Each week throughout the month of May we’re going present 8 of our “Top 40 Solutions & Service Providers that should be on Every Dealer’s Radar.” The organizations recognized here have been selected by an informal panel of independent dealers and industry analysts based on their experiences either in the field, or in the case of the industry analysts, from talking to successful dealers in the field and their own testing and reviews. What you’ll find over the next five weeks are some obvious inclusions along with some wildcards that may surprise you…or not. Here’s the complete list of Top 40 solutions and services providers from starting from the eight we are announcing this week.
ABBYY
Think document recognition, data and image capture, and linguistic technologies and services, and you have to think ABBYY. Its products access information from paper-based documents and images, automatically retrieve data, and process and store information. Notable products in the ABBYY product line include the ABBYY FineReader line of optical character recognition (OCR) applications, ABBYY FlexiCapture line of data capture solutions, ABBYY Lingvo dictionary software, and development tools, that support a variety of platforms and computing environments. With companies such as Canon, HP, Microsoft, Notable Solutions, and Samsung among the many that license ABBYY technologies and when one considers ABBYY OCR applications are shipped with equipment from Epson, Fujitsu, Fuji Xerox, Microtek, Panasonic, Plustek, Ricoh, Toshiba, and Xerox, you can’t not have this company on your radar.
Loffler Industries, a Bloomington, MN-based Canon dealer uses ABBYY’s FlexiCapture data and forms capture product. “We use it in an accounts payable process to be able to read purchase orders and forms and present it to a user in a custom interface we’ve written or sometimes n the ABBYY interface and ultimately push it to workflow,” explains Jeff King, director of consulting services for Loffler.
Asked what verticals are most interested in FlexiCapture, King responds, “Anybody who has intensive AP processing and who deals with a lot of vendors and a lot of inbound invoices. We’re finding on the ABBYY side, our smaller customers, it’s a little more difficult for them to afford the expense, so it’s really got to be a medium to a large size company that is best suited for FlexiCapture.”
Brian Bissett, editor of The MFP Report maintains that ABBYY is still emerging in the MFP market. “They tend to be more under the hood, for example the OCR in the Konica Minolta bizhubs is from them. They have some forms recognition products that are getting a little bit of traction. They have a distribution agreement with Global Imaging and Kofax uses them. I would say they’re respected in the document management market but tend to be more behind the scene.”
InfoDynamics
If you’ve heard of INTACT, INBOOKS, and INPOINT, you’ve heard of InfoDynamics, the company behind those products. InfoDynamics’ content management products are used by companies of all sizes for managing electronic documents and paper. The company offers a suite of software that works with core business applications and integrates directly into popular handheld devices, scanners, copiers, and now tablets. InfoDynamics latest product Intact SMART offers version control, inter-application connectivity, instant searching, and a large feature list. The software is used by dozens of dealers around the country and offers direct integration with products from the likes of Canon, Lexmark, Sharp, Xerox, Muratec, Inituit, and Microsoft Dynamics.
“They’re small, but have been around for 20 years,” says Brian Bissett, editor of The MFP Report. “They seem to have the most impact with Sharp and seem to focus on the SMB accounting market. It’s kind of a horizontal application that fits a lot of dealers.”
MaxxVault
What’s not to love about a provider of electronic document management solutions to small, medium, and large companies across a range of vertical industries? What’s particularly appealing about MaxxVault is that it scales from a modest feature set within a single department to a full enterprise-wide installation. For dealers looking to connect their customers with a document management solution that can reduce costs by automating tasks and improve productivity whether you’re talking paper-based or electronic files, MaxxVault is worth a look. An impressive array of partners include Apple, Canon, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Kofax, Microsoft, Nuance, Samsung, Sharp, and Xerox.
Documation in Austin, Texas has been using MaxxVault for a little over 3½ years now. Justin Espinoza, software director explains the reason why. “We’re a best of breed dealer so we take the best of breed and go to market with that on the hardware side and on the software side.”
Espinoza reports that he replaced three vendors when he added MaxxVault to Documention’s menu of solutions. He likes the fact that it’s written to accommodate the latest technology and can connect to almost anything.
“If I want to connect to a main line of business application, I can, and the end user is more apt to use it because they don’t have to load an entire new product,” he says. “They’re learning just another functionality based on a Microsoft Office or whatever application [they’re using].”
The other reason he chose MaxxVault is because of what he calls their “premier level of service,” which fits nicely with the type of service Documation provides.
“Documation is not the cheapest, we’re like the Lexus dealer of the industry and we absolutely provide white glove service and I require the very same service from my vendors,” states Espinoza. “When I need help with a customer I need it now. They’ve never failed to provide the utmost in service during the past 31/2 years.”
Asked where he’s finding opportunities for MaxxVault, he replies, “Where am I not? This month alone I have it going into an underwriting firm, a law office, a manufacturing firm, and a medical office. Honestly it fits in a lot of different offices. The smallest is probably a three-person office and the largest is probably a 9,000-person office. It’s extremely flexible. That’s another reason. You can go really small to a really big automated solution. I can log into any business regardless of line of business and have a business solution for them. If theye have a business problem with documents we can probably resolve that [with MaxxVault].”
Intellinetics
We’d be hard pressed not to include this company and its Intellivue ECM solution in the Top 40, especially after seeing a preview of the solution at the MWA booth at Transform 2012 in Orlando. The Intellivue ECM platform is available with more than 200 on-demand business solution templates and it can be deployed with a cost-per-page model where users pay a low monthly fee based on the number of pages the software manages. Reportedly, many organizations realize a return on investment in the first month of deployment.
Be sure and read Art Post’s blog in this issue or in the Sales & Service department of The Week in Imaging, for the perspective of a down-the-street sales rep as to why Intellivue is a solution worth noting. As he says,”I see Intellivue as a tremendous value for the SMB customer.” And since most of our readers target that group, listen to Post and check it out.
N-able Technologies
There’s nothing like going to Photizo’s Transform and visiting the many solutions providers exhibiting to find another two or three that ought to be on every dealer’s radar. One of those that I wasn’t as familiar with prior to Transform was N-able Technologies a Canadian company that touts itself as a global leader in remote monitoring and management automation solutions for managed service providers and IT departments. Its N-central software and complementary toolsets can reportedly reduce IT support costs, improve network performance, and increase productivity via the proactive monitoring, management, and optimization of IP-enabled devices and IT infrastructure. The main topic of conversation at Transform was N-central, what they’re calling “an industry-first freemium model that drives down the cost of remote management and accelerates the mass adoption of managed services.”
ODC
www.officedocumentconsulting.com
Office Document Consulting may sound like a consulting company and strategic sales training is just part of what they do, but what they also do is provide a cloud solution called DOCassess with a variety of features such as DCA data upload, a print environment balanced report card, fleet virtualization, device mapping, surface level assessment, enterprise assessment, current and proposed financial information, individual device TCO, a carbon footprint calculator and proposal generation. The company’s goal is to provide sales reps with a tool they could and would use to sell the conept of MPS and perform a professional assessment.
Jeff Dunlop, vice president and principle owner of IDS (Integrated Digital Solutions) in London, Ontario Canada has been working with Office Document Consulting Inc. and [PPresident] Mike Lamothe for the past six months. “I can honestly say we wouldn’t have been able to compete and win MPS business without his group and DOCassess. Their software has given our sales reps the ability to pitch the concept of MPS with the Print Environment Balance Score Card. The part I like is the rep goes in and performs the assessment. This methodology behind DOCassess is teaching our reps more about managed print by directly becoming involved with the process. I would highly recommend ODC and DOCassess to any organization looking to successfully sell managed print services.”
Fabsoft
| Maybe you’ve heard the name before, maybe not, but FabSoft is a developer of document automation solutions. FabSoft specializes in streamlining workflow via intelligent document distribution and enhancement with products that are compatible with all operating systems, applications, and devices. FabSoft solutions include automatic document capture, routing of print jobs and scan documents to printers, fax, e-mail and archive systems; electronic form enhancement and multi-part form distribution; barcode and image link; check printing; and security printing. Something must be going right for them because they’ve got more than 16,000 installations around the world. Their target market is companies of all sizes they are looking for resellers. Noteworthy partners include HP, DocuLex, Laserfiche, and Ricoh. If you’re a Ricoh dealer you’ll be glad to know they offer cloud integration to Ricoh MFPs. As Art Post noted in his column earlier this month, “I believe that cloud integration of MFPs offers end users a multitude of choices and services that can make companies just as productive as their employees.” |
Photizo Group
When you look at the sum of its parts, between the consulting practice, the research, the conferences, and their approach to MPS, one would be hard-pressed to leave Photizo Group off the list of services providers to the imaging industry. Indeed, the sum of its parts is extremely impressive. Although I wouldn’t include the average research or testing organization in my listing of services providers, I can make an exception in this instance because this organization has already been providing the industry with MPS consulting services prior to the acquisition of Lyra Research earlier this year. With that acquisition those consulting services have risen to new heights, making Photizo one that any dealer looking to transform his business ought to take note of as the services component of the business becomes ever more critical to survival. And for those of us who attended Transform 2012 in Orlando, the quality of that event underscores Photizo’s inclusion as a services provider that should be on your radar…no question about it.
West Point Products
Office technology dealers looking to maximize their cost-per-copy and managed print services programs have a variety of options available to them when it comes to remanufactured toner cartridges and one of the most overlooked, at least in the minds of some dealers is West Point Products. That’s somewhat surprising to hear since the company has been in business since 1972 and as an ISO 9001:2008 and STMC-certified manufacturer of premium replacement laser toner cartridges and provider of related imaging supplies and services, they’ve got a strong quality story to tell. And that’s backed by what many of their customers and resellers describe as top-notch customer service.
Northeast Print Supplies in Pittston, PA has been using West Point Products for supplies fulfillment for the past 6 years. Owner Carmen Pitarra originally found them via a Web search. That was one of the best decisions he ever made after leaving a copier dealership where he was sales manager to start his own business. “They have one of the best quality products we ever used,” he says. “Their support is outstanding; they bend over backwards for you and work with you on service needs, sales needs, product needs…”
Quality issues can be devastating to dealers who delve into compatibles and remanufactured products and Pitarra reports that’s virtually never been an issue with West Point. Returns over the six years have been minimal at best. He does a lot of managed print services and for him having a one-stop source for supplies at reasonable cost is a life saver. “We used to have 3-4 vendors we dealt with and the quality of remanufactured is on a par with what you need to make that business profitable,” he says.
He’s somewhat surprised that more copier dealers haven’t discovered the West Point advantage yet or that West Point is finding it a challenge making inroads into the copier channel. “Copier dealers are so close minded because service personnel [often] run those companies,” he opines. They’re so opposed to remanufactured products. If they’re going in there with OEM on print management, they’re wasting their time because they’re just not going to make any margin; it’s just not there.”
If variety is the spice of life, then West Point offers the variety to spice up Northeast Print Supplies’ managed print services program. “You have to have somebody who can provide you with products if you’re doing a service like managed print because you take on so many devices like Xerox, Lexmark, etc.” notes Pitarra. “If you don’t have the supply chain in place even before you get all that rolling you’re not going to be able to offer the service that needs to be offered on those programs.”
Kofax
If you’re not familiar with Kofax, you ought to be. The Irvine, California-based company provides capture-enabled business process management software solutions. These solutions automate information intensive processes and manage the capture of information. When information enters an organization, Kofax Capture Enabled BPM solutions automatically capture, extract, validate and classify it through a touchless process. It doesn’t matter if it originates as paper, fax, e-mail, SMS, XML or PDF format. The company has an extensive list of alliance partners, including Canon, DocuLex, Docuware, Epson, Fujitsu, HP, Lexmark, Ricoh, Samsung, Sharp, and Xerox among many others, which gives them some serious street cred in our book.
“I would place Kofax as the one to watch even though there’s not a lot of public information on them,” says Brian Bissett, editor of The MFP Report.
“What I like about Kofax is they have a clearly articulated strategy,” adds Holly Muscolino, research director for IDC. “They also just acquired a business process management company called Singularity and they’ve integrated it with their capture solution so they’re evolving from being a purely capture and image processing solution to capture-enabled business process management. They have this concept of capturing information as close to the point of transaction as possible. So whether it’s through a Website, smartphone, MFP, or desktop scanner you can capture information anywhere and it can be deposited in some sort of repository or transformed using their business process management tool and automatically incorporated in some sort of back end or back office processes.”
ColumbiaSoft
ColumbiaSoft is known for their document management solutions, most notably Document Locator. Using its software, users can capture, manage, and share paper and electronic documents, e-mail, and faxes, and meet higher standards of compliance. They’re a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Autodesk (AutoCAD) Partner, Adobe Solutions Partner, and eCopy Software Alliance Partner. That’s impressive. What we think dealers will like about Document Locator is its ability to seamlessly integrate an array of electronic document management capabilities within the MS Windows environment, an environment that most business users are familiar with, which means it’s easy to use.
Loffler, a Canon dealer based in Bloomington, MN, is the company’s document management provider of choice. “Loffler has a tendency to pick products and sell products from companies that specialize and focus strictly on the product sets that they’re trying to sell,” explains Jeff King, director of consulting services with Loffler. “All they do is document management.”
PrintFleet Inc.
When you talk about data collection for managed print services, let’s not leave PrintFleet out of the conversation. Here’s a software company that specializes in the development of print management software, training, business development, and support programs for dealers and distributors in the imaging industry. According to the company, their software manages more than 2.5 billion pages per month worldwide. The company offers data collection, data integrity, and backend support within its family of print management software, ranging from simple rapid assessment to advanced independently hosted print management. Further validation for PrintFleet comes from the company it keeps and the MPS programs that it supports from the likes of West Point Products, Supplies Network, GreatAmerica Leasing, Parts Now!, LMI Solutions, SP Richards Co., PrintGuard, and Synnex.
PrintFleet’s software serves as the backbone to the infrastructure for Loffler Companies’ MPS program. “We’re not really selling it but use it in all of our MPS clients,” says John Hastings with Loffler. “We have a pretty successful MPS program and have had PrintFleet for about five years now.”
What Hastings likes is the flexibility. “We looked at others and this one seemed to be the most flexible for us,” he says. “It had a lot to do with the roll out of it and the acceptability of it from IT personnel, but also the reports we needed.”
Adobe
In some respects Adobe may be one of the most obvious solutions providers on the list, in other respects, one of the most least likely since solutions like Acrobat and Photoshop have become so ubiquitous. Plus how do those products tie into the office technology dealer channel as a solution? Well forget all that and take a closer look at Adobe LeanPrint, the company’s enterprise-class, software printing solution that can help reduce print costs via a method for redoing the layout of documents when printing from popular applications and browsers. With Adobe LeanPrint users can track print jobs and costs, analyze paper and toner savings from LeanPrint implementation at the document, user, and organization level. Underscoring the viability of LeanPrint is Adobe’s relationship with Toshiba who is Adobe’s first partner to go to market with LeanPrint and a collaborator in its development.
Jon Bees an analyst with IDC sees all sorts of potential for LeanPrint within corporate America. “For internal communications in the vast majority of businesses a product like LeanPrint can save all kinds of money because these documents aren’t for client viewing. It’s interesting that somebody like Adobe has stepped in to make a play for saving money with a tool that can be used in the MPS world.”
Indeed, this is the type of product that will give Adobe some added play in the dealer channel.
Preo Software Inc.
www.preosoftware.com
When it comes to print management solutions for the enterprise, the name to remember is Preo Software. The company also provides print management systems to select OEMs as well as managed print services providers worldwide. The company bills its Printelligence cloud-based solution as “the only print management system that adapts itself to an organization’s printing behavior, thanks to a unique adaptive rules engine that modifies the messaging delivered to end-users at the desktop, based on individual behavior.” Underscoring the power of Printelligence is the fact that it has been deployed in more than 5,000 organizations around the globe. A couple of other recent announcements further illustrate why Preo should be on your radar and that’s their agreement to license Printellignece v4 MPS technology to Staples Advantage, the business-to-business division of Staples where it will be part of Staples Technology Solutions MPS service offering. The second is the recently announced partnership with Supplies Network that combines the two company’s expertise in the MPS arena and integrates both organization’s software and services.
“They’re another solutions company that tracks end user print behavior with the purpose of better managing print workflow and [increasing] productivity,” says Jon Bees, an analyst with IDC. “They have some pretty sophisticated solutions. Preo’s Printintelligence solution provides detailed information and analytics about print behavior, hardware utilization, and print traffic patterns. They’re doing some interesting work. They’re a small but interesting company.”
LaserFiche
If you’ve got customers interested in enterprise content management, the name to know is Laserfiche. But don’t let the ECM component frighten you away, their solutions, including Laserfiche Rio and Laserfiche Avante are ideal for verticals such as government, financial, education, healthcare, and commercial as well as SMB. Laserfiche solutions have been deployed in more than 30,000 organizations around the world, so what you’ve got here is a well established entity with a highly viable solution. The Laserfiche ECM system is designed to give IT managers central control over their information infrastructure, including standards, security and auditing. The Laserfiche product suite is built on top of Microsoft technologies to simplify system administration, supports Microsoft SQL and Oracle platforms, and features a seamless integration with Microsoft Office applications and a two-way integration with SharePoint.
“I like LaserFiche because they’re capture and document management,” says Holly Muscolino, research director for IDC. “They’ll call themselves an enterprise solution, but they’re definitely more of an SMB solution. They also have a loyal following among resellers and customers. Their channel loves them.”
DocRecord from Prism Software
Prism Software
This is a company that develops print and document management software for use in Fortune 5000 and mid-sized companies with the latter being ideal for many office technology dealers. Its suite of software products target the electronic document management, workflow, variable data printing, and legacy data printing and conversion markets. Products of note include DocRecord, DocSystem, DocForm, and DocTransform. Name a vertical market, and any of these products will fit.
“They have an affinity with manufacturers because they’re small and are willing to customize a broad range of applications from legacy print to document management to capture, and have partnered with almost every manufacturer out there,” says Brian Bissett, editor of The MFP Report. “They seem to understand this channel and they’re willing to work quietly behind the scenes with vendors to provide a solution that works for their channel.”
Square9
They may not get the ink that some of the other document management companies seem to get, but that hasn’t stopped some dealers from making Square9 Softworks their document management solutions provider of choice and landing them squarely in this week’s group of “Top 40 Solutions & Services Providers That Should Be on Every Dealer’s Radar.” Square9 markets business-centric software, including the SmartSearch Document Management Suite. The nice thing about Square9 and its SmartSearch Document Management Suite is that it makes document management accessible to businesses of all sizes. Plus the company’s solutions are built on an open architecture, which should enhance its appeal to the average office technology dealer.
Edwards Business Systems (EBS) in Scranton, PA, spent 18 months on a rigid selection process and marketing strategy to identify and deliver what they call industry leading document management solutions that will ultimately provide enhanced and scalable partnerships and increased value to Edwards’ clients. “We made the strategic decision to forge direct relationships with our solution development partners,” explains Dexter Loeble, senior marketing director with EBS.
During the selection process EBS narrowed its offerings from 60+ software solutions to 12 approved solutions from five partners. “This allowed us to leverage resources and ultimately achieve 300%+ growth in the revenue channel,” adds Loeble.
One of those partners was Square9. “We selected Square9 as a single source solution for their enterprise content and document management system capabilities,” states Loeble. “Square9 provides a scalable .NET platform with a wide range of integrated components that allow us to provide end-to-end solutions in this space for every size client. Over the past 12 months we have more increased awareness and built long-term relationships with many of our major accounts that would traditionally only be retained through traditional methods.”
Agiliant
If there were a Yellow Pages for master managed services providers for the dealer community, Agiliant might be the first name in the book. Indeed, any dealer even remotely considering making a move into managed services should take a serious look at Agiliant. They’ve created a program called MITOS, a managed services solution suite, which integrates managed network services and managed print services into a single solution delivery model. They’re targeting businesses of all sizes across North America, which plays right into the wheelhouse of the average office technology dealer.
Aric Manion, president of Kelley Imaging Systems in Seattle, Washington, is found that partnering with Agiliant has made a difference in helping them capture a bigger piece of the managed services pie, something they might not have been able to do without the MITOS program.
“The IT space is a lot harder sell than equipment,” acknowledges Manion. “It’s more complex and there’s different curve balls thrown at you every day. The product management Agiliant provides saves us from having to go out and research who’s the best in backup solutions, who’s the best in hosted e-mail, who’s the best in Microsoft SPA.”
The Agiliant program has simplified the concept of managed network services and managed print for Kelley’s traditional salespeople and completed the sales process piece of the puzzle. As with any solution or service there’s a cost associated with it and Manion realizes the average office equipment dealer is sometimes reluctant to make that investment. He wasn’t because he understood that Kelley did not possess that expertise internally. “When you look at the cost of trying to do it yourself, you can do it yourself and hire the people or you can plug into all those people [at Agiliant]. It’s less costly bringing in all of the expertise they have on staff.”
Agiliant has even helped Kelley acquire an IT company. “That just closed at the beginning of this year and adds $700,000 a year in revenue and gives us a customer base that we can reference [to potential customers],” concludes Manion
Parts Now!
As we assembled this list of solutions and services providers one thing became clear and that’s the impact the MPS movement has made on the industry and the opportunities for companies like Parts Now! the supplier of laser printer parts in North America. The company also offers tools, technical support, and training, which underscores their inclusion as a Top 40 Solutions & Services provider. It doesn’t hurt that they’re an authorized distributor to four OEMs either.
Parts Now! has been providing laser printer parts since 1989, not a bad track record in this day and age. Dealers can also rely on the company for toner and other consumables and with six locations in the U.S. and Canada all sorts of supplies are within fast and easy access. As far as new developments, we’re impressed by the R4 Assessment Pro, introduced in January 2012. This tool identifies ways to maximize the efficiency of an imaging fleet while reducing costs for dealers and their customers. For dealers focused on MPS, it reportedly offers the ability to reduce service program costs, identifies devices at a client site that are ready to be refreshed, identifies devices that should be retired and where to redistribute its volume, and of course, offers the all-important replenishment criteria such as availability and cost of supplies while also providing stocking strategies and automated management to reduce the time associated with these tasks and the expense.
DPOE in Des Plaines, IL is a long-time Parts Now! customer. DPOE uses them primarily for HP parts. The reason DPOE President Chip Miceli likes them is simple, “They have every part we need in stock. They’re in Wisconsin, which for me is great because we can put an order in today and have it tomorrow.”
Katun
With managed print services all the rage, reducing costs for customers has taken center stage and one area where dealers have long found ways of taking some of the costs out of the print equation is with compatible cartridges. One of the prime sources for those compatibles has been Katun, however, dealers don’t just rely on them for compatible cartridges, they’re also a viable supplier of parts for the wide array of hardware that’s on every dealer’s price list. With 16,000 customers in 135 countries, Katun is without question a company that should be on every dealer’s radar if they aren’t already.
DPOE’s Chip Miceli relies on Katun for his toner cartridges, especially as his dealership gets more heavily focused on managed print services. “We do a lot with Katun because they are forward thinkers and they’re always looking for ways to improve my bottom line.”
Notable Solutions, Inc.
What’s so notable about Notable Solutions (NSi) and its AutoStore 6, distributed content capture and business automation solution? How can you not appreciate a solution that allows users within an organization to automate their business processes by capturing paper and electronic documents from various sources, process them into usable information and store that information into business applications and databases for retrieval and distribution? Besides NSi Autostore, the company’s solutions offerings now encompass NSi Autocapture, NSi WebCapture, NSi SmartTicket, NSi Quick Capture Pro, and NSi OpenForms 360. Need further validation as to why NSi should be on your radar, how about the fact that Kyocera and Xerox rely on NSi’s expertise to power their distributed content capture solutions, KYOcapture and Smartdocument Travel, respectively?
David Foechterle, MFD program manager for the Department of Information Technology of the Fairfax County Government in Fairfax, VA, is a perfect example of the type of NSi customer that dealers might target with this solution. When he joined the County a few years he found himself responsible for an area that no one else really wanted and he was unfamiliar with, copiers and MFPs. He spent about a year of research into hardware, software and services behind MFPs and what’s available. “One thing I kept coming across, I understood the print part, that’s easy, the scan part, didn’t know anything about, so I looked into that.”
He discovered that most manufacturers allow you to scan to a network folder or to an e-mail address. Although it was a relatively simple process, it wasn’t centralized and he’d have to configure every MFP he was responsible for. “And 500 MFPs with 20,000 end users is a nightmare,” says Foechterle. “I needed a solution that was centrally managed, and also wanted to figure out what else can you do with the scan piece, I can go to e-mail, I can go to network folder, but where’s the value behind that. I started doing research and the one vendor I kept coming across was NSi and their Autostore product. I went to Sharp, Xerox, Ricoh, and NSi was always there. For me that was a huge win because we are somewhat brand agnostic when it comes to print devices and scan devices in the County. I knew it would work across the gamut of hardware we have.”
The first year of implementation saw 1.2 million impressions go through Autostore and Foechterle expects to see that double year over year for the next three to four years. Not too shabby, huh?
Dealer Marketing Systems
www.dealermarketingsystems.com
When your marketing efforts fall short and you’re still grappling with how to leverage social media in your dealership, who you going call? For many dealers the people to call are the marketing experts at Dealer Marketing Systems. That’s because they have a thorough understanding of the industry because that’s the only industry they service. Dealer Marketing Systems provide training and marketing tools and provide an array of marketing services, including Website design and hosting, custom sales collateral, case study writing, dealership newsletters, and direct mail-to-Web campaigns.
Josh Smith, sales director with Datamax in Little Rock, AR, brought in Dealer Marketing Systems in 2010 to raise the profile of the company’s Website. It was developed by another company and updates were far and few between, which meant that Datamax was missing tons of promotional opportunities. What made Dealer Marketing Systems a good fit for Datamax was their knowledge of the office technology industry.
“I liked the fact that they are industry specific,” says Smith. “They knew my industry, they both came from my industry, they knew what we were facing, and they’d worked with other dealers in our area and with other dealers in the Sumner Group organization at other Datamax locations.”
The new Website has made a difference and Smith gauges its success on the comments he’s received about it. “You never can tell how any advertising is effectively working for you unless you survey every customer you do business with,” acknowledges Smith. “We don’t do that but we’ve had so many comments from customers and other dealers who have asked us specifically about our Website and who did it and why we chose them.”
Dealer Marketing Systems has also helped Datamax branch out into social media with Facebook and Twitter pages. A blog on Datamax’s Website feeds directly into their Twitter account as well as their Facebook page, showcasing fresh content every single day. It’s a great way to promote special events and specials. They’ve got about 500 followers so far. “That’s probably been the biggest draw,” says Smith, “and is all due to them getting us into social media. We’ve taken it to another level. Other dealers are calling and asking about it and who does it for us.”
Perceptive Software
If you’re looking for a provider of enterprise content management (ECM) and business process management (BPM) software products and solutions with a strong customer focus, look no further than Perceptive Software. The company made a name for itself in the imaging world with the ImageNow document imaging, document management and workflow suite along with its LearnMode integration methodology. They’ve built a nice business for themselves and their products and solutions are used by customers across all industries in more than 30 countries worldwide. The company’s solutions are designed to integrate seamlessly with any business application, which provides the reseller and the customer with piece of mind throughout the integration process. Resellers and their customers aren’t the only ones who’ve come to appreciate the value that Perceptive brings to the ECM solutions and BPM products space, Lexmark has noticed too and in 2010 acquired the company. That’s a strong testament to their Top 40 status. With Perceptive’s recent acquisition of Pallas Athena, a Netherlands-based BPM software provider, has only strengthened their position in the BPM market.
“Perceptive Software is an excellent company,” says Jerry Jones with Cannon IV in Indianapolis, IN. “Our biggest opportunities [with that] are in education—K-12 plus higher education. Those are all great success stories for us when it comes to Perceptive Software.”
Cannon IV discovered Perceptive a few years ago while investigating the various solutions on the market. “We found they were a company with a great solution platform. They just get it.”
Drivve
This developer of image capture, document management, and workflow applications that enhance business processes is a familiar face at technology fairs at OEM dealer meetings.
No wonder. Its solution enables users to place hard copy documents in their scanner or MFP input trays and convert that into usable electronic data that can be shared within and outside of an organization. The nice thing about what Drivve does is that it can bring this document management capability to not only large offices but offices with as few as five employees. Like other solutions providers who adapt to changing times, Drivve is now extending their reach beyond the scanner and MFP to smartphones. You’ll notice too that Drivve likes to boast about just how turnkey their solution is. If you’ve ever seen one of their demos, that’s no exaggeration and one of the reasons dealers find Drivve an excellent solution for helping customers better manage their paper-based information.
Brian Bissett, editor of The MFP Report, notes that Drivve seems to be gaining traction in the Sharp and Toshiba channel as well as Kyocera. “They have a nice Apple client,” says Bissett who adds that the company seems to be in the midst of repositioning somewhat from document management to more universal capture software. “They’ve done pretty well,” he says.
In addition Buyers Laboratory editors selected Drivve DM 2.4 as an “Outstanding SMB Document Management Solution” in their Winter 2012 “Pick” awards. Between Bissett and BLI, we count that as high praise for Drivve, and validation of their placement in this year’s Top 40.
Equitrac
www.equitrac.com
For years whenever anyone spoke about cost tracking solutions, the one solution that always seemed to be top of mind was Equitrac. And they still are. Acquired last year by Nuance the company still offers the same menu of products they’ve always provided to the dealer channel—products that allow them to penetrate key verticals such as legal and education as well as provide customers of all stripes with a proven cost tracking solution. Products such as Equitrac Office, Equitrac Professional, and Equitrac Express remain viable solutions for organizations looking to control and management their printing, reduce costs, enhance document security, and for an increasing number of organizations, foster sustainable printing practices. With a notable roster of partners, including Canon, Kyocera, Konica Minolta, HP, Sharp, Xerox, Toshiba, Fuji Xerox, and Océ, Equitrac remains one of the imaging industry’s top-tier solutions providers and one that is already on most dealer’s radar.
“Equitrac is the total solution for tracking prints, sending prints to where you want them to be, print security, equipment use security, and for providing a complete breakdown of what each piece of equipment is doing and whose doing what on each piece of equipment,” states Andrew Ritschel, president of Electronic Office Solutions in Fairfield, NJ. “For some organizations, proposing [this solution], is what helps you get the deal.”
“We do a lot with Nuance, but the one we do the most with is Equitrac,” adds Matt Molner, corporate solutions manager with ComDoc, and a big fan of Equitrac. “By far the largest vertical for that is education. We have a lot of K-higher education customers, but we also have a fair amount of legal and general office customers interested in tracking and rules-based printing.”
BEI Services
Many of us already know that BEI Services provides service benchmarking and assessment of imaging devices. With the monthly tracking of more than 1-million service calls on 1.33 million machines, BEI Services has the statistics and benchmarks that dealerships need in this competitive environment to compare their MIF and technician’s performance. With this information, BEI can help dealer’s identify where improvements can be made to reduce service costs. They also provide a pay for performance program that has been accepted by nearly 200 dealers and more than 3,000 technicians. Their client list represents the cream of the independent dealer crop and their product captures data from thousands of devices from virtually every OEM in the office technology business. That’s good enough to land them in this year’s Top 40.
Chip Miceli, president of DPOE in Des Plaines, IL, was introduced to BEI Services through Katun. After meeting with them and hearing the pitch, he knew right away that the data BEI Services could provide would have a huge impact on his bottom line. “I said, ‘We’ve got to do this because we have to get a handle of what our techs are doing.” He still had to convince his service director and service manager who didn’t see the same potential in this data as they did. Seeing is believing and when asked how they feel about BEI Services today, Miceli replies, “They love it.” They now sit down with every technician at the end of the month and talk about where their strong suits are, where they need help and what they need to do to improve. “Because of that it’s fantastic,” says Miceli. Turns out his technicians are fine with it too thanks in large part to the BEI Services bonus program. “Now that they’ve improved they’re making more money with the bonus program,” states Miceli.
MWAi’s Headquarters
MWA Intelligence
Any dealer looking to take their customer service to the next level had better have MWAi on their short list of solutions providers. MWAi provides enterprise-class M2M (machine-to-machine) and M2P (machine-to-people) solutions and accompanying professional services. Solutions provided by MWAi include asset and resource management tools and related software, hardware, and communication technologies to manage employees, assets, and business operations more efficiently. MWAi has developed a platform-independent approach to asset, service, and mobile workforce management that they say is flexible and scalable to accommodate a dealership’s unique requirements and grow as their business model evolves. Another asset of working with MWAi is the talent that goes along with it. The company’s management team knows the office technology business inside and out, and there’s nothing like talking to someone who truly gets it when looking to match a solution to your dealership. And with a litany of strategic partners, this is a solutions provider that is well entrenched in the industry.
Rick Bastinelli, president of Centric Business Systems, brought MWAi into his dealership about eight years ago after searching for an automated dispatch system. “That product has been incredible in helping us operate a dramatically more efficient service operation.”
Three years ago Centric added MWAi’s remote monitoring software to the mix. “The reason we did that was MWAi was one of the first remote monitoring software programs to not only remotely capture meter reads and other alerts, but have that data go directly into our operating system without going through that extra step,” recalls Bastinelli. “To us it’s been a seamless and flawless process that has enabled us to gain a lot of efficiency in that part of our business.”
Supplies Network’s Corporate Headquarters
Supplies Network
Let’s forget about Supplies Network as a wholesaler of IT consumables and the fact that independent dealers represent 99 percent of the company’s business. What impresses us is the Supplies Network’s leadership position in print management services and their track record in helping independent dealers get on the managed print services bandwagon thanks to the CARBON SiX all-inclusive “turn-key” MPS program. If you’re not aware, CARBON SiX allows dealers to delve into MPS without having to invest in software or capital and encompasses detailed step-by-step training, follow-up support, and ongoing consulting. There’s a lot of MPS solutions available today, but CARBON SiX was one of the first and foremost and is a program that’s made a difference not only for traditional office technology dealerships but smaller dealers on the office supplies of the aisle looking to grow their machine business.
Rob Richardson, owner and founder of Allied Document Solutions & Services in Swedesboro, NJ started with Supplies Network some 10 years ago once their HP prices became more competitive. “We also sell a lot of their compatible products and for my money they were the first wholesaler I found that did their due diligence with respect to quality control and bringing in the brand. It wasn’t “what can we make the most money? it was ‘what can we be profitable on, but also works?’ It’s one thing to sell a product and make a couple of extra bucks on it, it’s another to sell a product and be deluged with returns, defective rates and soured relationships. They really seem to go the extent of being able to provide quality compatibles which makes it hard for us to leave.”
Richardson also likes that customers can order all their supplies from him via Supplies Network and that it’s all shipped in one carton to the customer. “I’ve been in business for 18 years and there were times when there would be five different items in an order and I’d need three different suppliers to complete that order.”
He also sings the praises of the people who work there. “I’ve never worked with anyone there I’ve had a problem with,” says Richardson. “They’re all professional, knowledgeable, driven, and quality people. If there’s turnover, it’s seamless from one person to the next. They’re just as helpful, just as knowledgeable, and there’s never been an issue.”
Richardson has also found Supplies Network’s MPS initiatives top notch. “They’re the most progressive provider out there. A lot of people talk about it, but nobody does it as well as they do. They continue to show me, as an independent dealer, that the relationship makes sense because they continue to make enhancements and improvements to the program and reach out to their independent dealers for recommendations and suggestions.”
Strategy Development
We used to see these folks in our travels at various dealer meetings and read their bylined articles in industry trade publications, but it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that we truly understood all that Strategy Development has to offer the independent dealer channel. It helps too that we have interviewed many dealers that this organization has helped with their consulting services for service operations, managed print services, sales optimization, and sales mentoring. Those interviews have placed the company’s influence in perspective for us. From top to bottom this is a consulting organization that has a proven track record of success illustrated by the growing number of dealers who have relied on them for their industry expertise and continue to rely on them as well as the many training sessions and seminars they’ve presented at dealer meetings and BTA regional events. We’re also impressed by their recently opened Sd|University, a new model for training a dealer’s entire staff. With folks like Tom Callinan and Ed Carroll at the helm, both engaging presenters, a dealer couldn’t find a better organization to guide them along the path to success.
Professional Business Systems (PBS) in Bentonville, Arkansas, is one of those forward-thinking dealerships that understand the value of education and the guidance an organization like Strategy Development can provide. PBS has used Strategy Development for service management, sales management, and MPS consultations and training. PBS President Matt Mawby says education was essential in identifying the costs associated with making the transition to managed print and putting a plan in place. “Us copier guys know we roll the dice based on consumables. And we’ve got all this history to be able to do so, but we didn’t have that history with managed print. Strategy Development brought a lot of that to the table.”
GreatAmerica Leasing
As national commercial equipment finance companies go, GreatAmerica Leasing remains one of the key leasing companies for the office technology dealer and one that stood by that segment even as the industry took a nosedive during the economic downturn. Since the early 1990’s the company has fashioned a reputation for working to understand the needs and trends of the markets they serve and their customers within those markets. This is a leasing company that truly understands the office technology dealer and has the ability to adapt to changing trends. The most notable example is GreatAmerica’s Collabrance LLC subsidiary for managed services. What this provides to dealers is the infrastructure and the expertise via a team of customer service and IT professionals, to allow them to reap the rewards of a new revenue stream without a huge upfront investment. That alone is a solid enough reason to place GreatAmerica Leasing on every dealer’s radar, but when you had its legacy in leasing to the mix, you’ve truly got a winning combination.
Cannon IV in Indianapolis has been partnering with GreatAmerica Leasing going on four years now. “Their people are outstanding,” says Jerry Jones, president of Cannon IV. “It’s kind of an extension of our own staff. They’re very customer centric.”
The relationship began when Cannon IV started kicking around the idea of starting their own leasing company. “They have a wonderful program as far as allowing you to get started and allowing you to get part of the deal. It’s just worked out real well,” says Jones.
DPOE’s Chip Miceli has a long history with GreatAmerica. In addition to being his go-to leasing partner he also uses their FleetView (from PrintFleet) remote monitoring solution for his managed print services program. The main thing that stands out for Miceli about GreatAmerica is the communication. “They listen to what the dealers are looking for and what they need to go forward,” says Miceli. “Their vision a lot of times is on the same page as my vision. When I have a vision I call up Dave Pohlman and run it by him and then he comes back and tells me what I can do legally. I like the fact that they worry about the dealers being around. A lot of leasing companies are in it for themselves and don’t care if the dealer’s make money…zero percent, whatever.”
FMAudit
If it seems the office technology industry is awash in cost recovery solutions, you may be right, but the fact that a company like FMAudit remains one of the leading providers in this segment, means they must be doing something right. What began in 1998 has evolved into a global powerhouse and a key solutions provider for dealers looking to build a managed print services program. The company’s assessment solution which offers the requisite assessment, data analysis, TCO proposal generation, consumable level monitoring, automated meter collection and service alert filtering, fills a huge need for the office technology dealer. With their WebAudit, Web-based meter collection solution and non-networked device meter collection options, dealers have a choice of cost recovery options to meet the needs of virtually any client of any size by providing a complete understanding of total cost of ownership.
Jerry Jones of Cannon IV in Indianapolis is a fan of FMAudit and likes the flexibility the solution provides, especially since his dealership represents a variety of hardware manufacturers, including Toshiba, Lexmark, and HP. “FMAudit’s people #1 are very forward thinking and really provide great solutions from an agnostic approach. You don’t have to be in bed with one particular manufacturer. The reality is in today’s market, you need a lot of things to pick from you can’t just go in representing one company.”
FMAudit has been a big part of Maryland-based Centric Business Systems’ enterprise solution for gathering meter reads and remote monitoring. With a number of choices in the market, Centric went with FMAudit after President Rick Bastinelli assembled a team of administrative, service, and sales personnel, asking them to meet with all the companies that provide this software. After evaluating a number of them, they recommended FMAudit. “That was based on the reliability and ability of the product, but also the fact that setting up devices with FMAudit was very much a seamless process,” reports Bastinelli. He also tout’s the software’s online capabilities and its reporting capabilities. “We thought was impressive and is one of the key reasons why we selected them.”
DocuLex
It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking paper documents or electronic documents, document management solutions are a must-have solution within a dealer’s solutions offerings. That’s where DocuLex comes in. Since 1996 DocuLex has specialized in developing enterprise document management and content management solutions. Those solutions offerings provide network-enabled capture and image processing on MFPs, scanners, fax, and wide format devices, as well as document and content management applications. The DocuLex product that should be on a dealer’s radar is Archive Studio, a content management software suite that encompasses an array of scalable products that meets everything from basic content management needs to enterprise-wide document management, workflow, e-mail archiving, records management, and distributed or centralized image capture. With all those capabilities, chances are there’s a good fit for Archive Studio within almost any dealer’s customer base.
Gulf Coast Office Products in New Orleans has been selling DocuLex for about 10 years now. “The nice thing is their Web search feature, which allows you to do a key word search through all of your documents,” says Roy Gibbons, Gulf Coast’s digital solutions specialist. “It searches the full content of the document by key words or you can do topic searches.” He also likes the fact that the search engine is fully customizable. “You can search either for particular types of documents or you can customize it for the end user. All of my users use it differently. It depends on the company.”
Gibbons has found that most customers are potential prospects for DocuLex although vertical markets who are required to have retention policies find it particularly useful. “The retention policy they’ve got built into DocuLex is nice,” he says. “A lot of vertical markets have new regulations where they must maintain a document for a certain period of time and by using the automated retention policy it allows them to get rid of files at the time they’re supposed to.” The retention capability is also useful with auditing. “The DocuLex system streamlines your audit process should you get audited. I had a customer that was audited and had to hire seven people to find all of her paper files and get them ready for the audit process. A few years later after she’d switched to DocuLex instead of hiring seven people to go through her files, she ran a search through DocuLex and in an hour she had all the documents she needed.”
Print Audit
As corporate America’s and the imaging industry’s consciousness becomes increasingly raised about the high costs of printing, the interest in print management solutions is arguably greater than it has ever been. That’s where a company like Print Audit and its flagship product, Print Audit 6, comes in. Print Audit 6 allows companies to analyze, reduce, and recover their printing, copying, scanning, and faxing costs. The company’s latest introduction, Print Audit Premier, is a subscription plan that gives dealers access to all of Print Audit’s products for one low monthly fee.
If a company can be judged by the company they keep, then Print Audit is in good company counting Toshiba, Konica Minolta, Canon, Xerox, Ricoh, and Sharp, among many others as partners. If growth is a measure of credibility, then let’s also note that Print Audit has enjoyed an average of 362 percent annual growth over the past 10 years. “It’s always been a tough sale to ask a customer to lay out thousands of dollars for 20-25 seats of software,” says Art Post, a dealer sales rep and founder of the Print4Pay Hotel MFP Solutions blog. “In most cases I’ll get the hardware sale and the customer will think about the software. The beauty of Print Audit Premier is that you can include the software in monthly cost-per-page cost or offer it as a base monthly charge-per-device or seat. This allows a dealer to rent the software, thus if the customer decides to get hardware elsewhere at the end of the lease they would also lose the benefits of Print Audit software.”
Pharos Systems
For Pharos Systems it’s all about intelligent printing. What started as a company focused on university pay for print software has evolved into a solutions provider that markets solutions to manage and optimize print. Options include software and services, software only, or just services. The average office technology dealership will also appreciate the fact that Pharos is that hardware-neutral. Notable OEM partners include Canon, HP, Konica Minolta, Lexmark, Sharp, and Xerox. Lou Slawetsky of Industry Analysts is one of Pharos Systems’ biggest fans and is surprised that they’re still looking to gain traction in the dealer channel.
“They have formed some very interesting partnerships and can give the dealer access to larger accounts, which the dealer couldn’t access by himself,” he says. “In larger accounts they put people onsite to ensure adherence to rules-based printing. They really reengineer document flow. For example, they know how much print is being made on a device and who’s printing to it; I don’t know of anybody else that can do that. They are also the engine behind what Konica shows as enterprise OPS. [Pharos] gives the dealer a broader offering into a much larger enterprise-size [account] than what they’re currently calling on. They are closer to MWAi but they take it to the next step. The missing link has always been not what are the page volumes per device—any software can do that—the missing link is who’s doing the printing and what applications are they running and this will report on it.”
EFI
When it comes to obvious solutions providers, no one is more of an obvious selection than EFI, especially in the world of color output and production printing. After all, most color copier manufacturers rely on EFI and their Fiery digital print controllers and solutions to enhance their color output. As the company has grown into a worldwide powerhouse, their offerings have grown into print production workflow and business process automation software not to mention their foray into output devices and UV and solvent inks, which although not appropriate in this context, is a testament to their ongoing legacy within the digital printing arena.
ComDoc in Uniontown, Ohio relies heavily on EFI. “We sell a light of light production so we have a lot of their Fiery controllers,” says Matt Molnar, ComDoc’s corporate solutions manager. We also sell their EFI PrintMe Mobile, they’re clouding printing solution and are getting a lot of traction with that.
Molnar is also excited about EFI’s Digital Storefront, the company’s new ecommerce Web-to-print solution. “Between those three they’re a really strong vendor and from a partner perspective I would put them just behind Docuware. They do a lot of good things with keeping us going and strategizing and giving us a lot of support.”
Copier Careers
This is the go-to recruiting firm that dealers within the document imaging industry can count on to find the right man or woman for the job. Not many personnel companies cater to the copier industry and when you find one that does to the extent Copier Careers has you take notice. In addition to finding talent, the company has become known for their annual salary surveys that take the financial pulse of key positions within the copier industry and allow those in existing positions as well as job seekers and employers to benchmark where they stand in comparison to the rest of the industry. Need to fill a position? A great starting point is with Copier Careers, which places them firmly within the upper pantheon of services providers to the imaging industry.
Dean Edwards with Bristol Office Supply in Bristol, Virginia saw an ad for Copier Careers a couple of years ago and has since used them to fill a half dozen positions within his dealership. “They take time to understand who we are and our culture,” says Edwards.
Prior to Copier Careers, Edwards used Monster and ads in the local paper. “But this is a lot more efficient,” he says. “They understand what we’re about and save us a lot of time.”
Edwards adds that the biggest benefit of working with Copier Careers is the personal service. “You feel like you’re getting value for the money you spend. It’s more relationship-based and that’s our culture and how we do business too.”
PaperCut
These are the men from down under who have created a print management solution that has reportedly helped more than more than 50,000 organizations reduce their print costs and their environmental impact. Since the release of the solution in 1999 PaperCut now manages printing, copier, and Internet use in tens-of-thousands of organizations in more than 100 countries. With PaperCut users can track all printing in a network environment. It maintains detailed print logs for all user printing activity. This logging helps to understand printing by user, printer, group, department, office or shared account. One of the latest developments is the ability for PaperCut to manage printing from laptops, wireless devices, and anonymous users. A core feature of PaperCut, Web Print enables printing from user-owned devices without the need to install printer drivers and manage server authentication.
“We’ve found that there is a minimum of 25 percent of color pages that should be printed in black & white,” says Reed Melnick, president of Nevill Imaging Solutions in Carrollton, Texas. “If somebody was doing 10,000 pages color at the cost of 8 cents a page it could be eliminated by 2,500 pages and all of a sudden you have a savings of $200-$300 a month by just putting a simple inexpensive system like PaperCut in place to manage that.”
“You can sell for 45 percent less than Equitrac,” says Andrew Ritschel, president of Electronic Office Systems in Fairfield, NJ who sells both products. “It’s a great product.”
ComDoc in Uniontown, Ohio had multiple customers, including some large ones, that had purchased the solution directly from PaperCut and all raved about it. “They said it was competitively priced,” reports Matt Molnar, ComDoc’s corporate solutions manager. “We really looked into it last year and in a short amount of time we got some really good sales. As a point of comparison I’d compare it to Equitrac. It probably does about 75 percent of what Equitrac does. It doesn’t have as many features, but it does it at a very competitive price. So for a lot of our customers who just need its core set of features, you really can’t beat it.”
Docuware
Was there really any doubt that Docuware was going to make this list? When it comes to document management providers, Docuware remains top of mind in much of the dealer community. Founded in 1988, DocuWare has over 400 authorized software partners worldwide, and its software is available in 15 languages. Add to that more than 100,000 active users and it’s clear that Docuware is one serious solutions provider. If that’s not enough, their annual DocuWorld Conference brings end users and resellers together, underscoring the potential of the company’s document management offerings.
Ask Matt Molnar, corporate solutions manager at ComDoc, about his favorite solution, number one on his list is DocuWare. “From a pure partner [perspective], they have fantastic support and help us with sales strategy. He adds that this is one of the few solutions segments where ComDoc only offer one solution. “It really covers the span of our whole customer base,” says Molnar. “We have it in some of our largest accounts all the way down to a three-person office. It scales incredibly well from the very small to the very large. Because of that we’re able to put a lot of focus and effort behind that one product. Another thing is the general feature set.” He also likes DocuWare’s mobile client, which is becoming more popular and has found the new Smart Connect button that allows users to access DocuWare file cabinets from any program they’re working in a huge hit with clients.
Nuance eCopy
Where do you begin with this company and its wealth of solutions? Whether you’re talking about eCopy, Equitrac, or Nuance voice recognition products, a dealer couldn’t find a more valuable solutions provider to round out their solutions menu. For the MFP world, the company’s flagship product is eCopy ShareScan v5, a document capture solution, allows users to capture paper-based information using the program’s OCR engine directly from their MFP. With eCopy paper documents can be connected to business applications and paper-intensive document workflows automated. While Nuance offers a variety of eCopy solutions, we’re picking
ShareScan as the one that should be on most dealer’s radar.
Bristol Office Supply in Bristol, VA, is one of the oldest Canon dealers in the country and not surprisingly, an early eCopy adopter. “The scanning thing came and what do you do with it after you get it,” was the big question that Dean Edwards of Bristol was asking himself prior to eCopy coming to market. He’s found the ability to annotate documents and simply better manage documents from the MFP a big plus for certain types of customers. “We still have attorneys that really like it,” states Edwards.
Fenestrae B.V.’s UDOCX
UDOCX (Unified DOCument Exchange) is a cloud-based document processing service from Fenestrae B.V. that enables Microsoft Office users to securely capture, scan to SharePoint, scan to Draft Folder, store, mail, fax and print documents from any MFP located anywhere in the world. Additionally, UDOCX offers what they describe as seamless integration of MFPs with Microsoft Exchange or Office 365 without the need of installing or maintaining additional software or hardware. With UDOCX users can capture all paper documents, process them into usable information, and store or integrate them in PDF/A and into business applications and databases for retrieval and distribution.
If you’re not familiar with Fenestrae, the company, based in the Netherlands, was founded in 1990 as a provider of unified messaging and mobility software products that help organizations optimize their unified communications with customers, partners, and mobile employees. Two notable OEM partners include Xerox and Ricoh.
What Art Post, a dealer sales rep and proprietor of The Print4Pay Hotel likes about UDOCX is its ability to scan to Microsoft SharePoint without explaining to the customer that they need an additional piece of hardware such as a server if they don’t already have one and software that must reside on the server. “UDOCX sells as SaaS,” says Post. “You pay a monthly subscription fee and you have a choice of 3 different levels depending on your needs. Just talking about UDOCX has opened the door for talking about SharePoint opportunities along with managed services.”
