Managed Print Services have been talked about for quite some time as a growing opportunity for resellers to tap in to. But how easy is it to put together a proposition for your customers and how costly is the capital expenditure for the systems and resources needed to provide a compelling offering?
The concept of offering hardware and services as part of a contractual solution is not a new one. Many of us have indeed purchased a mobile contract providing a “Free” phone with bundled minutes and data. For many people it is still the preferred way of obtaining a new phone. More closely related to print, there are many photocopier providers out there already successfully offering a cost per page solution for some customers, helping them to budget more effectively as well as reducing the capital expenditure for the end-user. But what about IT resellers who are currently selling the printers and consumables used around the office?
Up until now Managed Print Services could be quite difficult to lock down for many resellers. Part of the reason was that you had to invest in software, resources as well as manage the process which could take quite some time and money to put together a viable proposition. And all this is before you have revenue coming in for the service.
But the good news is that PrintSense from Ingram Micro changes all that. Even if you have got ahead of the game and created your own solution, it is still worth looking to see if PrintSense can save you time and money as well as enhance your current customer offering.
PrintSense is a new Managed Print Services (MPS) offering from Ingram Micro that is entirely vendor agnostic, powered by advanced fleet service automation technology and – best of all – all the hard work is done in the background by Ingram Micro. As a result it is making it even easier for resellers that didn’t previously offer MPS to tap into that market.
Watch the “Profit with PrintSense” video and see how easy it is to get started in Managed Print Services.
So what kind of Print Services can you offer your customers?
Automated Print Supplies
Help your customers manage their printer fleets with specially designed software by Ingram Micro. This software is easily installed to manage all of your customer’s print devices, no matter which brand. We monitor your customer’s devices on your behalf through the cloud and when supplies are needed, they’re dispatched before anything runs out, whilst avoiding waste. It’s reliable, timely and totally worry-free for you – all you do is take the credit for providing such an efficient and effective service.
Cost Per Page Service
You can think of this service as a ‘take over’ of all the issues your customer faces with print management. For a simple cost per page, you provide a comprehensive service – all, of course, delivered in the background by Ingram Micro. The Cost Per Page service can include, Data Collection, Supplies monitoring, Service monitoring, Help Desk alerts flagged to engineers, Automated supply of consumables and parts and even an on-site Break Fix service.
High Value Services
PrintSense takes you into high value areas that really can give you sizeable ‘quick win’ revenues. You can provide intelligent recommendations to support your customers’ hardware replacement (with sales support if necessary via different manufacturer experts); consult on print usage to reduce your customer’s costs; and identify savings from under-utilised hardware.
The Opportunity
For resellers specialising in selling and servicing businesses that operate in highly regulated and data-intense vertical markets (such as healthcare, finance, legal, government, insurance, transportation and education), they are seeing sales and opportunity around MPS grow; they’re reporting record year-over-year sales increases. As the technology becomes increasingly purpose built for smaller companies, we anticipate the market opportunity within SMB flourishing as well.
IDC ‘Opportunity for consolidated MPS’
As an industry leader in automated fleet service management, Ingram Micro uses fewer resources than any other approach to simplify service delivery, even across mixed fleets. While we deliver higher value at lower cost, you deliver a more effective service immediately.
We have already had a huge amount of interest from resellers large and small and hopefully after reading this, have sparked your interest to take a few minutes to find out more about the opportunity. We really believe it gives you another way to differentiate yourself and will be hugely appealing to your customers. It may be that you already offer IT as a contractual service, but print is not covered. Now you can easily offer a contracted service for print too, strengthening your relationship with customers, as well as giving you additional on-going revenue and profit. Sound good?
Find out more by visiting our PrintSense microsite to find out more and register your interest.
Ingram Micro UK 