Without question, all of us have faced challenges in the past year that we’ll likely never forget. In fact, the previous year will undoubtedly become a new chapter in the history curriculum for future generations.
It also goes without saying that our industry is facing significant change surrounding both its near- and long-term health. While our channel is highly resilient, there’s no surprise in suggesting we need to adapt to many new norms. One of particular consequence is the reality that many folks may permanently work from home, or WFH as we all know it, well beyond the pandemic.
Global Workplace Analytics estimates 25-30% will continue WFH by the end of 2021, and the company’s president, Kate Lister, was quoted in a Recode article stating the number could be as high as 70% by 2025. In a study by print industry analyst Quocirca, 83% of surveyed IT decision makers expect that more than a quarter of their workforce will continue WFH post-pandemic.
Studies done on the WFH trend pre-pandemic reveal it saves companies and employees money, shows improved productivity, can improve job satisfaction and can even have positive impacts on the environment. Of course, there are also cons, including decreased collaboration, communication challenges and negative impacts on company culture among others, but these issues are improving rapidly with investments in digital transformation.
The biggest con in the context of this article: more people are working from home and seemingly not printing as much from their home office. This is clearly a significant concern for anyone reading this publication.
What it all means is that you have some serious questions to consider when planning for the rest of this year and beyond.
What Are Your Strategies to Adapt to the New Normal?
The WFH trend is somewhat indisputable and has led to increased commentary surrounding diversification, which has been a popular topic for quite some time. Many of the often-discussed categories for expansion are highly adjacent markets such as thermal/barcode, production and commercial graphics printing. These are viable markets, and some are growing immensely. The thermal/barcode category, for instance, serves the highly in-demand e-commerce logistics and healthcare industries.
Others, like managed IT, are less print centric and require a sizable investment in resources and expertise, making the leap a bit more challenging, though some are finding success. No one would argue that diversification isn’t crucial, but what about our core competency? Sure, this new norm is causing upheaval. However, we still need to deliver value and meet the customers’ needs in a highly dynamic environment while realizing our own profitability potential and ensuring the sustainability of our organizations. Are there ways to optimize your current offering to thrive in the new norm?
Will Your MPS Program Adapt?
The WFH trend is a bit of a double-edged sword. Not only are you losing users to home offices, but there may be volatility in the office print environment for those who do return. The challenges of reduced office headcount, big changes in usage patterns, and inactive and malfunctioning devices is compounded by the inability to provide service and support due to ongoing office restrictions and lockdowns—ultimately exposing weaknesses in your solution.
Client discontent may not reach a critical point in the near term, but in the long term, the inability to deliver on your brand promise will result in the obvious. Adapting and enhancing your core offering is critical for elevating customer loyalty and improved retention, and also for the long-term health of your organization. Retaining customers and keeping them happy may be more mission critical than ever as the onboarding of new clients may take a while to get back to pre-pandemic rates.
Do Your Capabilities Include Virtual Support?
It’s a real possibility that returning workers may face resource challenges and issues with non-functioning print equipment. This probably won’t be met with kindness. In the age of COVID-19 and likely beyond, the ability to provide remote support will be key to delivering the experience your customers expect. Obviously, investments in technology and resources are needed, or partnerships with the right suppliers, but the competitive advantage is clear. Integrating remote capabilities including remediation, maintenance parts assessments and dispatch, and general support will bolster your capability set, support a positive customer experience and be an important differentiator in the eyes of decision makers.
Moreover, partner integrations that leverage smart device services will allow you to deliver an unparalleled remote resolve experience. You’ll be able to perform device reboots, review event logs and update firmware, often fixing issues before your customers’ users are even aware of the problems. This makes for a great message in your marketing and will be critical to incorporate as a KPI metric in your customer review process to capitalize on the value of your service. Undoubtedly, this has the potential to improve customer loyalty as well as help close more new business.
Is Your Supplies Replenishment Effective?
In the same Quocirca study mentioned above, 52% of respondents indicated they expect their future workstyle to be a hybrid model of home and office work. The new norm may cause some degree of mayhem when it comes to your customers’ usage patterns, possibly becoming much more dynamic. Without question, proper supplies management is central to both your profitability and delivering a successful program experience.
And while it’s not a new topic, accurate and timely delivery of supplies may be more crucial than ever. Is your replenishment precise? Chances are, if you’re relying on the reported amount of supply remaining, you may be over shipping supplies. For those with cost-per-page or seat-based models, this is obviously not ideal. If you’re billing in a more transactional model, you’re overcharging your customer, which they may not find ideal. Implementing predictive analytics methodology and factoring in usage patterns can dramatically improve the customer experience and boost your profitability.
Is it Time to Rethink Buying Supplies Inventory in Bulk?
If there were ever a time to reconsider the longstanding A3 reseller tradition of carrying supplies inventory to accompany your service tech calls, this is it. With the aforementioned swings in page volumes, why not reduce inventory and minimize costs by drop shipping supplies as needed? Today, many of those supplies can be sourced on demand with all the necessary reporting and money-saving benefits of reduced overhead.
Can We Support WFH Printing?
Although I’m not aware of any specific solution tailored to meet the needs of this segment, that doesn’t mean some haven’t capitalized. However, general observation would suggest there’s no major windfall of WFH business by our community.
Again, referencing the Quocirca study, 86% of respondents indicated they have access to a home printer—56% said they already had a printer before the pandemic, 10% indicated their employer supplied a home printer and 51% indicated they have security concerns surrounding a WFH print device. This data shows great potential to capture WFH business; with the vast majority of respondents indicating they have a printer, but only 10% being provided by their employer, this could change as the new norm unfolds.
Many IT decision makers will be seeking compelling solutions for their WFH users while maintaining critical corporate compliance, addressing security concerns and providing a proper device with a competitive TCO. Several print OEMs were quick to promote WFH-focused devices with some type of supplies bundle and the right feature set. Many offered app-based interfaces to simplify the user experience, but it seems most are aimed at typical consumer channels, including the almighty Amazon.
The commercial channel has the potential to add significant value in this space by centralizing and standardizing the procurement process, streamlining the rollout, and providing any needed pre-configurations, asset-tagging and inclusion of remote support services during the initial installation. Beyond the initial deployment, managed print expertise and the development of the right e-commerce and IoT-based resources to simplify and streamline consumables replenishment create optimism about our ability to meet WFH users’ needs and anticipate great things to come.
Our industry is robust and full of talented folks who are well up to the task of thriving, no matter how the new normal ends up looking. With spring around the corner and vaccinations well underway, we’re expecting a great 2021 and hope the same for all of our industry partners, colleagues and friends!
