Top Ten Copier and MFP Proposals for May 2013

May 2013 business go me back on top of the leaders list for tops in total sales and tops in new business for the entire team. To date I've racked in $130k in net new business.  However, June is not looking so good, a lot in the pipeline but a lot of it has already moved to July!! It figures, last quarter of the month and I need to hit a number and that number isn't looking real good right now.  Last week I logged more than 150 calls, made only a few appointments, couple of opportunities, however I did develop a lot of potential ops for the August & September time line.

On another note, we'll be moving the MFP Solutions Blog to a new site.  I'll be able to condense all three sites into one site. The main objective is to save me time and to bring some of my ideas to the masses.

One more important item, each week I'll be writing a Premium Blog, thus the only way you'll be able to read this is to subscribe to a Premium Print4Pay Hotel membership.  The annual subscription will be $125 per year, however if you elect to take a Lifetime Premium Membership the cost is only $299 until July 1st, after July 1st the cost for the Lifetime Premium Membership will be $499. If you'd like please go here to access your Lifetime membership (since we made our announcement last week, we've had ten new Lifetime Members.

Each month on the Print4Pay Hotel forums we'll upload "Pricing on the Street" quotes, these quotes are certified as accurate since the pricing information is emailed to us from other Print4Pay Hotel members in the field.

We'll also receive and upload quotes and proposals from other

Photizo Transform 2013 Tuesday Roundup

Tuesday:

Long day of seminars, I took in a total of three. I was able to sit in on a seminar by Ed Crowley (CEO Photizo) for "How Connected Devices and Big Data are Changing Industries", Darrell Amy (Owner Dealer Marketing) for "Marketing Strategies for Managed Services" and Jared Hansen (CEO Breezy) for "The Importance of Mobility in the Future of Print".

Tomorrow I've been invited to a Round Table Discussion for the "Future of Imaging".

I was able to meet with a few vendors. One was Celstream which offers "printJinni" and I was intrigued by the offering of a print4pay mobile print solution that dealers could resell and it's device agnostic.

Verdiem offers a software service

Top Ten Copier and MFP Proposals for March 2013

At least for me the first Quarter of 2013 has come to a close. Business was good, over 100% for the quarter and almost logged 200% for March, however April business seems like it might be marginal at best.  You know a lot of reps will say to themselves whoa is me, it's going to stink, I have nothing in the pipeline. While others realize it's time to pick up their game so they can work towards another solid month.  Which one are you?  I hope that from reading this blog that you are one of those that makes things happen!


Each month on the Print4Pay Hotel forums we'll upload "Pricing on the Street" quotes, these quotes are certified as accurate since the pricing information is emailed to us from other Print4Pay Hotel members in the field.

We'll also receive and upload quotes and proposals from other Print4Pay Hotel members and these quotes will be "the proposal or quote" that was emailed to the end user.

Each month I'll list those proposals/quotes and "Pricing on the Street" here with the associated links.  You need to be a Premium Member in order to download the documents.  So without further ado here's the top quotes from March 2013.  Enjoy!

• MFP/MPS Assessment
• Sharp MX-B402SC
• Ricoh MP 3352 Pricing on the Street - Feedback please
• "Pricing on the Street" Ricoh W3601
• "Pricing on the Street" Ricoh W5100en
• "Pricing on the Street" Ricoh MP3352SP (4 units)
• Sharp MX-264N "Pricing on the Street"
• Xerox WC 5755PT "Pricing on the Street"
• Ricoh MPC2551 "Pricing on the Street"
• Canon C6255 "Pricing on the Street"

-=Good Selling=-

When Was the Last Time You Named your Printer or Copier?

"Can anyone come up with a fun and creative name for a Canon copier/printer? It's my job to name it since the office just got a new one the other day and I'm the new work study employee. All the other ones were named by previous work studies and were good like a leased Canon was Lisa Canon...since they leased a Canon. Thanks!"

Whoa, this was a thread I picked up the other day in my google alerts for a yahoo forum.  After 32 years in the industry, WTF,  I now find out that office workers actually give a name to the copier?

I have to admit that the old name for the Canon for Lisa Canon was pretty creative! Of course everyone could use the Lisa for Ricoh, Xerox, KonicaMinolta and the rest. So, I thought I would try my hand at thinking up some names for copiers.

Here we go ( I took these names that were popular in the Victorian Era:

Hope Xerox (hoping it works all the time)
Lottie Ricoh (we make a lot of copies)
Lulu Kyocera (our copier is a loser)
Benedict Arnold Toshiba (the copier never works right)
Dick KonicaMinolta (our copier sucks)
Nimrod Sharp (odd name for an odd copier)
Owen Savin (we owe a lot of money on this copier)
Pleasant Muratec (we like our copier)
Zebulon Xerox (it's our prized copier)
Newton Ricoh (we just got it)
August Kyocera (the month the new copier was purchased)
Merlin Toshiba (our system is amazing)
Avis KonicaMinolta (we're only leasing this system for a short time)
Beaton Sharp (we beat on this system all the time)
Charity Savin (a hand me down)
Eustace Muratec (our system is useless)
Faithful Xerox (always works well)
Hercules Ricoh (our system is a workhorse)
Marmaduke Kyocera (our system is huge)
Patience Toshiba (it'll work just give it time)
Postumus KonicaMinolta (our last copier died unexpectadly)
Temperance Sharp (sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't)
Thurstan Savin (our system is always going through toner so fast)
Wy Muratec (why did we ever get this system)

I'm done, my favorites would be Hope, Benedict Arnold, Dick, Owen, Avis, Charity and Marmaduke.  But maybe we can name copiers and printers after rock stars right, these copiers and printers keep the wheels turning at the office everyday and with out them the paper process does start.  Think about Bruce, Billy, Mick, Ringo, Frank (I'm aging myself), and another thought might be to name them after songs like Sweet Home Alabama, Stairway to Heaven, Under My Thumb, Wild Horses.  

So, the next time I sell a copier, I will ask the new owner what name they would like to use for their new copier or printer, and I'm sure I'll get one of those strange New Jersey looks and be escorted to the door. Hey!  If you've got any really cool names drop them here in the response section!!

-=Good Selling=-

Selling Copiers & MFP's "Running With the Big Dogs"

What's the Golden Rule when selling office equipment? Know your competition or least what they are quoting.

Ever notice every time you walk the dog that he or she stops at every tree or fire hydrant, ever wonder what they're doing?

They are checkin out the competition. Who's who, whose doing what and where ya been! Amazing that they can find all of that out in a few whiffs of hydrant!

Well, we as sales people need to know the competition as well, what they're up to, what's their current maintenance pricing, leasing rates (did you know you can figure out the lease rate by backing out the payment), special promo's, or just how they are positioning themselves with the customer.  I just had a quote given to me a few days ago and there was some good value statements that I'll migrate to my quotes and proposals, so by being able to read the quotes and proposals from the competition you may be able to tweak your proposal and borrow from others!

Here's some threads I've uploaded to the P4PHotel Message Boards, click the links and you'll be brought to the page.

Canon IRC 2030 Proposal
Competitive KonicaMinolta proposal vs Toshiba
Canon imageRUNNER Advance 6065 proposal
Canon imageRunner Advance C7065
Konicaminolta bizhub25 proposal
"Pricing on the Street" Ricoh MPC4502

The Print4Pay Hotel includes boards for Ricoh Family Group, Kyocera, KonicaMinolta, Sharp, Toshiba, Canon, Muratec and Xerox.

-=Good Selling=-

The Transition of the Copier Industry "Part IV"

Part IV

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 the  right for Document Management Software for every business both 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 that will give them a renewable revenue stream (the old renewable revenue stream was putting toner on paper).  I'm of the opinion 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 a 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 kinda 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 there MFPs to share point, ms 365, their CRM, their DMS or their business line of software.  I understand their are some 3rd 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.

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 StarTrek episodes, you may or may not have noticed that you never see a sheet of paper.  Who knows maybe the likes of Toshiba, Sharp, KonicaMinolta, 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 "Whats the future for copier dealers".

-=Good Selling=-

The Transition of the Copier Industry "Part III"

Part III

The digital copier industry of today is changing again and companies like Xerox, Ricoh, KonicaMinolta and Canon are making the transition to service led companies. These companies sand their dealers will be the sole provider for documents whether they are created electronically or printed, we/they want to help customers with print stream management, forms, email, archiving of documents (electronic and paper), they also want to provide consulting to help businesses increase efficiencies, provide easier work flows and reduce your costs.

I'll take an example of Ricoh because I'm more familiar with their products since I sell their products. One of their brightest products is the ewriter, it's not for playing games, surfing the web or doing your fantasy football at the office (Ricky), the ewriter is a business tablet that is designed to address technology gaps in the digital work flow by replacing paper based solutions with digital alternatives (I borrowed this from Ricoh). Basically, the Ricoh ewriter will replace paper, maybe the best example I can give is my own. When making a sale, I need to produce a sales order, a maintenance agreement, and a lease. I need to print these documents and then have the customer sign them. Bring them back to the office and then print another 10 pages of information to complete the order process.  This type process is archaic, thus if I had an ewriter all of my forms would be on the tablet, I enter the information on the tablet, capture the customers signature and then transmit the documents to the office. Then I'm done, thus if I wrote 10 orders per month I could increase my efficiency 4-5 hours every month. In ten months I could write another weeks worth of business! So why aren't dealers embracing this technology!

The Ricoh ewriter is just an example of awesome technology that is changing our industry.  Other manufacturers have also developed real-time visual communication devices for the office that share video, audio an image sharing.  Thus if you had one of these in each office your offices you would be able to communicate in real time with video, and audio.

It's not only just about the hardware also, it's about the services.  Dealers and Direct branches can now offer an array of services including Managed Network Services, Managed Print Service, Managed Print Stream (managed print stream seems to be one of  the most overlooked solutions in our industry) and Managed Document Services.  Our industry is preparing for the eventual demise of what got us to where we are today. Putting toner or ink PAPER!

The holy grail is how can we get to new renewable revenue streams with print volumes that will be on the decline ?  Of course I have some ideas, however I'll address these in Part #4

-=Good Selling=-

Transform 2012 Conference "Hotter Than Ever"

Day one had passed and then day two, and overall, I'm impressed with the event. I actually ran into a few Print4Pay Hotel members and finally after all of these years got to meet Lee Rummage from RJ Young. When I tell you the Transform Conference was HOT, well it was that and then some, just about 1PM there was a huge brush file that developed only a mile away on Route 4.  Traffic is bad enough in the Orlando area and this fire had four or five choppers in the sky and flames that were reaching 30 feet high (I'll be posting the video on the p4p forums in the next few days).

On Wednesday evening Oki hosted the evening reception @ Hiltons Signature Island. Food, drinks and networking, at this time I also had to the chance to meet Greg Walters (Death of the Copier) and now the newly elected President of the MPSA. I also ran across many new contacts and believe it or not many readers of the mfpsolutions blog.

I also had the chance to speak with Tim Brien from Oki, Lou Stricklin, Carl Mica and Jim D'emidio (President) all from Muratec. On another note representatives from Ricoh, Canon, Xerox, Oki, Lexmark and KonicaMinolta were in attendance. however there were no shows from Sharp and Toshiba....think about it.

On Thursday morning Ken Schmidt (Former Director of Harley-Davidson) presented and engaging keynote address about customers and how you need to break the mold and have them start talking about your company. Thursday evening we were rounded up and attended an event at the Orlando Harley Davidson dealership. Boy did that bring back memories of my 1980 Harley Roadster/Sportster.

There were also 16 different talk track seminars slated for Thursday and another 13 for Friday. I didn't have the chance to attend any of these because I was busy on the show floor along with a Press Luncheon/Press Tour and still had to close my month since we close on the 24th of the month.

I was also able to talk with Adobe about Leanprint (if your a Print4Pay Hotel member we have something special from Adobe in the next week or so), Preton about their SaaS toner optimazation software, Great America with Collabrance, Print Audit with their Premier program, ESP with an awesome new product that will allow you to do an enery assessment for all devices that are plugged in (even water coolers and refridgerators), Falcon Technologies with an awesome Cloud Ipad Sales Software app, BEI Service Providers, Oki and their Total Managed Print Solution and Intellenetics which has an awesome Cloud Based Document Management System that is......so unique that I'll have a blog dedicated to the solution.

Other partners in attendance American PrinterWare, BTA, ChannelEyes, CompTia, Digital Gateway, DocSolid, ENX Magazine, FMAudit, HP, In-Map, Intel, Intronics, Genius Bytes, Global Printer Services, LMI, Lexmark, Mirrored Image, MPSA, MWAi, N-Able, Newfield IT, Nuance, ODC, Parts Now, PREO, PrintFleet, PowerSource, Ricoh, Supplies Network, Synnex, The Imaging Channel, Xerox and YSoft.

I'm a copier guy, never really got into MPS (cause my dealership only dabbled in it), but like everyone else I know what MPS is about. MPS is facing the same set of issues as the MFP industry, so called declining page volumes, lower profits and how can we change in order to be prepared for the future.

I can see the convergence of elite/hybrid MFP and MPS dealers/companies that are or will make the transformation to MSP (Managed Service Provider). So while a lot of the talk track seminars were centered around MPS there were also a few that centered around MSP.

So, far I've enjoyed every minute of this show, I also wondered why there were not more MFP dealers here. We all put toner on paper right?

Forget about ITEX, forget about the Dealer shows, if you want the real spin on what's going on with the imaging industry (remember we put toner on paper) you all need to make the trip to Scottsdale, AZ next year. Whether your engaged with MPS, or MFP's we all put toner on paper. Photizo is committed to helping those that put toner on paper to become more successful, more profitable and enlightening us on the latest trends and technologies that affect our business model.

If you're considering going to a show next year I would highly recommend the Transform 2013 which will be held in Scottsdale, AZ next year.

By the numbers from Photizo:

Global Imaging Market:

$120B global hardware market revenue predicted in 2015 (forecast 360, June 2011)
1% rate of global hardware market revenue decline between 2010 and 2015 (forecast 360, June 2011)
$118B size of global supplies market in 2015 (forecast 360, December 2012)
2% growth rate of global supplies market between 2010 and 2015 (forecast 360, December 2012)
$78B global MPS market revenue in 2015 (2011 MPS Market Size, Share and Forecast Report)
20% rate of global MPS Market revenue growth between 2010 and 2015 (2011 MPS Market Size, Share and Forecast Report)
9 out of 10 most rapid MPS expansions are taking place in less developed regions like Asia Pacific, and Latin America.

More MPS:
$725 average cost per year, per employee to print (pre-MPS)
30% average percent of savings after implementing an MPS program
60% average reduction of hardcopy fleet carbon emissions after implementing MPS
50% percentage of office printing revenue expected to be under MPS contract by 2014
3rd rank of MPS engagements in relation to other IT projects
12% amount of IT budget represented by printing

Stay tuned for my top 7 solutions I liked from the Transform 2012 show.

-=Good Selling=-

Xerox ColorQube "Rebuttal"

Can you believe the Xerox ColorQube has been around for almost three years!!!

About three years ago I posted four or five blog about the ColorQube.  For one of the blogs I downloaded the operators manual and with help and notes from other Print4Pay Hotel members I posted Xerox ColorQube "Reveal".   Just the other day I had a response from ANON, I'm not fun of ANONS since they tend to come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and in some cases I believe they were using mind altering drugs when they posted a reply. REALLY, if you're gonna post something log in and don't hide behind ANON! 

Below I posted the comments that ANON left and then I submitted my rebuttal, ENJOY!

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post Xerox ColorQube "Reveal"":

ANON: Fuzzy photos, and difficulty with fine lines and small text – Test your own company samples at your local Xerox demo facility to validate. Our install base since May of 2009 has the Colour Qube in many engineering firms that demand excellence in image quality. Most of their colour drawings have many fine lines and small text and they trust the Color Qube engine for them. If any image quality issues come up you can always place a service call.

Me: This true for any multifunctional system that if you’re having problems with reproducing images to call service. The issues seems to be with very small fonts, check that the holes in the e & a are not filled in or have blasting around them.

ANON: Does NOT support coated stocks of any kind (issue with wax adhering to surface) – The Color Qube can support stocks up to 220 gsm or 80lb cover, which is a media thickness most laser machines are rated up to. Coated stocks are usually only used in print shops for business cards or specialty jobs. Typically customers with laser machines will buy heavy coated stocks to create better colour quality documents. The Color Qube delivers the same high quality image quality on any thickness of stock so using coated stocks to achieve colour quality becomes irrelevant.

Me: It seems you may not know what coated stock is! 80lb cover is NOT coated stock! Coated stocks are used in many corporations, associations and organizations that have graphic arts department not necessarily for business cards. I agree that customers will buy heavy coated stocks for better color quality, the point of the matter is you are stating thickness of stock and have never addressed that the ColorQube will print on coated stock. Address the issue man, don’t dance around the edges!

ANON: Sometimes banding appears in prints, meaning lines of light color or no color, and end user may choose the “Full Banding Fix” on the control panel, which will take 8 minutes to kick out test pages, and waste wax until complete – All machines including laser and solid ink may eventually have some sort of colour issue and instead of placing a service call right away whenever there is a problem and waiting two hours to be fixed, the Color Qube gives users the power to get up and running in 8 minutes – “Full Banding Fix”, 6 minutes – “Ink Smears” or 90 seconds “Light Lines”. No worry of wasting wax because you have an unlimited supply of it included in your service contract. Your trainer will show you these common quick fixes for most issues that come up. You always can just place a service call if any image quality issue comes up.

MFP Wars & The Plain Paper Copier Industry

Most evenings I'll do a little bit of cruising around the web searching for copier information.  I ran across a white paper written by William R. Bolton in 1995 titled "The Plain Paper Copier Industry". 

Basically the paper was an outline of the plain paper copier industry up until 1994 or 95.  I used this paper to research a blog "Top 19 Old Copier Manufacturers That Faded Away".

Just the other day  I had an Anon (Anonymous) response to the blog I wrote for the "final five", it seems I ticked someone off because I projected that Sharp would not be one of the final five left in the industry.  ANON pointed out that although the blog was a nice read, they thought that my projection of Sharp was not correct because Sharp had just started operations of a 2nd manufacturing plant in China that was capable of producing 250,000 MFP's per year.  I responded with the fact that I saw the press release that Sharp is gearing up for the anticipated of more demand, but I think it's more for the Chinese Market Place. Here's the press release.  I'm also taking a guess that since the Great Flood in Thailand and the fact that one of Sharps copier manufacturing plants is located in the area of the Great Flood.  The Sharp factory was not damaged however Sharp had problems with securing parts from other suppliers that were affected.
Which brings me to back to a certain paragraph in the white paper.  History repeats its self right.  The white paper predicted that only 7 to 8 copier manufacturers would be left in the global market place by 1997.  Let's see if we can get this right: 
Xerox, Ricoh, Sharp, Canon, Toshiba, Oce, Mita, Konica, Panasonic and Minolta.  This would be 11 copier manufacturers that were players in 1994.  I did not include Kodak due to the fact that their plain paper copier line was OEM'd by Canon.  I can't remember when but Konica & Minolta merged thus leaving 8 manufacturers somewhere in 2002. 

Nobody Ever Got Fired for Buying a Xerox

Harry Hecht is our Guest Blogger for April, and according to Harry he's been in the office equipment business since Chester Carlson invented Xerography, and a little known secret is that Harry was actually Chester's assistant! Really???  Harry's been around for as long as I remember, and he always brings inspiration, vision and a can do attitude!

I asked for a couple of sentences in reference old copier companies for a blog I'll be posting in a couple of days, true to form, Harry gave me just a tad bit more, so without further adieu, enjoys Harry's ditty about the good ole days in the copier business!

Do you remember the days when a complete copier line included one or maybe two models? Selling at full retail was not only a possibility but a regular occurrence? When Xerox owned 90% of the market and the saying that "nobody ever got fired for buying a Xerox" was an unfortunate reality for the independent dealer? I may be dating myself, but I remember those days well and had to still have a lot of respect for the competition, camaraderie and "wild west' aggressiveness of many of the entrepreneurial manufacturers that competed against each other during the 70s and 80s.

Here are some copier manufacturer names that may serve as a blast from the past for many of you. Names like IBM, Kodak, 3M, Saxon, Royal, Apeco, Savin, Van Dyke, Escofot, Olivetti, and Mita just to name a few. These companies hit the streets with Direct and Dealer Sales forces with the hope and confidence of stealing business away from THE BIG X. The products sold during that time were crude, barely passed a copy, and in some even came with tongs and fire extinguishers -just in case there was a jam and a fire broke out. Oh those were the days. No need to worry about supply pirates and 2 hour response time. Profit margins were Huge and and the Yen was valued over 500 Y to the dollar. Getting in front of customers and demonstrating your product using the sales order ( already filled out ) was sales training of the day. Your manager would say" don't leave the office without an order"!.Talking about pressure. If a customer accepted your demonstration, your competitor would be in the lobby waiting their turn to try and hammer out a deal on the spot and or leave the machine in the customers office until they fell in love with it or just used it and stroked you along- yikes!

Well, time to wake up to a new  and renewed set of technology companies now entering the copier and printer space. Samsung, Dell, Lexmark, Brother, Epson plus all of the Big Players- Konica Minolta, Canon, Xerox, Ricoh, Sharp, Kyocera. Where does it end?. We now deal with information overload, the world wide web, 1,000s of SKU product numbers, accessories, tight margins and 40% discounts. What the heck happened? Opportunity is still there for all of us, however success and prosperity is a game of inches verses miles. Without knowledge and a well thought out plan and execution, who knows who the next fallen Angels list will look like.

Need to contact Harry?  Here's his LINKEDIN page.

-=Good Selling=-

Copier & MFP Industry in Turmoil... the Final Five!

A few years ago I posted a blog that outlined the "MPF Wars the Final Five" copier/mfp providers. 

Since that post  on September 28th Xerox purchased Affiliated Computer Systems for $5.5 billion, which propelled Xerox in to the business solutions and information technology business.  Soon after on November 16th of 2009 Canon announced plans to purchase OCE.

In some recent less noticed news Canon Canada closed an office and handed over the  accounts to a local dealer in Nova Scotia, Ricoh Canada closed their Saskatchewan office and cut a deal with WBM Office Systems to take over accounts and took on many of the technical and sales staff and expertise previously employed by Ricoh Canada. RJ Young (USA) cut a deal with Ricoh for more than 6,000 MIF for the  Columbus, Tupelo, & Biloxi, MS and Huntsville AL locations of Ricoh/Ikon. 6000+ MIF.

In the last month Canon finally sealed the deal with OCE to finish acquiring the outstanding shares of OCE (a group of shareholders held out for additional cash), and back on  May 11th of 2011 Canon announced the creation of Canon Information And Imaging Solutions, Inc.. 

Ricoh Corporation announced that they are re-branding and uniting Ricoh and Ikon Office Solutions in the US under one brand.  Ricoh is moving towards being known as a business solutions provider.  KonicaMinolta acquired All Covered back in January of 2011 and has been on a buying spree for acquiring addition IT companies to put under the All Covered umbrella. Just last week Kyocera Mita America (didn't even know they were still using the Mita name anymore) announced that they are changing their name to Kyocera Document Solutions America, thus Kyocera Document Solutions America is re-branding also wants to be know as a business solutions provider also.

The last four years have been chaotic for the office equipment business, the downturn in the global economy, the floods of Thailand, the Great Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami and the continued rise of the Japanese yen has caused billions of dollars in loses for most of the Japanese Imaging manufacturers.

So, what's my take on all of this.....we're in for the ride of our lives! Many industry pundits are declaring the end of the paper is upon us, and these were the same pundits that declared many years ago that fax was dead and then copiers/mfp's were dead and behold the coming of Managed Print (the supposed holy grail of profit).  But the entire industry is making the change from being imaging manufacturing providers to business solution providers. 

"Those who manage the network will control the imaging devices" is another term I've heard lately.  Dealers will need to evolve also, whether it's Managed Services, Business Solutions and or IT Services, or a combination of all three (and all three can be incorporated under IT services).  It's much easier to change the copier company than the IT provider. 

Not in any order, my picks for who will stay and who will leave the copier imaging industry:

Copier & MPS Industry Fighting Over the "Last Sheet of Paper"?

The Copier industry continues to evolve, and it seems all of the major manufacturers or at least most of them are making the necessary changes to become more than a "copier manufacturer".  If you're an avid reader of the industry blogs, and articles many pundits are predicting the doom and gloom of ink and paper.  I'm told and I've read that the next generation of office workers won't require paper, copiers, printers, fax machines or scanners. The next generation of office workers will be paperless.....due to Andriod Smart Phones and the proliferation of Apple IPADs and related tablet devices.  There's a great article here from my pals at gap intelligence.

But just recently there seems to be a war of the words, a recent article by Lou Slawetsky, CEO, Industry Analysts, Inc stated this "What happened? Managed print (or, MPS, or MDS, or OPS, or etc.) was to have been the strategy off the millennium. A market with a triple digit growth rate. The ability to lock in your account for three to five years. Gross margins of more than 50%. A natural conduit for the placement of MFPs supplied by your primary vendor. A continuous revenue stream. A stepping stone leading from managed print (or managed printers) to managed IT services. Easy sales, huge upside. Sales reps love the comp plan. MPS is a great plan that benefits both the dealer and the imaging system vendor."  you can read the rest of Lou words of wisdom here.

Personally, we had a poll running on the Print4Pay Hotel forums for about a year.  The Poll asked dealers if  "You're now selling Managed Print Services "Your Thoughts Now".   Almost 70% responded that they were not happy with the profits and or if they had to do it over again, they would not.  I just thought I'd get this out there while we transition to what I read today.

Today, saw a blog post from Ken Stewart titled The Six Promises of MPS on MPS Insights.  Ken states "While I can attest to the fact that the thorns of learning a new business model can be quite painful, all indicators point to one simple truth: MPS is a business model proven to be successful by many providers".  But even more interesting is the statement that "MPS can be used at the core stepping stone to IT related services".  I agree, the company I work although we are not really and MPS provider however we a re making the transition to IT Managed Services.

Here's what I see...paper will not just go away, I do believe that the general office use of bond paper will decline, but I also believe that niche Color Printers/MFP's and Imaging Presses will become more prevalent in the future.  These niche systems will allow for these Color Printers/MFP's to print on a wider variety of media, thus allowing more companies than ever  to be more creative with  printing smaller runs of customized marketing materials. I also believe that there are still many pages/clicks to be captured by Color Printers/MFP's. Take a trip to Relyco's web site and there's a treasure trove of medias that will work with Color Printers/MFp's.

Does it seems like we're all fighting for the last few  sheets of paper? Will paper go away, yup. Are the predictions of doom and gloom for paper premature, yup. 

-=Good Selling=-

KYOTIER Hybrid Color 3-tier Cost Per Page Pricing tool

In recent weeks I've had a couple of blogs referencing a Kycoera Dealer in California that was or is going to start advertising for full service and supplies for color pages @ .02 cents per page.  The kicker of course, is the coverage. How much color coverage will "you"" the dealer allow on the page to charge .02 cents.

A few days ago I had an email from a Print4Pay Hotel member that asked me to forward him any information that I had about the color coverage amounts.  After a few emails I found out that the Print4Pay Hotel member also sold Kyocera, and that they had been doing some research on other Kyocera Dealers that are advertising the customizable tiered pricing for color.  I was sent a dealers advertising document (clicking the link will take you the file on the Print4Pay Hotel forums), KYOTIER, now I'm not sure if this is the name the dealer gave the pricing plan or if it's Kyoceras but I'm thinking it's the dealers. 

This dealers flyer (dealers advertising document) is stating three tiers of color.  The first tier useful color, which states "all black and pages with useful color".  Off to the right is a sample of useful color stated 5% coverage. Basically it's two color images maybe a little bit bigger than a quarter and the cost per page for useful  color is .01 or same cost as black based on a monthly volume of 12,500 pages of black and useful color.

The second tier is everyday color, which states "pages with a little more color". Off to the right is a sample of everyday color stated at 15% coverage. So, color coverage from 5.1% to 15% will cost .025 per page.  The sample coverage shows a color photo that I estimate takes up 20% of the page and then two more color logos that look like they are about a half dollar in size, along with some black large header fonts and some very small black fonts. more on the next page

Daily Managed Print Service Industry Notes from Around the World! 3/28/2012

Chris has the experience and expertise to help guide UniPrint's expansion into the printing virtualization and managed print services market as a major enterprise player." "As enterprises look for new ways to reduce costs, they are realizing they can ... See all stories on this topic »

National Service & Support: Samsung PrintIQ™ provides full technical support for all of its customers through a national network of service partners. Mr. Joe Barganier, the president of the Managed Print Services Association (MPSA), said about this ... See all stories on this topic »

In the first, the Government Procurement Service has selected the UK arm of Xerox as sole supplier for an estimated £150m multifunctional devices contract and as a preferred supplier of managed print services in a new framework agreement, ... See all stories on this topic »

Leasing opportunities can be managed on the GreatAmerica industry-leading web portal, Info-Zone.” MSPmentor first heard about GreatAmerica through its work in the managed print services market, helping channel partners and customers to finance printer ... See all stories on this topic »

-=Good Selling=-

Daily Managed Print Service Industry Notes from Around the World! 3/27/2012

ROCHESTER, NY, Mar 27, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- For the third consecutive year, Xerox (NYSE:XRX) earned the top position in managed print services (MPS), according to analyst research group Quocirca's 2012 report. Xerox maintained its leadership, ...
See all stories on this topic »

By Robert Dutt Major managed print services provider alliances in Canada and the United States are coming together to increase their ability to do cross-border business. Canada-based National Print Services Alliance (NPSA) has announced that it will be ...
See all stories on this topic »

Opt2Vote supplies electronic vote counting solutions to the 32 Scottish local authorities as well as managed print services to UK councils. It is based in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. IDOX will pay an initial consideration of £2.7m, with a further ...
See all stories on this topic »

As a hosted service, Intellivue(TM) can also complement our Managed Print Service offering by using Multi-Function Device printers for scanning. The shared device approach combined with the efficiency gains inherent in routing documents electronically ...
See all stories on this topic »

Manchester, UK - 27 March 2012 - M2, the UK's leading independent managed print IT services company, today announced that it has been appointed to the Government Procurement Service, YPO and ESPO agreement for print audit ...
See all stories on this topic »

The move was prompted by Danwood's acquisition last May of Document Express, a £10m-turnover managed print services provider based in Oldham. Document Express, which installs and maintains printers, copiers and other equipment, was founded in 1994.
See all stories on this topic »

-=Good Selling=-

The Birth of Managed Print Services "According to Art"

So, I'm just about to pack it in for the weekend after having to doggie sit for my sons dog while he's off at drill for the weekend.  "Nutbuster", that's my name for my sons dog cause she's just big enough to jump on you and well, the name states the rest. 

Anyway I came across this article The Origin of Managed Print Services: Xerox or HP? by Jennifer Shutwell.

Anything with Managed Print, Xerox or HP in the title will tempt me enough to give it a read.  Jen puts some excellent points across about the economics of Managed Print.  The article is an excellent read and two statements stood out for me "With the continuous incline and growth of printing volume between 1991 until 2007" and "The origin of MPS was from neither Xerox nor HP, but created from people seeing a need for management".

I wanted to elaborate on Managed Print and where I think the origin was.  Now, I'm not saying that this was a Jersey idea, however back in the mid eighties there was a Canon dealer that went by the name of Duplifax.  I hated when I crossed paths with them because they had a unique offering for their maintenance agreements for copiers.  Once sold, the copier was put on a "managed care" plan.  That plan worked off the yield of the toner cartridge.  What Duplifax did was to package four or five toners together and build in the cost for service.  For example, four toners had a yield of 40K copies.  So instead of selling the toner for $80, they would sell the "managed care" pack for $800 and include service, parts and supplies for as long as the toner lasted. If you got the yield of 80,000 pages then it was a good thing for you and if you fell short on the yield it was then a better deal for Duplifax.

To me, a seasoned copier professional the term of managed prints means to manage output from systems that print.  Analog copiers print, but they were printing an analog image from a photoconductor, fax machines made prints, and of course laser printers made prints also.  Somewhere in the mid 90's we saw our first digital copy machines that were able to print, copy and fax (scanning came later).  For those of us in the copier industry that knew what the cost per page was for fax machines, and laser printers (some of the first laser printers that remember came from a Canon print engine, I remember the engines well because the low end canon analog copiers used the same type of toner cartridge, those of us in the industry knew that these cartridges had a high cost per page when compared to traditional analog copiers) we were presented with a treasure trove of accounts that we could migrate to one system while lowering the customers cost for "printing".

In effect in the late 90's copier dealerships were already starting to migrate prints away from printers and managing the cost with maintenance agreements that covered everything but staples and paper!

So there we have it Jersey invented the "Managed Care" approach for copiers in the mid 80's and Jersey again led the industry by offering a "Managed Print Service" with their All inclusive Maintenance Agreements for Digital Copiers in the late 90's!

Did we make you laugh, groan or smile yet?  It's my perception that Managed Print evolved from the elite core of Copier Dealers from the 90's, even though most were not servicing or supplying laser printers then, the idea and concept transplanted to the printer industry.

-=Good Selling=-

Daily Managed Print Service Industry Notes from Around the World! 3/21/2012

Xerox's efforts in managed print services are paying off, as its maintaining a strong leadership position in the emerging segment according to a new IDC report. The IDC Worldwide and US Managed Print Services and Basic Print Services (BPS) 2012-2015 ...See all stories on this topic »

The catch here -- and whether or not it is a big one remains to be seen -- is that the core message of IPG's broader integration into other aspects of HP's business is now managed print services. For instance, at GPC Scott Dunsire, Vice President, ...
See all stories on this topic »

With newly added intellectual properties, Lexmark is optimistic about taking a larger share of the Managed Printing Services (MPS) arena of the printing industry. As a new development in the printing business, MPS is attracting major industry players.
See all stories on this topic »

Additional features include managed print services, cloud monitoring and power management. “Managed Workplace 2012 further extends Level Platforms partners' lead in delivering innovative IT services to meet the rapidly evolving needs of their customers ...
See all stories on this topic »

-=Good Selling=-

Daily Managed Print Service Industry Notes from Around the World! 2/15/2012

Lexmark is ditching its three year old ValuePrint channel programme and replacing it with a solutions-focused set-up dubbed Business Solutions Dealer, which it claims will be have a tighter fit with its "high-value approach".The new programme has been designed to include fully managed print services and work-flow enhancing solutions, and will also offer new software and dedicated support designed to help partners take a more solutions-focused approach, Lexmark said.....read more here


TAMPA, Fla., Feb 15, 2012  -- Global Imaging Systems (GIS), A Xerox Company, has acquired Iowa-based company, RK Dixon, a leading provider of IT services, copiers, printers and managed print services with locations in seven Iowa and Illinois cities. The acquisition furthers GIS' coverage of central Illinois and eastern....read more here

Not all that long ago, computer printers were like old style telex machines as seen in the recent movie ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy’. These rather noisy ‘line printers’ cost several thousand euros each while the ink cartridges they used cost just a few euro. Today, the opposite is the case, with high quality, affordable printers available from as little as €49 while a full set of ink cartridges cost more than the printer itself! What does this mean for the consumer? Read more here

MENLO PARK, Calif. — February 14, 2012 — Ricoh Innovations, Inc. (“RII”), a Silicon Valley-based subsidiary of Ricoh Company, Ltd., which develops innovative technologies and new business opportunities for Ricoh, announced today the formation of Ricoh Innovations Private Limited (“RIPL”) in India. RIPL, which will have its headquarters and first R&D facility in Bangalore, extends the operation of RII to address the rapidly growing India market...read more here

-=Good Selling=-

Weekend Copier & MFP Updates for 2/12/2012

Seems Kycoera now has a cost per page billing model based on coverage, similar to Xerox's Cube. Plus, could there really be a move by Direct to start selling off Direct Banches that are Losers? You can read more on this in the forums and the blog.

Look, I've added BLI reports for FREE, get the full report, these are limited to what I found and they are in the Competition Lounge & Street Pricing II forums.

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