Larry over at Channelnomics posed the above question.
He states:
"...The market opportunity is impressive, but it masks three fundamental problems. First, the channel has been slow to adopt and embrace MPS as a strategic revenue generator. Second, the market has been slow to accept MPS as a cost-saving, efficiency-driving platform. And third, people are generally printing less, thanks in large part to tablets and BYOD.." - Here
Managed print Services, as it stands today, has enjoyed great popularity and adoption over in the imaging niche. At least at the provider level - everybody is doing it.
"...As long as there are quotas around boxes, anyone telling you they support an MpS philosophy, while manufacturing devices on a 3-shift schedule, is at best promoting "marchitecture..."Larry outlines Three Points of Doom, I add a few more, starting with the age-old, "it's not about transactional selling..."
We've heard this for decades, so often our ears are bleeding, "stop selling boxes and start selling solutions" - Blah.
The imaging sales model has been built on the lease ex-dates and feature/function/lowest price foundations.
MpS Purity moves beyond the "lowest price" argument and into business acumen. Well, at least the opportunity is there to transform into something along the lines of a true 'partnership' with clients centered on services and 'solutions'(hate that word, BTW).
This philosophy appears to be easier to verbalize than implement. Managed print Services is difficult.
Another impediment to adoption - hypocrisy.
MpS Purity strives to reduce costs - by reducing prints/copies.
This results in less machines being utilized, implemented and SOLD.
How can an industry built on selling 'new' machines every 90 days honestly adopt a business model the reduces the opportunity to sell more stuff?
It can't: Panasonic, Lexmark, HP, Sharp, Kodak - 'nuff said.
As long as there are quotas around boxes, anyone telling you they support an MpS philosophy, while manufacturing devices on a 3-shift schedule, is at best promoting "marchitecture" at worse being disingenuous.(the difference is slight)
This doesn't even account for the obvious fact that people print less - we are communicating differently.
I could add dozens, but I won't.
And before anyone thinks this is an output only issue, beware. It's coming in the form of the Cloud and the Services as a Service model. People don't 'compute' the same way they used to.
The painful transformation of the past 5 years in imaging is a precursor for the entire technology niche - how many times have you heard, "stop selling boxes and start selling solutions" from the likes of CISCO, HP, Dell(?), IBM, MicroSoft, et al???? Jus sayin...
Wow - now I need to go stick things in my ears, on account of the bleeding...have a nice day.
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