01732 759725 36 IT SERVICES scheme for business developers who can sell and position what we call the wheel of services,” Blumenthal explained. “I think we’re unique in the UK in our ability to sell almost everything a prospect or an existing client needs for the workplace and the future workplace – traditional print, managed print, IT services, platform, telephony, business applications, document management, GDPR, signage – everything.” He continued: “Security obviously is an important part of those services as well, and on the print side Sharp has some fairly unique print security offerings that combine nicely with our security offering. The wheel of services is quite a compelling proposition.” Within Sharp itself, transformation also needs to happen. “There are two things there: a) the marketing angle, changing the perception of the business; and b) transforming the account managers who have the relationships with the SMEs from being able to sell a product to being able to sell, or position, a service. That’s a big transformation. And we’ve got to do that throughout Europe,” Blumenthal said. “There’s a very big divide between selling, knowing about and being experts in print and suddenly being able to talk about IT and services, rather than a product with an 18 pages per minute print speed and 2p per copy, for example.” Developing relationships In terms of selling and delivering IT services, account managers will have to develop relationships with different people within their customers’ businesses. “That’s also very important for protecting print revenue, because we’re finding that the people who own the print relationship now are increasingly IT people and not office managers or facilities managers,” Blumenthal explained, adding: “On the relationship side, I think an SME business wants to see their IT company more and have a closer, much deeper relationship than they do with their print provider. “It’s often the tech department, the IT department that’s responsible for printing. So, by owning the IT relationship, because that’s ultimately what we at Sharp want to do, we will protect our print revenues as well.” One-stop-shop Within IT services, clients have a whole mix of needs and requirements. For someone who likes simplicity, the wheel of services concept is appealing, but there are some clients, resistant to the notion of a one-stop-shop. “What we’re hearing is that companies want efficiency and having to manage fewer relationships helps in that regard. What we want to do as an IT partner is to help them make the right decisions when it comes to IT,” Blumenthal said. “We are cross-selling print services and visual solutions to our existing IT support clients, though the cross-sell the other way is the real focus. It is all about winning the hearts and minds of the MFP account managers to get them to open up their clients to the IT service side of the business. One thing we have noticed is that a large proportion of clients have bought our telephony service. One of the reasons why we’ve been more successful there, I think, is that it’s more of a product than a service. We’ve found that account managers are more comfortable talking about a cloud telephone system than an esoteric IT service.” He continued:” I think the other thing is to make it clear that IT services is not an initiative that’s going to go away. IT services is here to stay and Sharp, being a technology business, not just a print business, is here to stay,” he concluded. www.sharp.co.uk technical people who are both people- and service focused. Recruitment is still a big challenge and it’s a very competitive market. We have seen dramatic salary increases coming out of the pandemic, which has been painful,” Blumenthal said. He continued: “As an MSP, we should be able to create a more exciting employee value proposition and career for an IT professional than an internal position in a non-IT company. We are better placed to attract people, in terms of training, access to expertise, colleagues etc. And being part of a bigger company has benefits. We’ve seen some good career opportunities for our team outside Sharp IT Services, within the wider Sharp organisation in the UK and sometimes in Europe as well.” The cross-selling opportunity In terms of cross-selling IT services into Sharp’s SME clients, Blumenthal says this currently represents around 10 per cent of revenues. “Don’t forget we had the pandemic bang in the middle of those three and a half years. But it shows the potential,” he said, adding: “I make a bold statement that if we get the cross-sell right we will be the largest provider of IT services to SMEs in the UK and across Europe, if we manage to replicate the model successfully there.” That opportunity is something that Sharp in the UK is now investing in. “For example, we’re creating a new graduate continued... I think we’re unique in the UK in our ability to sell almost everything a prospect or an existing client needs for the workplace and the future workplace
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