Team Your MPS Offering with Document Management

I recently read an article that offered three suggestions for a dealer to continue to grow as MPS becomes more commonplace:

1. Do a better job...become “world class” in your offering.
2. Offer Managed Network Services.
3. Implement a MDS plan by incorporating Document Imaging into the MPS approach.

I could spend hours discussing suggestion number one’s obviousness and number two’s
complexity, but for me, number three is right on. That said, I continue to read articles confirming the validity of MDS as a
revenue stream.

There is, however, very little information on the steps used; the “here’s how.” Personally, I believe that by teaming your MPS offering and Document Management into a deliverable package that is easy to understand, easy to implement, and more importantly, easy to sell, you would have a solution that would be embraced by your customer base.

Develop a Program

In order to team your MPS offering with your document imaging, you should first create a product that will allow the two initiatives to reside together. This can be accomplished by delivering the software on an appliance. There are many benefits just in the concept of software on an appliance, such as remote support and updates, and ease of installation. Be sure to take the time and think this through. Have a structure built in to support growth, redundancy, accessibility and back up. There is no need to modify either software package; just bundle the capabilities and your expertise.

The integration is accomplished by installing your Data Collection Agent on the Imaging Appliance; the appliance is then a leasable piece of hardware that sits on the end user’s network facilitating printer and document management. This allows for installation with no impact to the end user’s infrastructure, also allowing for ease of remote support; two technologies, one point of customer contact.

Market the Program

Create a name for your program (branding). This will help separate you from the completion as well as make it an easier pitch. For our purposes here let’s call it “ProgramX.” This program could then be cobranded with a leasing company to bring
additional benefit to you.

Let’s look at examples of compelling wording to share with customers that would incorporate benefit statements about both MPS and Document Imaging:

Q: What is “ProgramX”?

A: The integration of Managed Print Services and Document Imaging; thus allowing for a structured strategy to manage the “document workflow” from creation to destruction. This approach incorporates all aspects of a document’s life, creation, distribution, archival, retrieval and destruction.

“ProgramX” is a holistic approach to document lifecycle management that integrates strategies designed to lower operating costs, maintain security and compliance as well as allowing for a true “green” approach to document production.

Cite some statistics to support your statement. Such as:

a) 1-3% of corporate revenues are spent on internal printing.

b) On average, employees print 12,000 pages a year, averaging $300-$500 in toner costs per employee.

c) 50% of all help-desk calls are printer-related.

d) Companies spend $20 in labor to file a document, $120 in labor to find a misfiled document, and $220 in labor to reproduce a lost document.

e) 7.5 % of all documents get lost; 3% of the remainder is misfiled.

f) Professionals spend 5-15% of time reading info but up to 50% looking for it.

g) The average document is photocopied 19 times.

h) There are over 4 trillion paper documents in the U.S. alone and they are growing at a rate of 22% per year.

Continue with the fact that “ProgramX” provides document retention rules, an audit database, and document security for regulatory compliance. These features protect your documents and help you comply with the growing body of laws and regulations concerning the confidentiality, authenticity and retention of documents.

Rethink Assessments

Now that you have your Appliance built, infrastructure created and program branded, change the way you do your assessments. While you perform your standard MPS assessment, swing by the filing cabinets and ask those document imaging questions; things like paper flow, storage, governance requirements such as HIPAA and SOX, and retention requirements.

After the assessment, bundle the information together to present a solution that solves the business needs, not just a printing cost reduction. This is a solution proposal that if presented the right way, can not only set you apart from the competition, but entrench you even deeper within that customer.

Two different technologies; one point of contact with the network; now solving business needs, reducing costs and securing that customer;
this is the point of a solution sale. And remember, solution sales help drive MFP sales.