How To Quickly Assess The Threat of Managed Print Providers

If you [IT Providers] are not providing print services, someone else is, and they will soon be leveraging print to compete for your space.” - Simon Tune
Print providers leverage print to compete for clients of IT Providers – Simon Tune
With the convergence of IT services and managed print it comes as no surprise that more and more clients are considering a single provider for their IT and print services.

This shift is making managed print, a perfect entry point into an IT service provider’s client base for hungry managed print service providers backed by global print solution vendors.

They know you – do you know them?

What’s more, those managed print service providers are acutely aware of their IT service provider rivals. Not only do they know their weaknesses and exploit them whenever they can, they often go completely unnoticed by IT service providers who make the mistake of dismissing their managed print rivals as low risk or, worse still, irrelevant.

One small step… from managed print

With both parties often working side by side in the same client, the transition to managing the entire network is a prize that can be a relatively “easy sell”, with a manageable sales cycle for a managed print services provider. As an IT Services provider, are you aware of what is at stake here?

Consider the following questions to identify whether you should pay attention to the threat of managed print or carry on ignoring the threat managed print poses to your business:

What is the risk?

Without dismissing the obvious – the revenue, the referrals and other benefits of doing business, how are you using the relationship with your largest customer to your advantage? How devastated would you be if you lost that customer?

Who is talking about print?

If your client has a printer or MFP connected to the network you manage, then you need to find out who is servicing them. Once you have found out, do your research on them. How easy would it be for them to become your next competitor?

How big is this risk?

Now, repeat those two steps with your top ten customers. Who provides their print services? Is your slice of the pie at risk or could it grow if you offered managed print?

What do you need to know?

How many potential competitors have you just identified? What do you know about them, how could they be a risk to your business? Are you prepared to be proactive?

What can you do about it?

I’ve seen time and time again that print services are a viable entry point into an IT service provider’s client base, threatening the relationships they’ve worked so hard to cultivate.

If you are not providing print services, someone else is, and they will soon be leveraging print to compete for your space. Not only that, print services can provide a lucrative cross-selling opportunity for those with access to them.

If you already work with Xerox

Talk to your Xerox representative today and let us help you to protect your customer base and add managed print as a new source of profitable revenue to your business.

If you have never worked with Xerox

Review the Xerox Global Partner Program to see how we compare to your current vendors and distributors and learn how we can protect the future of your business with managed print services.

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