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June 27, 2008
Service Strategies Spread
Commercial print shops are direct competition for solution providers that pitch the benefits of in-house color as an argument for why customers should buy or lease color printers and multifunction products (MFPs). So it’s good to know what the competition is up to.
According to print-industry researcher InfoTrends, commerical have been driven by increasing cost competition to look for profits in that industry’s equivalent to managed print services, namely as print service providers (PSP), the on-demand printing model. Now, PSPs are evolving into MSPs, or marketing service providers, according to InfoTrends. “Today’s [commercial] printers must extend their services into the communications business to help their customers facilitate the process of sharing information,” the firm says.
MSPs run the gamut of services from incorporating unique name and addresses or targeted images into printed materials to delivering what InfoTrends calls Enterprise Integrated Campaign Management: personalized content that delivers “the right message at the right time to the right person in the right media—and fully track the results.”
It adds, “Today’s marketing professionals face the conflicting challenges of new distribution channels, a 24/7 global economy, pressure to deliver identifiable ROI, and the need to deal with rapidly changing technologies. Marketers must…identify opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling, and maximize the lifetime value of each customer.”
All of which shows that when solution providers try to increase profits by selling services rather than just hardware they’re part of a larger trend that’s impacting a wide variety of markets. End users are looking to find any opportunity where they can buy the end result and let a trusted expert figure out the best and most cost-effective ways to make that happen.
Posted by ajoch at June 27, 2008 04:53 PM
