INTERVIEW
PRINT
IT
RESELLER.UK
31
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 than
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 that
we streamline business processes etc..
One of the companies we have
acquired is AccessVia, which specialises in
retail digital signage. Using functionality
we gained with AccessVia, 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 Reseller:
Are you surprised
at how resilient printing has been?
People still print a lot of paper and
the volumes haven't gone done by as
much as one might have expected.
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 in reality 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 Reseller:
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
things that are more or less the same in
every vertical concern 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 Reseller:
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.
...continued
The new Lexmark
identity: shades of
green and a quirky
rotated x
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 that we streamline business processes etc..
