Solution providers find "cradle to grave" opportunities when selling document lifecycle management systems
Document Lifecycle Management (DLM) takes a holistic view of financial reports, memos, sales analyses and other essential elements of business communications. Depending on their importance, age and regulatory requirements, individual documents may spend their time moving through various stages of company business processes and reside in multiple locations. These can range from a hard drive in a workgroup multifunction product (MFP) to an electronic archiving system or a tape cartridge.
For solution providers, this comprehensive approach to documents presents a variety of selling, consulting and service opportunities that can boost revenues and profits. And for many printing practices, the time is ripe to capitalize on this growth potential.
“Document lifecycle management has hit home where it needed to first--the big paper users, such as the financial, insurance and real-estate industries,” says Joe Axmacher, solutions director for integrated document solutions at CompuCom Systems, a Dallas-based solution provider. “They understand document life cycle management, but whether or not they are practicing it isn’t always clear. They may want to, but they don’t really know how to get started.”
That’s where solution providers like CompuCom and others can help. The main elements of a comprehensive document solution touch on many of the key strategies that are helping printing practices move away from low-margin, hardware-only sales to more lucrative selling initiatives. These include:
- Hardware sales that emphasize MFPs and high-end networked laser printers
- High-margin ancillary hardware, such as storage and archival systems
- Partnerships and co-branding opportunities with third-party software vendors
- Bundled service and maintenance contracts
- Consulting services based on printing and imaging assessments and workflow optimizations
- Installation and training services
A complete DLM solution goes a long way toward helping solution providers compete in profit-constrained markets. “There are no margins for hardware anymore. It’s all about service, establishing relationships and maintaining those relationships so customers want to call us back and give us more contracts,” says Dale Fulkerson, owner of LaserComp Inc., a Livonia, Mich., solution provider.
To sell DLM solutions, Fulkerson emphasizes time and money savings for customers. “We go in and show them where they are going to save money by reducing the time it takes to search for documents,” he explains. “We may look at a customer’s existing operation and see a person standing in front of a file cabinet for 20 minutes trying to find something. Then we show them how they would be able to get that document on the fly, and it’s an eye opener. Most times you can show people how to save a lot of money.”
Fulkerson estimates that electronic documents can cut customer costs an average of 18 to 30 percent compared to paper. Once they’re comfortable with a recently installed DLM systems, clients often “call to say they’re feeling good about the solution and then add, ‘By the way, I need another MFP,’” Fulkerson reports. Word-of-mouth referrals account for most of his new DLM business, he says.
While MFPs provide the core hardware for capturing and printing out documents, they’re not the only devices important to DLM. Also essential are servers dedicated to running document-management software, as well as storage and backup systems. Redundant disk arrays, network-attached storage units, and tape drives for offsite archives help keep information safe and provide follow-on sales opportunities for solution providers.
Software solutions address DLM content management and workflow processing requirements. Large enterprise implementations may use full-scale document management applications such as Docushare, from Xerox, or EMC’s Documentum. Solution providers selling to small and mid-sized companies may opt for smaller packages, such as Informa Software’s ImageQuest mfp or LSSP Corp.’s eDrawer document management system.
LaserComp is adding to its DLM profit potential through a branding agreement that allows the solution provider to sell eDrawer under its own name. “We have a lot of flexibility in terms of how we set our margins,” Fulkerson says. “We can go into a six- or 10-person office and charge them a little less for the software, but then charge a little more on the training.”
Other important DLM software includes tools for centrally capturing and routing documents and managing both paper and electronic documents throughout an organization. Omtool AccuRoute provides a single routing platform that allows users to distribute individual documents in a number of different formats and to multiple locations.
When an MFP feeds a captured documents to the Omtool server, the system uses pre-set selections to determine routing rules and whether the file needs to be converted into .pdf, .doc, or other formats. Destinations may range from a printer or workgroup MFP to an e-mail server, fax machine or electronic archive. “Depending on what you want to do with that document, you can reach all of those destinations simultaneously,” says Karen Cummings, executive vice president of marketing for Omtool, Andover, Mass. “So one document capture accommodates all of those systems.”
She adds that the channel now represents about 30 percent of Omtool sales, a percentage that could rise significantly in the coming year as the company relies less on direct sales. “We will keep our direct sales force to maintain our domain expertise, but their job is to support the channel whenever there is a channel opportunity,” Cummings says.
To address growing security concerns around electronic documents, Dallas solution provider TCS uses MIPA (MegaTrack In-Printer Agent) PIN authentication software from Capella Technologies in its DLM implementations. “If somebody wants to scan a document, they have to enter a four-digit PIN code before they are good to go,” says TCS CEO Jeff Odom. MegaTrack, also from Capella, lets companies see who’s printing what documents and which devices are running the jobs.
In addition to hardware and software, DLM solutions also require customer training, “which is huge in terms of dollars,” Fulkerson says. “You set up the customer’s search functions depending on how it wants to do searches, then train them and hold their hand for a while.” The hand holding means additional professional services revenues, Fulkerson adds.
|
