Printing & Imaging Blog

That’s the overall portrait painted by the 2008 edition of the VARBusiness State of the Market survey. In its profile of solution providers, the report found that as a group they divvy up revenue sources with 26 percent from hardware, 25 percent from software, and a telling 49 percent from services. Looking ahead to the end of 2008, 73 percent of the respondents anticipated seeing their businesses growing by more than 5 percent. Similarly, 70 percent said they expected profits to post a commensurate 5 percent rise, as well.

Significantly, solution providers as a whole aren’t passively letting the economy dictate success or failure in the months ahead—a majority plan to make investments in their companies to shore up their economic health. Expanding their technology offerings is the most popular place to focus investments, followed closely by the roll out of new marketing activities.

Although these numbers don’t break out respondents by technological specialty, they offer important insights for solution providers in the printing and imaging space. The path forward is clearly guided by services, and if this revenue stream doesn’t represent 40 percent or more of your total sales, it may be time to consider what it will take to better exploit this opportunity.