Printers
businessinfomag.uk
magazine
24
Why traditional managed print services are no longer enough for print vendors
Beyond MPS
Coinciding withWorld Paper-Free Day
on November 6, AIIM, the association for
information management professionals,
released a new market study that will
have made uncomfortable reading for
printer companies.
While
Paper-Free Progress: measuring
outcomes
shows that people still
love to work with paper, sometimes
printing just for the sake of it, it also
clearly demonstrates that the pace of
digitisation is picking up. More than
half (57%) of respondents say they are
committed to digital transformation and
the differential between the proportion
of organisations with falling (49%) and
rising (20%) paper volumes has extended
to 29%, up from 23% in 2014 and 3%
in 2011.
The effects of digitisation are clearly
shown in the poor results recently posted
by HP, Xerox and Lexmark.
In Q4, HP experienced a 14% year-
on-year decline in total printing revenue,
with hardware unit sales down 17%
(including a 23% decline in commercial
hardware units) and supplies revenue
down 10%.
Xerox results for Q3 were also bad.
Revenues for its Document Technology
business, which now accounts for just
over 40% of total revenue, compared to
almost 60% for services, were down 12%
or 9% on constant currency.
Lexmark fared no better, with Imaging
Solutions and Services revenue down
16% or 11% at constant currency in Q3.
This included an 18%/14% decline in
non-MPS revenue.
Diversification
Clearly, people are printing less and
reducing the size of their printer fleets
accordingly. In this context it becomes
important not only to capture more
of a customer’s print spend through
managed print services, but also to
diversify into other areas.
Lexmark has done this through
its acquisition of enterprise software
companies – in Q3, its enterprise
software revenue was up 92% or 102%
at constant currency. Other companies
are seeking to offset declines in print
by expanding the range of products and
services they offer under a managed
print service.
Sharp calls this ‘Beyond MPS’. It has
just launched its Optimised Managed
Services (OMS), which extend the
scope of MPS to include other Sharp
products and solutions all linked
together under the umbrella
of a single managed service.
Sharp is focusing on print, cloud
storage, display screens and worklow
software, but an OMS could also
include electronic point of sale (ePOS)
equipment, LED lighting and potentially
even solar energy systems.
In this way, Sharp is moving
beyond a focus purely on the
printed page to look at how
information in all its forms is
managed and processed by
a business, from the point at
which it is received/captured to how it is
shared and disseminated, whether that’s
via the printed page, on a digital display
or through email/postal distribution.
Talking to
Business Info
sister
publication
PrintIT
, Alex Cardnell,
Director, Corporate Division, Sharp
Business Systems UK, said: “With OMS,
we are looking at the big picture, at high
level information. Let’s forget copiers,
let’s forget paper documents, let’s forget
all the little bits and instead put together
a suite of products, software and services
that can support all aspects of a
customer’s information life-cycle.”
He argues that the breadth of Sharp’s
product range means it is better placed
to deliver this type of service than
competitors.
“What Sharp has that no one else
does is proprietary hardware and
software that go beyond the print
document to look at information more
generally.We have our own cloud –
Cloud Portal Office; we have our own
visual suites, from the Big Pad interactive
screen right up to videowalls; and we
have our own software like Follow Me
Print, Mobile Print, Document Archiving,
Mobile Archiving and so on. As a supplier,
we do not want to limit ourselves and
just deal with print, print management
and document storage.We want to deal
with everything.”
He added: “We are doing something
new and very, very different. The only
people who offer anything similar are
the IT and facilities companies who offer
outsourced information management.
But in order to fulfil it they have to buy
Sony TVs, Xerox MFPs, HP printers and
bundle it all together. I believe we are
the first to have this conversation based
on our own technology. Even if we walk
in and take over part of a contract, we
don’t outsource that; we bring everything
in-house.”
Connected workplace
In fact, other vendors are adopting a
similar approach and integrating MFPs
with products from their other divisions
and exploiting capabilities from all
areas of their business to enhance the
functionality of their print devices.
HP, for example, is improving printer
security by integrating security features
from HP Elite PCs in all new HP LaserJet
Enterprise and OfficeJet Enterprise X
printers/MFPs, and Samsung is using
its expertise in mobile technologies to
put its print devices at the heart of the
‘connected workplace’. It has developed
