John Givens
John Givens, founder and chairman of Source Office Products, might not be providing his customers with managed print services (MPS) today if he hadn’t already had a service department in place repairing laser printers.
“That isn’t typical for most office supply companies,” concedes Givens. “We were already in the toner, printer and service business when HP was looking for dealers who could provide the appropriate level of support, service, and sales necessary to run a managed print services program four years ago.”
But what about an office supply dealership without a service department?
“It’s a little more difficult for an office supply company who doesn’t have a service organization, but that’s a hurdle all of us can figure out,” maintains Givens.
The reason Givens embraced MPS was the realization that a large portion of revenues were tied to what he considers printer supplies—laser toner cartridges, ink cartridges, and paper.
“We looked at the amount of revenue tied to laser supplies, ink supplies, paper, and some of the other things we were doing and thought, ‘Would we want that portion of our business to evaporate by not being involved in this area?’ and the answer was a resounding ‘No!’ We felt this was more than something we needed to do in order to thrive, we needed to do it in order to survive.”
Considering that market research firm InfoTrends reports MPS will reduce the consumption of marking supplies by approximately 10 percent and decrease the consumption of paper by 10 percent as well in offices by 2015, owning this portion of a customer’s business via MPS keeps the dealer in the game in spite of reduced consumption.
Source services HP and Canon printers and recently became a Canon dealer. How do they compete against office technology dealerships that might already be providing customers with a wider range of equipment and printing solutions? Givens cites SYNNEX and their managed print services program, PRINTsolv, a comprehensive program designed to deliver managed print services to the IT channel, as one of the differentiators. Source is also an HP OPS (Office Printing Solutions) Elite partner, which provides them with discounts on HP hardware and HP OEM supplies along with numerous other perks, which helps immeasurably in building MPS credibility.
“As an OPS Elite Partner there isn’t a copier equipment company that can provide the HP and Canon solutions that we’re capable of providing the way we do it,” maintains Givens.
One of the other qualifications Source had to meet to become an HP OPS Elite dealer was to have HP validate that he had the in-house expertise to solve customer’s business problems and to provide an array of printing and imaging solutions to meet their needs. The SYNNEX PRINTsolv program helps with that from a managed print perspective. So far Givens is thrilled with the relationship, something one doesn’t often hear from traditional office technology dealers when discussing HP, primarily because they feel they don’t understand the office technology dealer business model.
“The partnering HP is willing to do is extraordinary,” says Givens. “They’re looking for larger office products dealers who are excited and willing to look at the idea of a solid managed print services program such as PRINTsolv and ultimately the possibility of being an OPS Elite style account.”
Givens isn’t shy about spreading the word to other office products dealers.
“My mission is to make sure that as many office products dealers as are out there know about the program,” he says. “There aren’t a lot of them, but particularly those that are north of $20 million in revenue because they have the toner base and the financial resources to partner with HP.”
Givens wonders about the smaller dealer’s ability to offer MPS and the dollars they would have to invest.
“Although I wouldn’t write off the smaller dealer because depending on the owner or the management team, there are certainly opportunities there, but it’s pricey to set up the program in a way that makes financial sense.”
Reliant Business Products in Houston also sees value in MPS.
“I knew it was going to be a big deal going into the future and we wanted to be at the beginning of the curve rather than be forced into it by necessity,” says Wayne Barkowiak, executive vice president of sales and operations.
Barkowiak discovered Supplies Network’s CARBON SiX program a couple of years ago and has found it the ideal turnkey print management program for his organization. That doesn’t mean selling MPS is easy.
“It’s a rather challenging opportunity,” concedes Barkowiak. “It’s a consultative sell; I’m not saying our salespeople don’t sell consultatively, but this is a sell that needs to be made at the highest level of an organization versus a purchasing manager.”
Reliant is using their existing sales force to sell managed print. All were trained by Barkowiak under a train the trainer scenario. While getting in front of the right person, usually a C-level executive is key, buy in from sales reps in the field is just as critical.
“It’s similar to furniture,” says Barkowiak. “You have sales people who are scared of furniture in a lot of cases and it takes a while to develop them so they’re not afraid of it. We’re still in that phase with print management, getting sales reps to where they’re comfortable with it and believe in it.”
Like other office products dealers, Reliant must differentiate themselves from office technology dealers who are also selling managed print.
“The way we do that is through the relationships that we have with our customers,” states Barkowiak. “It’s not a program we go out and try to solicit as a new business model. We try to sell it as an add-on to existing customers. Since we do a wonderful job with them we use that as the leverage point to talk about managed print.”
(The article concludes next week with comments from three more dealers.)
