PRINT.IT
33
INTERVIEW
have standard device consolidation,
fleet optimisation and some
reporting. In our view, this is a kind
of click contract. The MPS we provide
are levels 3 and 4, where you identify
opportunities to improve customers’
business processes. That’s where
our whole software strategy fits in
perfectly; it enables us to deliver a
much stronger value proposition to
customers.
This is not something we have
been doing only in the last four or
five years. We’ve been talking about
streamlining loan applications with
big banks for 10 years or even longer.
The customer environment is
changing so fast it’s unbelievable.
Take retail; it’s a completely different
landscape today to what it was
three or four years ago. You need to
make sure that as an organisation
you are ready to help customers go
to the future. What are driving a lot
of these things today are obviously
cost savings, but also making sure
we print less, making sure we look
at the environment, making sure we
streamline business processes etc..
One of the companies we have
acquired is AccessVia, which
specialises in retail digital signage.
Using its technology, we recently
introduced the mySignShop app for
creating printed signage on demand.
This is a product we have built
specifically for channel partners so
they can expand their portfolio and
enhance their MPS contracts.
A big part of our focus around
the world is on enterprise business
and the companies we buy develop
enterprise products. One of the
strengths we have is that some
of these products, perhaps not in
the same shape or form, can be
leveraged within the channel.
Obviously, you have to make
a product that is easier to sell.
For instance, if you sell a capture
product into a large bank, you are
talking about a potential order of
several million pounds. If you go to
the channel and say ‘I have a great
product for your SMB customers and
it costs a couple of million pounds’,
it’s not going to fly. But if you take
some key elements of that product,
box it up, make it simpler and offer
it to the channel for a couple of
hundred quid, then that’s a different
story. That’s very powerful.
We presented mySignShop to
the channel, and also Automate
Accuread, a capture tool that I am
very excited about. We demonstrated
them to our partners and they
were very, very excited. If you make
something easier to sell and you
box it, it becomes something sales
people love because it helps their
customers and at the end of the day
they can enhance their profit margin.
PrintIT:
Are you surprised at how
resilient print volumes have been?
People still print a lot of paper.
Danny Molhoek:
Yes and no. I was
recently at an event where IDC said
that everyone has been expecting
the number of pages to decline much
faster than we are seeing and that
it almost looks as though things are
stabilising. In a way, I am surprised
– I would have expected volumes to
go down faster. On the other hand,
I see so many business processes
involving so much paper that require
major changes, and in some cases
legislation, to improve that I am not
surprised things are moving slowly.
Even so, page volumes are dropping
and will go on dropping. I think we
can all agree on that. Just not as fast
as everyone expected.
PrintIT:
What are some of the
pain points customers speak
to you about? What are the
problems they experience in their
processes?
Danny Molhoek:
There’s a wide
variety. We are organised in verticals
and each vertical has unique
challenges, but some of the things
that are more or less the same in
every vertical relate to back office
processes and sometimes HR
processes like on-boarding. A generic
example from the back office is that
people want to organise the whole
capture bit for invoices etc. This has
to be quicker and better.
Then, in the specific verticals it
differs. During the life of a contract,
we hold quarterly business reviews
with customers where we learn more
and more about their business and
what they are doing specifically.
We use those meetings to suggest
changes within their organisation.
Sometimes we hit the nail on the
head and they say ‘This is a really big
issue, here’s the budget’. Sometimes
they say ‘OK, we understand but it’s
not a priority for us now’.
Vertical by vertical you see
different situations. One of the things
that’s quite hot in the retail space is
HR on-boarding. If you take a look
at the legal sector, it remains very,
very paper-intensive. And we are
doing some very interesting banking
projects at the moment that have a
lot to do with capture and search.
And there are still processes like loan
applications that could be improved.
There is a lot of work still out there.
PrintIT:
What attracted Lexmark
to Kofax (a capture and process
management specialist, currently
the target of a bid from Lexmark)?
Danny Molhoek:
If you take a look
at how we are trying to position
ourselves and take a look at the
leaders in the market, you will hear
names like Brainware, Readsoft and
Kofax. They all fit nicely in the whole
transformation story we want to put
out there. The products, the R&D and
the technology that they have all tie
in together. Every single brand has
some very unique features at various
stages of these business processes.
What we try to do is tie them all
together. To that extent Kofax will be
a brilliant addition to the Lexmark
family.
The customer environment is changing so fast it’s
unbelievable. Take retail; it’s a completely different
landscape today to what it was three or four years ago.
The new Lexmark
identity: shades
of green and a
quirky rotated x
