Johnny Walker - Keep Walking

Holidays are coming...

Jus sayin...

Mobility Print is Dogma. DOTC calling it. No. No way. Nope.

11/2011

The final gasps of a dying niche - print/clicks/marks on paper.

Mobility Print, means I can print from my Droid or TouchPad from almost anywhere.  But, for me, the numbers are not all that impressive:

Print a hard copy in a hotel? Sure, 12 pages a year.

Print my airline tickets? Sure 52 pages a year.

My mother printing my aunt's recipe for stuffed turkey? Sure, 11 pages a year.

Print a map? Okay, another 13 clicks.

That's 87 pages. In a year. At 12 cents/image, we're talking about a buck a year.

Print People Magazine at home? Nope.

Download a .PDF from Scientific American, for 99 cents? Possibly.

Applying this to the B2B world, when Alaska Air issued each pilot an iPad, they replaced every, single flight manual for every jet in their fleet.

Mobile print philosophy would argue that if the iPad had the capability of printing, each pilot would go home and print a manual the night before a flight.  Wha, wha, whaaaaaaaaat?

Guess who is most interested in mobile print? Go ahead, guess.

Leopard One Speaks Down Under - Press Release

MPSA Executive Committee Leader

Takes a Hard Look at MPS Industry Trends in MPS Conference Keynote

Columbus, OH – November 17, 2011 – Managed Print Services Association (MPSA) Executive Committee member, Greg Walters, recently presented a keynote speech at the 2011 Asia Pacific MPS Conference in Sydney, Australia. In addition to his longtime volunteer work with the MPSA, Walters is creator of the popular MPS blog, thedeathofthecopier.blogspot.com.

As a founding Executive Board member of the MPSA, Walters has been part of the MPS industry throughout its transition. “The industry has evolved more in the last four years than the previous six,” he declared. “MPS has changed everything and shifted influence from the OEMs to the individual.”

In his keynote presentation, Walters focused on several concepts affecting the marketplace:

• Transformation – “From the inside out. Apple transformed by building what they would use, not what the marketing pundits told them to produce.”

• Partnerships and Collaboration – “Advisories will forge new partnerships. OEM to toner re-man, dealer to dealer.”

• The Big Zag, for Today – “Running and managing an MPS practice is challenging. The more who don’t understand that, the better for we who do. Once the ‘P’ is removed, we are left with ‘Managed Services’. If you can run an MPS practice, you can thrive inside an MS.”

Managed Print Services - By the Numbers, Photizo

Europe will overtake North America, in 2013(that would be next year)

Asia Pacific is the next MpS hot-spot...been there, done that, got the coffee mug...

The Uniform Company and "Document Management" - From Creation to Destruction

In a past life, I worked for Cintas - a uniform company.

I sold uniform programs which  generated weekly revenue over a contracted time period. We manufactured our own uniforms, like an OEM.

Once a week, our trucks would come out to customer site, collect dirty uniforms, bring them back to the plant and wash them - this was part of our basic service.

Not only did we clean the uniforms, we would inspect and automatically repair or replace worn garments - this was one of our 'value added' services.

For all this, the weekly charge was around  a buck and a half per change of uniform - approximately 15.00/week/employee.  

If the employees paid, we called it a self-funded benefit of employment. If the company paid 100% we called it a company supported, corporate identity program.

The point is 'recurring revenue'.  Each week our trucks would touch every single customer.  Recognizing the potential, the company started adding soap dispensers and air fresheners to their rug and towel programs.  Then the company bought the second largest First Aid kit provider.  I didn't even know there was such a thing.

Soon, in addition to logo'd uniforms, we were renting mop heads, selling embroidered golf shirts and hats out of a catalog. 

You see, the company recognized the value of customer contact AND recurring revenue - at a significant profit.

Not long after, Cintas bought a document archiving and destruction company - that's right, from uniforms to 'document management'.

Qualification is Key

Selling managed print services requires plenty of up-front activity. Not just the “1,000 phone dials get 100 conversations get 10 appointments” kind of pre-sales work.

I am referring to the kind of toil that ranges from assessment, walk-through and configure to price up, present, close and execute.

Today, there are lots of “tools” designed and pitched as time savers, short cuts in collecting data and calculating your cost.

These wiz-bang packages generate proposal templates complete with fleet data and pricing. Even with all these nifty tools a minimum of 15 business days could and should be required to acquire base information about fleet content and rough volumes.

But even then getting the deal is just a

There's More -

Managed Services - Qualification is Very Important.

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