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...continued
Matt Goodall,
Service Director,
Office
Evolution
:
“The biggest issue facing the
industry at present is cost. It permeates
every layer of the industry, the customer
wants the cheapest print cost they can
get, the dealer wants the cheapest
running costs they can get and the
manufacturer wants the cheapest build
costs they can get.
“The issue, as is always the case, is of
course quality. The customer gets a low
copy cost but the service will suffer, spare
supplies can’t be left on site, response
times are poorer and downtime increases.
The dealer gets a product that is built to
a budget and to maintain their margins
looks to the aftermarket or grey market for
the supplies to regain the profit gap that
has been lost. The manufacturer maintains
market share but loses out on the sale of
supplies and gets squeezed by the dealers
to secure new opportunities.
“So where does this stop, well in short
it won’t, or at least not until the economy
recovers and stabilises. As with every
occurrence of recession or economic stress
the focus becomes cost and moves away
from value and quality. At Office Evolution
we continue to provide a high quality
service, we carry out regular reviews with
our customers and we try to be as flexible
as possible so that the customer can
grow with us. We retain our base through
that high quality response and minimal
downtime. But like the rest of the industry,
we have to do all of this with a cost vs.
value and quality mind set.
“There will always be someone
promising to do it ‘cheaper’ but the
likelihood is that you will lose quality,
service and value, and as we often see
and in those famous words ‘We’ll be back’
often securing contracts again after the
cheaper alternative has been tried.”
Mark Smyth,
Chief Operating Officer,
Vision
:
“In my opinion, the current, largest
market challenge is sustainable growth.
If you do not have a strong business
plan and strategy, resellers in the current
climate will find it challenging simply to
remain static!
“We formulated a growth and business
plan in 2015 that combines several key
components to Vision’s continued growth
and success. Inevitably as we endeavour to
execute on our plans, some components of
the plan are more successful than others
and it’s a combination of components
that’s key and not just one focus and go to
market strategy such as Managed Print!”
Mark Bailey,
Managing Director,
EBM
:
“For us, one of the biggest challenges
we’ve faced is business’ attitudes towards
printing. It’s either seen as a necessity that
ticks over, often haemorrhaging money; or
something they would like to try and do
away with altogether. This is not realistic
for a number of industries, however, and
to overcome that, we focus on helping
those clients who want to reduce cost by
showing them how to print smarter. This
doesn’t necessarily mean printing less, but
it’s all about finding the right managed
print solution to meet their needs.”
David Tulip,
Managed Print Programme
Director,
Network Group / Technology
To Go
:
“Like many industries, there are
multiple challenges and pressures, for the
traditional copier-type reseller margins
have been under severe downward
pressure for some years now – not only
on the tin but now the service revenue as
both channel players and end-users look
for commoditisation. It is of course one
thing to compare hardware (even between
manufacturers nowadays as let’s be honest
looking at office MFDs they all do the
same thing!), the time when the hardware
should not be commoditised is when there
is a unique customer requirement and/
or higher volumes to ensure you have the
right horse for the course.
“How on earth you can commoditise
service I don’t quite know – yes the
principle is fine but in practice what the
end-user is delivered is often something
very different! So margin is a huge
challenge within the space which is
not going to go away very quickly. New
technologies such as Epson RIPS and HP
PageWide also mean that ink is no longer
slow and expensive and this will also
have downward pressure on revenues and
margins... but why the race to the bottom?
“I think the definition of Managed Print
Services is so varied from manufacturer, to
partner to end-user and this is an immense
challenge as I see companies losing
business as they are pricing for a ‘true
service’ and situations where the customer
is not getting the service wrap they had
anticipated. Furthermore, there are still
situations where either the customer has
been mis-sold or not undertaken their due
diligence.”
Julian Stafford,
Managing Director,
Midshire Business Systems Northern
:
“The biggest threat to the print industry
is the decline in people printing. Younger
employees coming into businesses today
are far more IT savvy. They have been
brought up using electronic devices as part
of everyday life, which means they are far
more comfortable reading documents on a
screen. Whereas people of my generation
like to print documents if we need to read
something carefully.
“Midshire supplies IT services to a
I think the
definition
of Managed
Print
Services is so
varied from
manufacturer,
to partner
to end-user
and this is
an immense
challenge
as I see
companies
losing
business
Matt Goodall
Service Director
Office Evolution
Mark Bailey,
Managing Director
, EBM
