Fred Carollo
In 2011 customers continued to migrate to a Managed Print Services (MPS) environment, a trend we expect to accelerate in 2012. As customers embrace MPS and look to optimize their business processes, dealers committed to MPS will begin to adapt their business models accordingly. We expect to see dealers revisit their go-to-market strategies and their compensation plans to fully leverage MPS.
A key component to this new go-to-market strategy will be a higher level of integration and alignment between the dealership and their funding source. Anticipating this shift the entire EverBank Commercial Finance sales force, operations leaders, and marketing team have been MPS certified to truly help our dealers successfully sell MPS.
In addition to training our people, we have also invested in technology that will give our partners greater flexibility and more efficient functionality, such as making it easier for our dealer partners to upload meters. In addition, our enhanced reporting capabilities provide detailed intelligence that dealers can leverage to gain valuable insights into their customer base to yield incremental revenue.
Another key growth driver in 2012 will be Document Management Solutions (DMS), which is a tremendous potential profit driver for dealerships. We’re expecting to see more document management transactions in 2012 so we’ve created easy-to-use sales tools, documentation and policies to support the implementation of DMS. Many financing companies are simply attempting to fit this type of business into the copier model, which we believe is insufficient to adequately support dealers providing true DMS.
While we do see MPS and DMS driving demand for dealers, the sluggish and uncertain macro-economic environment will present a strong headwind in 2012 for both the public and private sectors. The slow-moving economy continues to constrain business expansion and capital equipment purchases in the private sector. In the public sector, where copier dealers have traditionally seen reasonable demand, there will also be challenges as state and local governments struggle with budget cuts.
To help our dealer partners overcome these hurdles EverBank Commercial Finance has developed programs that will help dealers meet their current clients’ financing needs and stimulate demand to expand their customer base.
