Managed Print Services - Today's Lightning In a Bottle

"MPS has had its false starts over the last 8 years or so..."

"I have over 100 salespeople, who typically take orders. I can't get them to sell MPS..."

"The owner of my company really doesn't understand what it takes and how long it takes..."

"This is a lot to digest..."

"It's like trying to drink from a fire hose..."

These statements are just some of the "off-line" comments I heard while attending the Synnex, Managed Print Services, "Windows of Opportunity" seminar.

I was very happy to attend the Synnex/PrintSolv sales training seminar held in "Surf City", Huntington Beach, California.

Point of interest: the venue was spectacular - right on the beach, across the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway). With the waves thundering, and a cold breeze whipping in, it was nice to be near the ocean once again.

About 60 or so people attended - and Steven Power, the ex-copier sales guy and current sales trainer extraordinaire conducted the two-day event.

I had attended one of Steven's sales training classes years ago in New York and remembered him to be a strong advocate for Value Add and a staunch opponent of Transaction-based sales.

Metrofuser Helps Managed Print Services: Software Independent

Metrofuser Introduces StockWorks™ MPS

"...We believe that Managed Print Services is here to stay -- and while we won't compete with our customers and throw our hat into the software sales ring, we are committed to focusing on providing services and solutions to our customers that will make their MPS model all that much more profitable..."

Roselle, NJ (PRWEB) February 17, 2009 -- Laser printer parts manufacturer Metrofuser (www.metrofuser.com) today announced the release of its StockWorks MPS program for laser printer service companies and rechargers that are offering Managed Print Services (MPS) solutions to their customers. StockWorks MPS, while designed with the MPS provider in mind, is completely software-independent and does not require a specific brand of MPS software.

MPS providers face the challenge of keeping larger inventories and in some cases multiple remote inventory "closets" at customer sites across the country to ensure that they are able to quickly respond to their customers' printer repair and maintenance needs.

Keeping a vast inventory and shipping parts overnight directly to customer sites at a premium eats away at margins already burdened by the current state of the economy. StockWorks MPS eliminates those costs and increases equipment up-time.

Metrofuser Sales Representatives can do a quick trending analysis of an MPS provider's stock and with some forecasting provided by the MPS provider, Metrofuser will come up with a program that primarily consigns stock to the customer. Customers participating in the program will also be able to enjoy other benefits such as low-to-no cost shipping rates, periodic trending analysis and inventory usage reports, industry forecasting and trending information, ROI analyses, and so on.

"We wanted to come up with a program for all of our customers who have deployed Managed Print Services without mandating or promoting specific software to them," said Dennis Fotopoulos, Metrofuser's Director of Strategic Business Development.

"In coming up with this program, our intent was to stick with our core competencies -- that is, providing high-quality remanufactured laser printer parts along with world-class logistical and fulfillment services."

"We started this program to enable us to partner with our customers to save on the costly burden of overnight shipping," said Eric Katz, Metrofuser's Co-Owner and CFO. "If we're constantly shipping parts overnight to any one customer, no matter who's footing that bill or whether we're splitting it, we're not optimizing our partnership. We're both passing our revenues on to the shippers. Metrofuser is willing to take on 90% of our customers' inventory risk ourselves if we can curtail those practices."

Metrofuser has been running a controlled introduction of the program and the response has been positive. Says one service provider in South Carolina, "Metrofuser has reduced shipping costs for me, and at the same time has allowed me to increase much-needed inventory without increasing my inventory costs. When I need something immediately, I don't have to scamper around to get it overnighted."

Adds Fotopoulos, "We believe that Managed Print Services is here to stay -- and while we won't compete with our customers and throw our hat into the software sales ring, we are committed to focusing on providing services and solutions to our customers that will make their MPS model all that much more profitable."

For more information about StockWorks™ MPS or other programs at Metrofuser, go to http://www.metrofuser.com or call 888-FUSERS1 (888-387-3771).

About Metrofuser:

Metrofuser remanufactures and distributes printer parts for HP and Lexmark laser printers. The company offers a broad array of laser printer products from its Eastern and Western distribution hubs including fusers, maintenance kits, boards, and paper handling assemblies. For more information, visit http://www.metrofuser.com, or call 888-Fusers-1 Ext 107.

Ingram Micro Lays Off 8 Percent Of North American Employees

And the Hits keep on coming...

The president of Ingram Micro North America, Keith Bradley, said the layoffs wouldn't impact the company's relationships with VARs or vendors.

"There will not be a service-level degradation to any customer. We've taken the last two months to work on this," Bradley said. "We're making adjustments to where we see activity levels."

"Our main priority today was to talk to our impacted associates first and then non-impacted associates. In addition, we are calling vendors and reseller partners. There are outbound calls being made today," he said.

About 100 employees were let go in the company's Williamsville, N.Y., campus, another 50 in Canada and 150 more spread across the company's Santa Ana, Calif., corporate headquarters and other centers in the United States.

"Last year was a little softer than all of us had hoped for. We had decent growth in the first quarter and the second quarter and the third quarter. But as we all headed into Q4, we saw things begin to soften and that has gotten progressively worse all over the world as newspapers and television have indicated," he said.

"We had been managing operating expenses through natural attrition and managing expenses pretty aggressively. Given what we now see for 2009, we wanted to maintain our level of profitability and we had to come up with some incremental actions," he said.

Latest Financial look.