Outside the Box: Flo-Tech was Making a Case for Managed Print Before MPS

Leo Bonetti

Sometimes it pays to be ahead of the technological curve. That’s where Flo-Tech, an office technology dealership based in Middletown, Connecticut was back in 1992 when the company was first founded. From the outset, the Flo-Tech’s sole focus was on printing and imaging. Back then they were doing a variation of managed print services long before anyone was using that terminology and before most copier dealers began thanking outside of ‘the box’.

“Our early print programs included many of the key components that truly define what makes a managed print solution,” recalls Leo Bonetti, CEO and co-owner. “While our earlier programs may not have been multi-year contracts, our SmartPrint Support Program certainly included value-added services, including free preventative maintenance cleanings, comprehensive asset management reports, toll-free technical support, help desk training, supply recycling, and ardware consulting and rightsizing.”

Since those early formative years Flo-Tech has scaled and expanded those services into a comprehensive managed print services program they brand as the Integrated Print Management Program (IPM). As they made that transition, they expanded their customer base.

“Under IPM we provide support for printers, copiers, MFPs, fax machines, and scanners in a variety of customer environments with varying levels of complexity, page volumes and number of devices, including fleets with thousands of devices,” explains Bonetti. “Our challenge was to go downstream to support smaller copier networks as part of a total fleet management program versus copier dealers who are trying to go upstream to support printer networks with hundreds or thousands of devices.”

To make that transition Flo-Tech invested in tools and technologies that support a full range of devices, including their home-grown Activity Based Cleaning Program for preventative maintenance, their Most Vulnerable Parts Program for proactive parts replacement, their Alert Management Software for intelligent, remote monitoring and alert management, their asset management and electronic discovery software, and their extensive analysis and reporting tools that are used as part of their regular business reviews.

On the hardware side, Flo-Tech is somewhat unique in that they can implement their IPM program with or without hardware as part of the deal. In many cases they take over service and supplies on a customer’s existing fleet.

“But as printers, copiers and MFPs become more integrated into our client’s business processes, we are seeing more implementations with new hardware,” reports Bonetti.

Flo-Tech has been a long-time HP business partner selling, servicing and supporting printers and MFPs and is recognized by HP as an HP Elite Office Printing Solutions Partner. Three years ago Flo-Tech added Canon to their product mix. Today, Flo-Tech covers one of the largest geographies for a Canon independent dealer and has seen their Canon volume grow significantly. For 2010 Flo-Tech achieved well over 234 percent of their targeted growth number. Based on that performance, Flo-Tech was selected as one of Canon’s top 30 dealers in the United States

Flo-Tech has always positioned themselves as a solutions provider and has taken it a step further.

“What we have done in the last few years is to position ourselves as the managed print experts within specific vertical markets,” says Bonetti.

An important vertical is legal. Flo-Tech works with hundreds of clients in the legal industry, including many of the top 100 firms on the New York Law Journal’s 100 and 34 of top 100 firms in the country.

“We have become intimately knowledgeable on how to best leverage an MPS implementation in a legal client environment dealing with volume requirements, confidentiality requirements, streamlining workflows and connecting with back end document management systems, and dealing with the cultural nuisances that demand local printers, in most cases, are there to stay,” states Bonetti. “We help our legal clients maximize the benefits of an MPS implementation to drive down costs, streamline support, improve productivity, and support their green initiatives with our EnVision for the Environment program.”

Many of Flo-Tech’s legal clients take advantage of the Flo-Tech Coast to Coast program to support branch offices across the country. This gives them a single service provider responsible for managing service delivery, service response, billing, and customer satisfaction across their entire organization. It also allows them to leverage many of Flo-Tech’s tools, such as their Alert Management Software to manage their entire network—fleet wide and nationwide from a ntral location.

This approach seems to be working and working well. Recently, Flo-Tech was nominated by one of its clients to be included on the ballot in the NYLJ’s First Annual Rankings Survey for the “Best of the Best” serving the New York legal community under the Best Document Management Services category.

Flo-Tech has taken the same approach in several other key vertical markets, including healthcare, pharmaceuticals, biotech, financial services and education and is gaining momentum in those markets as well.

Flo-Tech is on the right track and they’ve been on that track for nearly 20 years now. With a growing customer base and a strong foundation in managed print as well as a wealth of home grown programs and solutions, they’re setting the pace in the brave new imaging technology world where managed print services rules.