I’m reading Mitchell Filby’s book, Rest In Print: from office printing to The Rise of Managed Services. He was one of the speakers at Photizo Transform Global 2014. Even though his book targets end user decision makers in mid-size and large businesses with concerns about what’s happening with their office printing and document management, it’s still a worthy read for those providing print management and document management solutions, particularly for those looking to better position their services. In fact, his presentation at Transform Global, “Stop Seeing MPS as a Silver Bullet” was based on one of the chapters in his book.
There are some who say that MPS is dead, but let’s save that debate for another time. And there will be another time. I promise. I suspect there’s still opportunities for dealers who are not yet selling MPS just as there are for those selling it and the customers they’re selling to who are struggling to understand exactly what MPS is despite the various definitions floating around the industry. That’s why I appreciate it when Filby writes, “Everybody is looking for that silver bullet answer: a word or two, or sentence that says it all.”
He adds, “Some salespeople and some customers expect that there should be a line item called MPS in the price book. Some offer, and talk about, MPS as a product and product-only based offering to customers…I also fully appreciate why this question is being posed. When a business or a person has relied so heavily on buying or selling devices (or boxes) the process becomes very distinct, defined and identifiable as a tangible product offering.”
He’s also right on target when he writes that “clients do not see MPS as disparate products, where the brand of those products becomes a key criterion for decision making.”
As he says, “The most important consideration is still the execution of the MPS. It is not always the ingredients that make it a success. You could have the best products but the whole services provision or customer experience may not be at the level of an alternate services provider with inferior product but a higher level of service.”
I’m only scratching the surface of the many issues that Filby presents in the book and I’d hazard to guess that there’s still plenty of organizations out there that don’t even realize they have a print or document management problem.
And you know what that spells?
O-P-P-O-R-T-U-N-I-T-Y
Thanks for reading.
