April 2016
Back in the day, about four years ago, every OEM, large dealership, consultant, and training house had a managed print services program. Indeed, the big concerns tossed millions of marketing dollars at prospective MPS practices — remember the great Oki motorcycle giveaways and those Ricoh MPS roadshows? How about the Photizo conferences?
Times changed. More importantly, misaligned expectations, shortsighted hiring practices, and lack of ownership commitment killed many practices. The final blow came as OEM after OEM applied shell-game tactics, pitching themselves as services-led, but hamstringing dealers in the form of equipment quotas. How can ANY manufacturer promote a philosophy which endeavors to reduce the number of machines in the field?
So they didn’t. Instead, MPS corporate programs grew like weeds, defining optimized fleets as “machines carrying the same logo” and promising 30 percent savings
Relegated to “supplies and service” management, MPS slid to the background. Especially when the new “shiny object,” Managed Services, took center stage. But a funny thing happened on the way to the NOC — turns out, managing PCs and end-users and selling to IT folks isn’t as easy as it was expected to be. Indeed, quoting, presenting, and closing IT deals is downright difficult — more so than MPS. The selling is different, prospects act differently, and the infrastructure to support service agreements can be daunting. Once again, a great idea gets bogged down in the real world.
So we tried managed services, didn’t like the results, and now are looking at MPS from a different perspective.
“Maybe MPS isn’t so difficult, after all.”
Read the rest, here.
AMEN!
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