Needless to say, at one time the profession of sales was a highly esteemed art, of relationships and understanding – giving way to microwaved-popcorn motives and spandex solutions.

Somewhere in there, there are people who are fighting for you – the customer! I sat and talked with “sales rep” today who decided to enlighten me that all manufactures were simply there to “keep the lines moving”.

But GET THIS – Whether that is true or not is actually irrelevant – isn’t it. That’s like telling a fish to quit breathing through water (Wait, do I have to pay royalties to Greg to use the word “fish” now?). I don’t hold anything against McDonald’s for serving me a Big Mac and I don’t hold anything against Stephen King for writing The Shining; that’s what they do and they are good at it!

But whose responsibility is it to deliver a managed service? Hmmm, the word ‘partnership’ comes to mind… but I have observed that so many customers want drive through service – to wash their hands of the whole dirty mess.

Let me think, if I could save you 30% off of your current output platform – or I could create opportunities for you to accelerate your time to cash and retain customers… I wonder which one you might choose? How much might that be worth?

If you want to get in the trenches – then get IN the trenches – WITH your customer.

Dave, I appreciate you sponsoring the opportunity to open the conversation up about a subject these fine few are so very passionate about.

Warmest Regards,
Ken Stewart
ChangeForge | MPSA

Nathan, thanks for the shout out, check is in the mail!

You swerve into many different subjects around MPS – and you outline some challenges fairly well.

As you know, printers and output have always been the “bane” of most IT environments and IT people – the last devices to be considered.

A phenomena as old as the HP LaserJet Series II – IT guys didn’t care about printers and didn’t really want to support them, because that would mean leaving the mysterious glass room. And by “support them” I mean end-users, pain in the butts that they are.

So for DECADES, organizations ignored printers and actually encouraged or at the very least looked the other way when end users started making their own decisions on printers.

Heck, up until two years ago, most companies let Purchasing run the decision process when obtaining CONNECTED COPIERS.

Why?

Because to the IT yuks, a 55 page per minute, duplexing, scanning monster of a machine isn’t as sexy as the new Quad Core from Intel; it’s more fun to work on an Exchange upgrade then it is to load Canon drivers.

So the problem grew – the Glass rooms started to fill up with dead printers.

Supplies closets around the globe swelled with toner cartridges, fuser assemblies, waste toner bottles. Pushing out the Oki ribbons and rolls of thermal transfer, fax paper.

Along with these supplies, and exponentially, cost grew. And just like those “unseen” toner cartridges, these costs where hidden in plain view.

Nobody cared.

So today, MPS is the “Hot New Thing” – especially to those who should have seen this coming 10 years ago.

Not a day goes by now, when some research firm or IT forum upchucks a blurb or two about this new arena.

Indeed, every single copier or printer manufacturer has a MPS program and it is very easy to call it “hype” because there is hype.

But,there are Points of Light out here in the turbulent, dark, MPS Ecosystem. You mention one above – the North American MPS Conference.

I also recommend checking out Your MPSA (Managed Print Services Association). A non-profit dedicated to the Managed Print Services niche.

The MPS ride so far has been a bumpy one, and still the interest grows.

Thanks for the great post and keep up the good work!

G