"Do you offer managed print services?"
"Of course ... Doesn't everyone?"
Remember the old Midas commercial when a roaring, back-firing car rolls into a local service station for a tail-pipe and muffler? The customer asks, "Are you sure you have one that will fit my car?" Then the "mechanic" with a sledge hammer resting on his shoulder answers, "No problem. I can make it fit."
Off-the-shelf managed print services are like that. Someone hangs up a shingle and "Bingo!" -- they're a professional.
Today every national distributor sells its own MPS solution, office supply superstores sell theirs over-the-counter, and every manufacturer in the Business Technology Association throws their hat into the ring. Consider this post yesterday by Louella Fernandes http://www.it-director.com/business/content.php?cid=11256 ... manufacturers are trying to simplify their channel propositions to make MPS more accessible for resellers so that they do not need to invest in a costly infrastructure. In effect, instead of building their own service infrastructure, they can resell an MPS as a "white-label" service provided by a manufacturer."
Since nobody is selling office imaging equipment right now, everyone and his uncle is pumping their unique document-output-control, cost-containment, imaging-fleet-management solution.
Even if they don't know a thing about it.
"No problem. I can make it fit."
It blows my mind. Expert Laser Services is a long-established MPS company with a mature product we've been developing and implementing for 15 years, with thousands of devices already under contract. We've already made all those "costly investments in infrastructure" that Louella's talking about -- a fleet of tech vans and technicians, a trademarked MPS product, a couple of successful, growing offices.
Yet we are in competition with everyone from Xerox all the way down to the local one-man PC repair shop who bought MPS-in-a-Box?!
"No problem. I can make it fit."
Naw, I guess I'll quit whining. Now that I think of it, their MPS product really doesn't compete with ours.
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