Printing & Imaging Blog

The buzz in the industry among the vendors is the desire to move customers to a managed print services strategy. Industry analysts, resellers and consultants are building business practices to analyze, train and promote managed print services strategies and products.

But does everyone – large or small organizations; public or private organizations – want to buy imaging and printing products via a managed print services? And, the type or size of the organization does not necessarily define how they want to buy.

Organizations buy technology in a variety of ways – discrete transactions to integrated solutions. Many times they want to just buy a printer or an MFP or a service contact in a single simple individual transaction. Sometimes the organizations want to buy via a bundled hardware and services transaction. At the far end of the spectrum is a fully integrated managed print services solution with document management software applications driven by the organization’s defined business strategy.

The total available market for imaging and printing technology encompasses the complete spectrum of how organizations want to buy. Depending on how much of the available market you want to address will determine the breadth of products and selling strategies you choose to offer.

Does every reseller – large or small – want to sell and support managed print services? And, if they do, how much of their business will be focused on selling and supporting managed print services? And, how do they start?

Buying and selling managed print services can create an organizational or business discontinuity. Closing the gap takes a logical and strategic commitment from the buyer and the seller.