MPS is still relevant today as many providers, but specifically many sales people within these varying providers, are still at different levels of capability or saying it a different way at different maturity levels.
There must be an appreciation that within every provider (direct or indirect) there is a constant and changing voice (or noise) from the top down to the salesperson that suggests one thing but behavior is dictated for other reasons, i.e. the pay plan may be driving the sales person to shift units as commissions or “gates” are driving a certain sales practice. If you are constantly measured against your sales peers on revenue or units then this will dictate how you see yourself against your peers. This peer behavior is how providers drive and utilize the sales culture within a provider. All providers have this—either it is known or they may not realize it exists.
The question that I am continually asked by end customers, IT resellers and dealers both in Australia or when I speak at conferences overseas is, “What are managed print services really?”
Everyone appears to be looking for that “silver bullet” answer: a word or two, or sentence that says it all.
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-led and product-only based offering to customers. I know this because I have seen it many times in the last four or so years.
But saying this 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.
We now expect these same end customers, as well as many players from within the industry, to understand how to buy and sell a services-led offering and deliver on that capability through a process of consulting. The business opportunity is no longer as clearly defined around a tangible and consistent product offering as it was in the past when there was only hardware and some software to sell. The overall business problem or business solution may be far broader than the previous hardware based discussion path.
As experience and maturity sets in over time, I expect the process of consulting and analyzing will become more methodical and definable as part of a services-led offering. In the very near future the scope of the problem or solution will include a set of tangible products including hardware, software applications and a variety of services in a box (pardon the pun), such as document workflow and imaging and content conversion. They may also include ongoing management of the end-to-end capability and ownership of the contract delivery, print or otherwise.
More importantly MPS gives sales companies the opportunity to have a wider and deeper conversation about the customer’s business. If you are marketing and selling MPS to your customers, expect your business to change. If you are already successful in MPS then you’re probably already seeing your business stretching or transitioning to something new.
MPS Should Be Simpler, Right?
I’m an avid supporter of many people’s view that we should try to make things simpler for all parties involved, especially the end customer. But that is always a little bit more challenging to achieve when an industry such as the OEMs has instilled in its workforce a way of selling and marketing its offering. This business success or business model of the past and present may today be creating a legacy as it attempts to move forward.
In fact, the threat and impact of how the industry has operated both locally and across the globe, especially around the growth opportunity of MPS, would certainly be perplexing to the industry OEMs. Strangely enough, MPS is, in many ways, somewhat opposed to the OEM’s previous manufacturing-based operational model.
Alternately, part of the reason for the complexity may be based around a fear that a push towards simplification could drive the OEM’s businesses, or the industry, closer to becoming commoditized, or MPS may be complex simply because it is different or new to many.
MPS is still evolving. It is, I believe, now starting to move into a new level of maturity, however that maturity is still only MPS version 1.0. The adoption rates of MPS are increasing. MPS has moved from customers at the enterprise to large businesses and its attention is now focusing on small to medium business that are now seen as more profitable.
MPS 2.0 is now beginning. To learn more about the next evolution of the world of Managed Print Services contact me at mitchell.filby@first-rock.com or purchase Rest In Print: from office printing to “The Rise of Managed Services” from Amazon.com.
