Four Ways Channel Partners Can Grow Their Customer Footprint

Sometimes slow and steady doesn’t win the race. Sometimes, you need to pick up the pace and shift the focus of your business.

Take, for example, your customer footprint. Whilst current customers are the bread and butter of your business, it is easy to get in a rut.

Channel partners are more likely to grow when they can grow their customer breadth. In fact, 80% of technology provider revenue still comes from existing customers. That is a tremendous opportunity for not only your current portfolio but also the future of your business.

Which products and services will help capture new business?

The question is which products and services will help capture new business? Which will generate revenue for years to come? According to Robin Wessel, Vice President of Strategy at Xerox, “Print is an extremely vibrant marketplace. In fact, the forecast through 2017 is to be a $22 billion market in the US alone. Desktop (A4) MFP is scheduled to grow 6% YOY while Managed Print Services (MPS) is projected to see about 10% YOY growth. We especially see strong growth in Small & Medium Business (SMB) accounts, where their adoption of MPS is lower.”

Unlocking new accounts in 2015 & beyond

In this article, we will highlight strategies from our “Keys to New Business” initiative. These strategies are twofold: The new products and programs are designed to strengthen relationships and also open doors for new customers.

Here are our top four ways to grow your partner footprint:

1 – Attract small and mid-sized accounts with MPS

To pinpoint the area with the largest opportunity for growth, it would definitely be small and mid-sized accounts. These customers need to control their print costs, improve document security and become more sustainable — but don’t have the resources to manage it.

More importantly, these smaller yet profitable accounts are searching for a MPS solution – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg with these customers. The Photizo Group, a consulting and market intelligence firm, predicts that 53% of SMB will be under a MPS program by 2017. Even more staggering are the 84% of the end user customers who want to select one service provider for both print and IT services. That could be you.

2 – Expand your reach by offering PageConnect Services

Xerox PageConnect** takes MPS one step further by tapping into the flow of information inside your customer’s printing devices and over their network. You’ll be able to access printing usage data (by device) and provide easy access to use patterns, trends, supplies levels and other useful information. This data offers precise visibility into your customers’ costs and volume. Over time, this information enables you to work with customers to refresh their print equipment with cost-effective Xerox devices that provide cost savings for them, and increased profits for you. Make sure to relay the benefits of PageConnect. They often sell the program for you:

• Cut costs on print consumables, service and cost-per-page.
• Reduce energy use through device consolidation and upgrade.
• Reduce waste, order only the supplies needed, with no excess.
• Free up IT resources for more business critical work than the support and maintenance of print devices.
• Optimize efficiency with remote management and lifecycle management.

3 – Gain stickiness (and revenue) through PAB & ConnectKey

Xerox Personalized Application Builder (PAB) and the Xerox ConnectKey interface should be at the top of your list of ways to stay in front of your customers – not to mention the revenue opportunities they offer. This powerful offering allows you to build personalized and customized solutions that matter to your customers from connecting to the cloud, reordering supplies and streamlining workflows. This combination is the perfect opportunity for you to gain stickiness while further developing customer relationships.

4 – Differentiate yourself from the competition with powerful cloud ready MFPs

Customers are looking to increase efficiency and productivity. Xerox ConnectKey MFPs seamlessly scan to and print from common cloud services like Office 365 and DropBox .What sets Xerox’s new MFPs apart from the competition are the 7” color user interfaces to show the ConnectKey capabilities. Reviews of the new line tout the Xerox WorkCentre 3655 and Xerox WorkCentre 6655 for their consistent user experience, advanced security features, and tools for cost control. There are also new choices for customers who are looking for a cost-competitive departmental MFP, the Xerox WorkCentre 4265. This supercharged A4 monochrome MFP prints up to 55 pages per minute, scans at 70 images per minute, supports EIP and includes a similar user interface to ConnectKey.

Your next move

Unsure of which strategy to try first? Or, do you want to kick things up a notch and start offering all of the products? Regardless of your approach, The “Keys to New Business” program has built in resources to help channel partners roll out products to their customers – including training opportunities, email campaigns and marketing incentive programs. We can’t wait to see the results.

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**PageConnect is currently available to US channel partners only. European channel partners can offer PagePack for connected devices as an alternative