It’s time to shift your approach
For customers in all sizes of business, productivity is becoming more and more important, with an increased focus on optimizing value for every dollar spent. For channel partners, this creates big opportunities in the types of conversations you can have with your customers. Often, the value you offer is about how well you can make every day easier for your customers, by helping integrate print – a pain point for many – and turn it into a value-add asset on a company’s IT network. That’s a fundamental shift from how you approached customers in the past.
The post-sale opportunity
What happens after the device is attached to the network? How can you build your business with that customer going forward? Robust security, workflow and mobility solutions extend the value of their multifunction printer, so you can come back weeks or months later with additional offerings to serve their growing business. When you converge IT and print, your recurring revenue opportunities don’t end at install; they’re just beginning.
Solve your customer’s pain-points
Most companies don’t view print as essential to their business, but I bet they’d be surprised to know that 40% of business activities are document driven and most companies spend as much as 10% of their revenue on documents. Companies run on documents.
Channel Partners who can capitalize on integrating documents and print with a customer’s IT environment have a unique perspective to bring to the table. When you demonstrate the value of the document management as a tool to drive growth, you’re hitting on the pain points that matter most for your customers.
Three ways better document management can help
Help desk calls
Help desk calls
Up to 25% of help desk calls are print related. If you’re a managed services provider who deal with help desk services already, supporting print through Xerox managed print services is a low-touch way to support those helpdesk calls through one point of contact.
Network security
Printers and MFPs are end points on a customer’s network, just like smartphones and PCs, and a potential point of vulnerability for hackers to exploit. Xerox® ConnectKey® MFPs are protected with McAfee Security, powered by Intel. Whitelisting ensures that only known sources can access your network though the printer and keep customer information safe.
Mobility solutions:
Remarkably 83% of companies want mobile printing, but just 14% have deployed it. Cloud-based mobile print is a low-risk investment that will pay you back by making you more relevant, competitive and differentiated. By providing personalized expertise on solutions, you can make them more productive for your customers and more profitable for you.
How Xerox channel partner are succeeding – how you can too
Xerox channel partners are having enormous success by leveraging ConnectKey and Managed Print Services (MPS) to create unique and personalized experiences for their customers.
When it comes to MPS, Xerox is helping partners evaluate their customer’s needs, and providing the right portfolio of products to meet them. We’re also providing incentives that help partners capture more A3 and A4 pages in one contract – no more leaving money on the table.
Some of the most impressive successes are coming from partners who are leveraging Xerox ConnectKey technology to customize and automate workflow for their customers. For customers who have cloud-connected and cloud-enabled A3 and A4 hardware in place, it’s easy to become more productive without making any additional financial investments.
When it comes to productivity, apps are where it’s at. Consider all the ways that your smartphone apps make your life more productive. ConnectKey apps can do the same for your customers. And when your customers are more productive, your business becomes more profitable.
Real channel partners, real success stories
Xerox Authorized Agent Southern Solutions has created an enormously successful app focused on improving the customer experience. Formed in 2006, Southern Solutions provides MPS, network solutions and workflow app solutions. More than half of their revenue comes from customized workflows, which enjoy double-digit margins.
Southern Solutions say they loved the idea of app development because they’re always looking at business processes. That’s why they built the Contact Us app which allows customers to order printer supplies at the touch of a button right on the Xerox Connectkey device. The Contact Us app makes the process easy for the customer and secures the total supplies revenue for Southern Solutions, so everyone wins.
Precision Document Solutions of Texas has been selling MPS since the 1990s. They’ve created two highly successful apps that focus on convenience and security for the health care industry which they feel have differentiated them in the marketplace and secured their reputation as true document management specialists.
These are excellent examples of just how easy it is to create your own app. You can also buy these apps from other partners (or sell to them!), showing how the partner ecosystem is working for all of us.
Four questions to ask beyond the hardware sale
These changes in the marketplace affect everything from how we distribute our products to how we service them. They reflect an industry-wide shift that we must be prepared to accommodate in order to succeed. Here are the questions you need to ask yourself in order to do so:
- What happens after the devices are on the network and managed?
- How can I continue to build my business with this customer?
- Now that I’ve helped this customer create an integrated IT environment, how do I unlock its potential in order to help productivity?
- How can I leverage these assets and investments to make the business more productive?
As is often said in this industry, change is the only constant. Are you prepared to meet the demands of this changing market? Xerox can help. If you are a channel partner looking for better ways to serve your customers, visit the Xerox Global Partner Portal today to find out how you can work with Xerox – together we can do amazing things for your customers.
Subscribe to the Channel Partner Connection and receive email updates when we publish a new article.
