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The leasing company bills the ultimate customer periodically until the cost of the machine to the dealer and profit is covered.
Benefits to each player:
Example:
A customer wishes to 'own' a large piece of equipment. The purchase price is $20,000.00. Instead of paying 20k all at once, the customer would like to pay over time.
The dealer would like to sell the customer equipment, installation, and software needed for the device to function. The dealer cannot offer pay overtime to the customer directly.
The leasing company approves the client and the sale moves forward.
Back in the olden days, 2007 or so, I came up with three stages of managed print services. This model was designed for my MPS practice, not necessarily for the industry, and I used it to help explain the MpS procedure to clients and co-workers. In less than five minutes, the prospect had a basic idea of the stages, procedures, and expectations of our program.
As time went by, every OEM, MPS dealership, and software provider had their version of the MpS process.
HP had a similar idea but the one from Photizo matched and improved upon my vision of the stages. Photizo even came up with a more detailed approach reaching into a Fourth stage.
I'm not saying this is the ONLY managed print services model, it was mine. There are just as many MPS models as there are definitions. All of them are good, each has shortcomings.
Ideally, I was trying to design a process that could be applied to more that managed print services like workflow solutions and business process optimization. I figured every opportunity can be broken down into three stages, Control, Optimize, Enhance.
That makes sense, right?
Unfortunately, many of the models ended up being pure marketing as deliverables rarely matched the original plan. Like most innovations in the industry, we first argue “it will never work for me…” then jump on the bandwagon. We then focus on price, commoditize the service into a box and accelerate the race to the bottom, dumbing down the concept and cutting pricing.
MPS became little more than automatic supplies delivery and on-site service, billed per usage. Managed print services devolved into “managed toner delivery, at the lowest price…”
Regardless, today the industry seeks out pivot points with many players getting into managed services - something I've been a proponent of for a decade.
Naturally, because I was building an MPS practice inside a VAR, I was looking for a way to ease copier dealers into the IT realm, to include IT salespeople in the MPS equation, and fold managing output devices, business processes, and IT assets in one agreement.
MpS deserved a screen in the N.O.C. Managed services was the future and MPS was the way to get there.
