want to work smarter, protect their resources, and grow their names and businesses while simultaneously saving money, and so we've created the HP Total Care Access Card," said John Dayan, vice president, Worldwide Marketing Operations, Personal Systems Group, HP. "By combining HP's strengths with those of select partners, we can offer simple financing, security, energy savings, marketing, online backup and storage solutions in a single package."

Original article, here.

Managed Print Services and the Economic Environment - Good or Bad?

MPS cuts costs - so why are your not phones ringing off the hook?


Jim Lyons and the crew over at Photozio are asking you, me, all of us, how is the world treating you?

From Jim's post:

"...The Photizo Group is taking a ground-level view, too and in addition to more scientific approaches, we're going straight to our web visitors with a simply online survey. The purpose of this study is to gain your thoughts and views regarding how the current economic climate will impact the demand and opportunity for Managed Print Services (MPS). In return for responding to this survey, we will provide you with a copy of our September issue of the MPS Insights Journal, the only publication which focuses exclusively upon MPS best practices, issues, and user profiles..."


Head over and let them know how it's going in the "trenches". It's only five questions.

Ursula M. Burns- Xerox President - Shares Six Lessons Learned

She helped Xerox rebound, now shares six lessons learned, in the face of new challenges.

Burns climbed the ladder after joining the "X" in 1980.

And when Xerox was going through it's "troubles" back in the beginning of the decade - she negotiated with unions to reduce thousands of jobs. Not an easy task.

-"Right when you think you're set ... you get snafued," said Burns, who rose to the No. 2 spot at the iconic company in 2007. "You can hardly ever relax."-

Here are six lessons she learned from earlier troubles at Xerox.

Communicate. "Whenever you're in a crisis you have to talk," she said. And that doesn't mean dumbing down the challenges the company faces. Workers respond when executives are truthful.

Know the culture. Xerox has worked to build diversity of all kinds to gain a wide array of perspectives. That's a key part of its success, Burns said.

But it also has been bureaucratic and slow to change. Burns said navigating tough times requires embracing the best of the corporate culture and stripping away those parts that can hurt growth.

Have a vision. Xerox was beat up by the press amid its financial struggles. So, Xerox wrote a pretend front-page story that showed how it should be portrayed in the best of times.

"That was our aspirational vision," Burns said.

People matter. The best strategy devised by legions of consultants is worthless without a work force willing to adapt.

"When you're really in trouble, the people are what saves you."

Customers matter, too. "The customer is the center of the universe," Burns said. Xerox used to develop technology and expect customers to adjust. That didn't work. Customers aren't always right, she said, "but you can't tell them they're wrong."

Leadership is key. A bad leader will quickly destroy any progress. Good leaders are humble, focused and human. They "put the enterprise before themselves," she said.

Nov 11, 2008 (The News & Observer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX)