PRINT.IT
17
This year’s model
PrintIT:
How is the printer
industry at the start of 2014?
Is it in a better place now
that the global economy is
recovering?
Ed Crowley:
Yes and no. In
many ways the industry is going
through what is called a secular
decline. It’s a mature industry:
people are buying printers as
replacement devices, not as
brand new installs. They are
also increasingly looking at
using MPS (managed print
services) outsourcing to manage
devices more effectively and
to give better deployment
ratios along the lines of 6-8
employees per device rather
than two employees per device
in unmanaged environments.
So there’s a lot of pressure to
consolidate and right-size the
fleet. Then there’s the pressure
on printing in general, from
iPads, cloud-based computing
and the arrival of Generation
Y in the workplace. All these
factors are causing a decline in
printed pages. We have seen
some rebound as the economy
improves globally, but not enough
to offset the overall trend of
people printing less. That’s why
firms like Xerox, Lexmark or Ricoh
are very focused on shifting to
services, software and other
value added areas, as opposed
to just print or copy.
PrintIT:
As Western European
and US economies recover,
will people become more
relaxed about printing or will
there be continued pressure to
reduce print volumes and cut
costs?
Crowley:
We think there will
be continued pressure. With
the recession, all of a sudden
people realised how much they
were spending on printing. It
moved from being something
under the radar that people
didn’t think about to people
saying ‘I know I’m spending
too much on printing. I don’t
know how much, but I know
it’s too much’. We do a lot of
work with CIOs and we have
seen that change in all sizes of
organisation. They are definitely
focused on cost.
PrintIT:
Will MPS continue
to be the best way to
achieve cost reduction
goals or could businesses
exploit the capabilities of
today’s hardware and device
management software and do
it themselves?
Crowley:
That’s a really
interesting question. I think we
are going to see an evolution, in
part. There will continue to be a
lot of firms that outsource their
printing and imaging through the
MPS route because quite simply
they don’t want to be experts at
managing fleets – that’s just not
something they want to invest
technology, time or resources in.
However, I think we will also see
growth in the number of firms
that say ‘You know what, I can
manage this myself, perhaps
even more cost-effectively’.
So while outsourced MPS will
continue to be the dominant
model, there will be growth in
what I call self-managed MPS.
PrintIT:
What is the current
MPS adoption rate in the UK/
Western Europe and how do
you expect it to change in the
next few years? Where will
the growth be?
Crowley:
We still see an
adoption rate of below 30%
across Europe as a whole,
with more mature levels of
adoption in the UK, Netherlands,
Germany and perhaps France.
Our projection is that there will
be a compound annual growth
rate of greater than 10% across
Europe and the UK. Growth will
be driven by two things: more
small and medium businesses
will adopt MPS, whereas in the
past it’s been very strong in
the enterprise space; and you
are going to see a lot of MPS
Managed Print Services
Ahead of the
Transform Global MPS
conference taking
place in Louisville,
Kentucky on June 2-4,
PrintIT
asks Photizo
Group CEO
Ed Crowley about
trends in managed
print services
growth in the channel, rather
than direct from manufacturers.
There will be some growth in
enterprise accounts, but it will
be less about new accounts
and more about account
penetration, winning the entire
account – not just the country or
the headquarters, but the entire
account.
PrintIT:
Do the MPS needs
of SMBs differ from those
of enterprises or is it just a
question of scale?
Crowley:
No, they are different.
Some things are similar:
both have a need for remote
management and remote
supplies fulfilment, for efficient
delivery. Where it differs is
that in SMEs the focus shifts
from pure cost-savings to cost
avoidance. In other words, ‘If I
can avoid hiring an IT person to
manage these devices, if I can
offload some of the time being
spent managing devices and
doing internal customer support
from my IT team to a managed
print service provider, then I can
shift IT resources to things that
are more mission critical’. That’s
huge in SMEs: it’s much more
about ‘Make it easy for me’ than
about making huge savings.
PrintIT:
Naming your
conference Transform is a
clear statement of what you
believe the channel must do
to survive. Do end users also
need to transform to get the
most from MPS and, if so, in
what ways?
Crowley:
They do. We work with
a lot of end user organisations
and often, particularly in large
enterprises, they start off with
the view that they have to put
this out to RFP at the lowest
cost. Then, when they start to
look at it, they ask ‘What am
I actually trying to accomplish
here? Is it about cost? Is it
about making myself more
efficient? Is it about providing
better capabilities to my end
customers?’ And as they
start sorting through those
requirements, the focus shifts.
Visit Kentucky, the Land of
Unbridled Spirit, and find out
more about MPS at Photizo
Group’s Transform Global MPS
conference.
Photo credit:
Continued
...
Photizo Group CEO Ed Crowley
