Art Post
During the 1928 presidential campaign the Republican National Committee ran an ad that stated based on the Harding & Coolidge administration that they had “put the chicken in every pot and car in every back yard”. With the introduction of many cloud-based document management solutions like Doculex and Intellinetics have created the right for document management software for every business large and small. Forget about the paper and how about the electronic files. If you don’t have a document management program how the heck are you finding the documents you created last week, last month or a few years ago? I get it; they’re stored on a drive and then named under a nested folder which is under another nested folder an then another.
Think about how much time you spend looking for documents whether they are paper based or electronic. If you don’t have a managed document service/software you’re inefficient.
What can Copier Manufacturers Do?
First they need to forget about all of the cool acronyms and marketing gimmicks. Today’s copier manufacturers need to start buying companies (software) and focusing on business solutions or developing a new media (that’s called R & D) that will give them a renewable revenue stream (the old renewable revenue stream was putting toner on paper). I believe that manufacturers should start buying companies like Dropbox, Officedrop, Box and document management software companies that have Cloud Document Management Services. Why let others control the document when you’re in the document business?
Manufacturers could bundle their own free service and then offer a pay service. There are many SBM accounts that could benefit from cloud service document management software. Traditionally what’s held the SMB business back is cost, ease of use, and training? Cloud services billed monthly whether by storage or clicks to create a renewable revenue stream, it’s kind of like cloud back up and disaster recovery solutions, the more you store, the more you’ll pay. But cloud document management software can have an immediate ROI impact, which is unlike backup and disaster recovery solutions (who the heck wants to sell insurance, not me).
Sell monthly/annual subscription services that allow SMB accounts to connect their MFPs to SharePoint, MS365, their CRM, their DMS, or their business line of software. I understand there are some third-party companies offering these services, but what do you have to lose beside pages? Control the document stupid!
Here’s a thought, maybe buy some of the most popular CRM’s or business lines of software companies and develop those connectors for your MFP’s. Here’s another idea, how about selling print licenses, here you would install 500 printers (all inclusive except for paper), have the customer buy 5 or 10 million pages upfront and then renew the license when the prints have expired.
Or do what Ricoh did, come out with your own business tablet and create customized software solutions that will improve a business processes. Printed pages may go away, however the document is here forever.
I don’t believe I’ll see the end of putting toner or ink on paper in my time, I do believe that one day there will not be a need for paper. If you’ve ever watched any Star Trek episodes, you may or may not have noticed that you never see a sheet of paper. Who knows, maybe the likes of Toshiba, Sharp, Konica Minolta, Ricoh, Canon, Kyocera, Xerox or Samsung will market the first transporter.
Our transition to a services-led approach will require us to lead with more diverse services, managed print stream, managed print, document management and storage solutions. Stay tuned for Part 5 and “What’s the future for copier dealers”.
