"The managed print services industry grew more than 15 percent last year and will continue at this clip at least through 2012.
If you're a print VAR, an IT VAR, or an MSP you can still profit from this hot market—but the opportunity won't last forever. Join this interactive discussion with Greg Walters, a consultant with years of experience running a managed-print business, and Tom Gall, Value Channel Marketing Director at Xerox Corp., as they explore what works—and what doesn't—when it comes to jump-starting managed print profits today."
- Xerox Channel Cast
The above is the official line - and it is all true. My hope is that you get at least ONE good nugget out of the discourse.
It's set up like this:
The moderator introduces us.
I get 5-7 minutes of pure MpS bliss, yakking on about City on the Edge of Forever, the MpS ecosystem, and Tri-Dimensional chess.
Then Tom Gall of Xerox contributes and recovers from my tomfoolery, saving Xerox's good name.
We will be talking about why NOW IS THE TIME to get into MpS - but there is work, it ain't easy but it can be done. It will be done.
Join us.
Greg Walters, Senior Correspondent, The Business Transformation Center
We will be in Vegas, at the Wynn, Monday June 11 and 12th.
I will not be attending the Ricoh show(huh?) - but will be in the Casino, around the pool or at a bar,
that is if the Wynn has a bar, not sure on that one...
If you're in town, and want to talk about how to pick a Managed Print Services program, technology in our world, the social ramifications of Space 1999, or the Four Screens of Life - drop me a note.
I may even have a nifty, cool, MPSA hat for you...
"Those responsible for the obliteration of each DOTC image are the MEN in our niche who have in the past and are right, this very second, to leverage their power as Area Vice President, Owner, or Manager, over a female subordinate."
My intent from the beginning was to record observations of the world and refer back over time for my own amusement and pleasure.
"Peter Misek of Jefferies & Co. said that tablets are likely to hurt HP's personal computer segment.
"While consensus thinks Windows 8 will boost personal computers, we think it will accelerate tablet cannibalization as the operating system focuses on touch," he wrote in a client note.
Misek also believes that smartphones are now used by enough consumers -- and tablets to a lesser degree -- that it is lowering printing demand.
The analyst lowered HP to "Hold" from "Buy" and reduced his price target to $23 from $30.
HP shares closed at $22.68 per share on Thursday. They fell to a 52-week low of $20.57 on May 23 and traded as high as $37.70 late last July.
An email seeking comment from HP was sent before business hours but was not immediately returned."
From a usually more upbeat news site, cheerfully named, Bright Side News, the first passage is the high-point of the article:
"While we at Bright Side of News always try to look at the bright side of things and have an optimistic view of the industry, there are times when we simply cannot help ourselves and must say something.
Case and point is Hewlett Packard [NYSE:HPQ] and their current announcement of their reduced earnings of 31%..."
The analysis compares HP's terrible employee/revenue ratio with other companies in the niche sumamrizing with:
"When you have that many employees, your workforce begins to become a liability rather than an asset and you begin to drain yourself purely as a result of maintaining such a large bureaucracy. If HP wants to really become nimble, they need to spin off divisions of the company or give some of them less importance in the future of the company's success."
Mother Blue is going through some significantly bad times - more than most.
Who else could one week announce the reduction of 28,000 employees and talk about being around 40 years from now the next?
IPG merging with PSG is like two fortune 500 companies merging - and we all know how well merges of that scale go, right?
Well, the next time you see an HP'r, wish her the best.
I know I will.
If you've been in this industry for any period of time over 3 years, you either know or have heard of what I call a "Roaming Gnome" - there may even be one a couple of cubes over.
That sales rep who travels from dealer to dealer, employer to employer in search of the perfect sales position. Bringing with him years of experience, a Rolodex chock full of purchasing agents and expiration dates. A pocket full of promises and a wheelbarrow full of "Bravo Sierra".
It's legend - copier reps jump from Ricoh to Ikon to Konica Minolta to Toshiba. Or get out of Toshiba/Ikon/Xerox only to return in a few years.
Old, cromagnum sales interviews start with, "how big of a sales book can you bring with you from "fill in the blank/your current employer"?
Before you go off all half-cocked, accusing me of not understanding, I know this occurs in every industry, especially with salespeople. It is not illegal and it is not uncommon.
As a matter of fact, selling expertise and business acumen can only flourish under the light of many different Suns. And those who grow over time are professionals.
Switching companies isn't normally a bad thing. I am not criticizing the practice, only the occasional method.
The hacks I refer to as "Travelling Copier Gnome" carry not only baggage but character flaws.
They inflict more harm than good, perpetuating the shady side of selling.
In today's economically challenging MPS universe, many MPS and copier reps are looking for jobs; a quick search reveals IKON hiring MPS specialists like crazy all over the country. A floating deckchair in a turbulent sea?
As with most good articles on this tome, writing from personal experience supplants therapy and, I have found, generates plenty of "the same thing happened to me..." emails.
So, I feel the experience of one of my colleagues may have some relevance. An MPS Practice I know of has gone through major metamorphosis - to date, its third. This recent iteration was characterized as a "bloodbath" resulting in major personnel changes.
People were let go and people left.
It's no secret that I bash the bad in our industry. It's a target-rich environment - there is plenty to bash.
However, I hold a special place, a bull's eye, for the "typical copier sales person".
That churn and burn, rip and replace, 60-month lease recommending, sour-grapes, decision challenging, slick, schlocky, box-moving, toner delivering, non-customer-centric, closed-minded, a square peg in a round hole, never going to change, FUD using, gear slinging, never attracting always selling, jolly, hard-closing, Traveling Gnome types.
Case in point, recently, one of the sales reps, at my colleague's MPS practice, decided to move to greener pastures.
Nothing wrong with that, right?. We've all done it.
As matter of fact, picking up and leaving is a decisive act any one of us can execute. Changing employers is like turning the page, ending another chapter in the book of your life. No biggie.
And when done correctly, there is honor in this; an opportunity to either show some class or reveal to the world your true, sliminess.
Character is what you do when nobody is looking most often exposed under pressure - think about the last time you experienced a death in the family or any other high-stress event. Who remained calm and focused, and who "cracked".
Or how about the last time something went wrong with a customer - who ran around with their hair on fire and who acted like they had been there before?
Character.
Your character is exposed not only in bad times but also in good. Can anyone remember the last time a running back scored a touchdown and simply handed the ball to the ref?
Act like you've been there before.
Back to my colleague.
He found himself in quite a pickle - all the client files were missing.
And by client files, he means, assessments, SOWs, proposals, spreadsheets, orders, quotes, contact records, notes, databases, and laptops.
That's correct, inspection showed very few signed original agreements - nothing left behind, uh, oh.
Again, little surprise, nothing too far out of line, seen it before, been there, got the coffee mug.
But then, they received their first notice of service cancellation.
A quick look into E*Automate revealed this defector-client had been "stocking up" on supplies over the past 3 weeks -capitalizing on confusion and the vacuum - it was obvious the customer had been coached.
And then, this ex-sales ne'er-do-well started reaching out to "his" old clients who are now part of my colleague's current base. Huh.
Again, sad and unprofessional and not at all surprising.
You see, when we sell with passion and believe in the product, service, and company, we can become blinded, falsely believing the client relationship is with us - it's our Ego talking - not reality.
The client relationship, no matter how personal the sales professional makes it, is between the client and company; not the selling professional.
We forget that sometimes, don't we? We fall into the trap of thinking "we" are the only reason clients work with our company.
How foolish, how naive, and how very old-fashioned - quaint, almost.
So, who is at fault here?
The destructive Sales-schmo, The Roaming Gnome? For sure.
"Greener Pastures and New Beginnings" mean just that; a New Beginning can only happen after an Ending of a "period" not a comma. Get over it, move on, and begin fresh. Show some class.
The new employer, absolutely.
What kind of loser organization still hires Sales people under these beliefs? Can this really be? Are we still in the '70s? Has Selling devolved? PUT THAT COFFEE DOWN! Did I miss THAT memo? Show some class.
Any client who follows him? These imbeciles are just as unscrupulous.
I mean really, it's just business, I know, but this is pretty lame.
The Lesson, if there is one?
We in the selling profession take a beating from our prospects, customers, sales managers, and family for engaging in something we love to do; meet new people, take on new challenges and create something out of nothing.
It's a shame when some of us lie to clients, trap customers into deals, push our agenda, and do harm. The bigger shame is these instances hurt all of us in sales.
This sort of thing may never change, unless we start calling out the evil-doers, exposing this ilk for the sham artists and hypocrites they are.
It was just in 2009, a mere three years ago – or actually, just under 36 months – when MpS started showing up in its current form.
At conferences, show floors were jam-packed with MpS propositions; Konica Minolta, OKI, Xerox, LMI, GreatAmerica, Digital Gateway, ECi, Compass, Strategy Development, M2M, Synnex, NER, and many more were “all-in.”
Granted, it wasn’t really MpS.
Fliers plastered with “MPS” stickers; sales classes pushing MpS selling cycles, TCO, and the like; but the content was still copier sales, copier leasing, toner cartridges. Desk-side toner delivery/auto-fulfill, just fresh off the whiteboard, was being touted and sold.
Everybody is going to the Clouds and in that spirit, I went out and created Word Clouds based on two conference call transcripts and one interview - from the horses' mouth, sort of speak.
Word, or Tag Clouds generate a picture based on the quantity each word is mentioned in a given field of text. All I did was C&P transcripts and the application did most of the work.
"...our performance in the MPS segment itself is very strong, but more importantly it’s the way we go to market. So over 70% of our hardware revenue is in that large workgroup category, which is really the Enterprise segment of the market and that percentage is growing and it’s being driven by our ability to deliver high-end services and solutions..."
"...In Imaging and Printing, year-over-year revenues decreased 7% with declines in supplies and hardware in consumer and commercial. And operating margin declined to 12.2%...IPG has been the lifeblood of our company for a long time with great margins and very resilient revenues...But we also have to recognize that the business is being pressured on multiple fronts, and revenues from our adjacent businesses...are doing quite well, but not developing fast enough to replace the revenues we've been losing. We have work to do here and are aggressively exploring ways to build on IPG's leadership given the realities of today's marketplace..."
"...You've heard me say this before, but it bears repeating. Some companies talk about transformation; we're actually doing it. Our results this quarter and our expectations for the balance of this year reflect the shifts happening in our business..."
I got a question for you. How many MBA's does it take to get 25,000 people laid-off? Ignore that.
The rest of the world see's output waning, the largest company in the world builds devices without the ability to print and the smartest people in the room cancel a tablet after 49 days. Quick, get that drawer statement out.
Right now, it's too easy to kick Mother Blue in the chops - it is good to remember that "25,000" isn't just a figure on a screen - it represents 25,000 fathers, mothers, sons and daughters - families.
Dare I say, believers. So to mock the poor souls taking early retirement or collecting pink slips, is cruel.
I won't do that.
I will say this - its easy to snicker and sneer at the mighty as they fall - especially the arrogant. But we do not live in a vacuum and we are no longer islands.
I wrote a quip back in September referring to whenever HP sneezes, the rest of us get Zombie Flu.
I fear the trickle-down ramifications of a larger print OEM contracting Zombie Flu. What the hell is going to happen to all the 'little-people'?
Huh. No worries, we're ready.
From around the interweb, first reports of this latest disturbance in the Force.
From Houston Business Journal, May 17:
The source told Business Insider that HP wants to downsize its workforce — which totals 320,000 worldwide — by 10 percent to 15 percent, though Business Insider doesn’t expect the company to eliminate that many jobs all at once. Also, manufacturing employees are not expected to be hit as hard as others, Business Insider said.
From Business Insider, May 16:
Layoffs are going to be significant.
At least, they'll be bigger than what Whitman has said so far. She's said that layoffs would NOT be "broad-based" at least in China (whatever that means), but she didn't say anything about the rest of the worldwide workforce.
Our source said HP wants to trim its workforce by 10%-15%. Given that HP has 320,000 employees, a 10% reduction would be 32,000 workers gone. However, that would include an early retirement program.
We'd guess that this would include attrition, too, where new hires don't come in when employees leave. That number sounds high and we don't expect HP to promise it next week, because HP will also want to shift some jobs offshore. So, HP's total workforce numbers won't reflect all of the cuts.
Barron's, May 17 -
Business Insider’s Julie Bort this morning is back on the corporate layoff beat, writing that one unnamed source at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) tells her that there will be “massive” job cuts at the company, perhaps as much as 10% to 15%, or 32,000 to 48,000 workers.
ISI Group’s Brian Marshall this morning writes that a so-called Reduction in Force would “improve confidence in HPQ’s guidance for ‘at least $4.00 in EPS in fiscal 2012′ and enable investments in strategic, higher-growth areas.’” Marshall has a Buy rating on HP shares.
ZDNet, May 17 -
HP’s operating profit per employee trails rivals, according to a Morgan Stanley analysis.
For instance, IBM’s operating profit per employee is $49,000. Apple’s is the same. EMC makes $67,000 in operating profit per employee.
HP’s tally: $35,000.
The only way for HP to change that metric—assuming the company can’t suddenly boost growth—is to lay off workers.
And of course there is this:
Number of people seeking jobless benefits unchanged last week
The number of people seeking unemployment benefits was unchanged last week, suggesting steady gains in the job market.
The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly unemployment aid applications stayed at a seasonally adjusted 370,000, the same level as the previous week. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell for the second straight week, to 375,000....
I like shows. I like to visit with like-minded folks and I like to see the latest, greatest toys.
Lately, at least for the past four years, the tone at some of these shows seems to have ranged anywhere between desperation and bliss.
There is one constant- the show is busy and there is rarely enough time to get quality time.
Some of the topics I am looking forward to discussing this year at Transform are:
The Future of MpS - It ain't what it used to be...
Tablets or Toner- Take a guess...
The Cloud - Will it make rain...
Mobile Business Intelligence- huh?
Business Workflow- MpS has ALWAYS been about BPO...
New MpS technology- What more can we do...
The funny thing is, as good as the speaker content is this year, the offline conversations can be even more interesting.
So, in that vein, I want to see and talk with as many folks as I can.
If you are interested in meeting with me and talking about anything from self-replicating nano-bots, MpS compensation plans, M2M communications, the Cloud and its impact on business processes, or who has the best MpS infrastructure program, let's schedule something.
I will be in Orlando from Monday evening to Saturday. I have a presentation and some hard meetings set up, but send me an invite at greg@thedeathofthecopier.com and maybe we can get together for a few minutes.
Wide open, no charge, possibly over an adult beverage.
Fellow members of Your MPSA, I am reaching out today to ask for your support and your vote for President of Your MPSA.
Like our industry, Your Managed print Services Association has experienced a great shift – from an obscure genesis in San Antonio to an impeccable international presence. Since our humble beginnings back in 2008, I’ve been part of the great transformation of Your MPSA to center stage.
Today, Your MPSA and our niche are on the edge of greatness. From Sydney, Tokyo, Seoul, London, Johannesburg, Oklahoma City, Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, St. Louis, Seattle, Miami, New York City, Des Moines, Ontario, Berlin, San Juan, Paris, and Los Angeles, fellow MpS’rs are taking up the MPSA banner, helping businesses reduce costs, preserve jobs and make life easier.
That’s right, there’s more to MpS than toner on paper.
Still, I remember our proud technology lineage and customer focused pedigree. I believe in our industry. I see resilience and perseverance within each OEM, inside every provider and in the can-do attitude of all those “down the street” reps. We are a hearty bunch.
My Vision for Your MPSA is to grow with the shift, not against it. The winds of change are mighty and wise is the person who sails with the current. Knowing this and with bold confidence, we will move into a prosperous era unbound by misguided dogma of the past.
We will not venture the seas alone. Collaboration will be a supporting aspect in the coming years for Your MPSA – I will actively pursue open relationships and engage with anyone who brings value to our members.
One thing I’ve learned during my three year involvement with Your MPSA is that when we focus on the needs of our membership, forgetting corporate agendas, we do great things. I believe Your MPSA is For the Members, by the Members. Outside agenda’s will be left at the office.
Winston Churchill said that ‘the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits, not animals.’ And he said, ‘There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.’ As I travel the MpS ecosystem, I am often approached by MPSA members and non-members, asking questions about the future. Those questions aren’t posed out of fear or desperation. With each query there is a sense of determination and of duty. When “great forces are on the move in the world”, it is this spirit that sustains us; the same spirit Your MPSA is founded.
My Vision for Your MPSA is growth through attraction. Our message will cultivate and extend relationships within our niche and outside the industry. And I promise, Your MPSA will continue to be member-centric.
If you and I share a passion for our ecosystem and if you believe, like I do, our best days are yet to come, then ‘You and I have a rendezvous with destiny’.
Cast your vote for me, volunteer and let’s get started.
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