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20
Photizo Group’s Transform 2012 MPS
conference held at Twickenham Rugby
Stadium in October was the MPS
specialist's most successful event to
date. In total, more than 344 delegates
attended the fourth European MPS
conference – 30 more than the number
who attended Photizo’s 2012 Global
conference.
With 25 speakers, 26 breakout sessions
and two panel discussions, there was no
shortage of information and encouragement
for resellers wanting to find out about
managed print services. This year, the
two-day event was more channel-focused
than ever, reflecting the fact that of the 344
delegates, more than 150 were managed
service providers (MSPs) and almost 180
were resellers.
Inevitably, much of the material will have
been familiar to people who had attended
previous events. After all, the transition to
MPS doesn’t happen overnight and there are
still many resellers and copier dealers at the
very start of the MPS journey – and software
companies eager to sell them print auditing
and fleet management solutions.
These remain the essential tools of
the trade, despite the impatience of OEMs
to move the debate on from hardware
optimisation. Dominic Keogh, managing
director of the Ricoh Global MDS
Competency Centre, advised delegates to
adopt a different approach when engaging
with key decision-makers and to start a
conversation around the risk factors resulting
from inefficient document processes. “Focus
your attention on the fact that there may
be a different way of taking MPS to market.
If you move away from fleet analysis and
ask ‘how can I add 10% to the top line?’
that starts a conversation and attracts the
attention of CIOs and CFOs,” he said.
A vital sales tool
This approach might work with enterprise
customers, but a print audit and report
showing the savings that can be made by
optimising a fleet is still a vital sales tool,
especially when selling to small and medium-
sized businesses – an important new market
for MPS.
Dennis Kramer of PerformIT asked
whether it was viable for resellers to do an
assessment, create an optimised proposal
and produce a PowerPoint report for a fleet
with up to 30 devices. He cited a number
of objections to MPS for SMEs including
the belief that MPS is for larger accounts
only; that sales cycles are too long; that it
is too time-consuming to be worthwhile for
fleets of fewer than 50 devices; and that the
process is too complex.
He countered these objections by pointing
out that in the last few years a couple of
technologies had emerged that made MPS
suitable for SMEs. These include remote fleet
Between 2008
and 2010,
revenues from
SME MPS rose
from under
$10 billion
to under
$15 billion.
All to play for
Interesting times for the print industry
Transform 2012: Review
Print.IT Reseller
Scrum down:
Transform 2012
held at Twickenham
Rugby Stadium was
Photizo Group’s
best attended
event to date
continued...
Photizo sales consultant Scott
Hornbuckle and Ann Priede, vice
president of services and publications
at Photizo, put proceedings in context
with an illuminating presentation on
the EMEA Imaging Market based on
data from Photizo Group’s Hardware
and Supplies Advisory Services.
Photizo is predicting a decline in
hardware sales revenue of 2% CAGR
from 2011-2016, with only colour laser
printers and colour laser MFPs showing
growth of 2% and 4% CAGR respectively.
Over the same period supplies revenue
in EMEA is expected to be flat, with any
increase in toner sales offset by a decline
in inkjet sales.
Business inkjets have shown some
growth but they have failed to live up
to people’s expectations. Even by 2016,
business inkjets are expected to account
for just 5% of the total imaging market
(in units).
In terms of MPS, Photizo believes that
the enterprise market is now saturated
following significant activity in 2009 and
2010. As a result, OEMs are looking to the
SMB sector for growth and have introduced
channel-specific MPS programmes.
Between 2008 and 2010, revenues from
SME MPS rose from under $10 billion to
under $15 billion.
These trends are taking place against
major changes in the industry. HP has had a
particularly bumpy ride. Priede pointed out
that it used to be a good company because
it was diversified, but notes that all these
areas – PCs, printers and services – were
hit hard in 2012. Sharp, too, is suffering. Its
document business is profitable, but has an
uncertain future due to the wider Group’s
problems. Lexmark has pulled out of inkjets.
Another significant trend is a decline
in page volumes. Photizo and PrintFleet
have been monitoring print usage in the
same 257 companies since Q1 2008. Their
figures show a relatively steady decline of
20% over the period which suggests that
MPS is having an effect. Photizo Group’s
2011 Small and Medium-Size Business
Printer User Survey reveals a 5.5% decline
in monthly print volumes between 2010
and 2011.
The hope that mobile printing would
drive an increase in printing is misplaced,
according to studies by Photizo. It surveyed
467 people and found that just 50 have
printed from a mobile device. Of those,
30% printed only once or twice to test the
capability and only 22% (i.e. 11 people out
of 470) print at least once a month.
Priede said: “As an industry we haven’t
made it easy for people to print from
smartphones. The challenge is that once
you learn to live without printing you won’t
go back to it. How do you re-educate
people and say now you can print from
your smartphone?”
She added: “There is no question that
page volumes are declining so the key is to
find new business models. We have tablets
and smartphones but the workforce is
getting younger and they have been digital
all their lives and don’t have a culture of
printing. What will happen in the office?
Will they bring that culture into the office
or get caught up in paper workflows and
get printing?”