Written by: Ed Crowley, CEO and Founder, Photizo Group

I am constantly evangelizing about the shift from products to services and how firms who remain product-centric will be challenged for survival. Those that transition to a services-led business model will thrive. Does this mean technology no longer matters? Has technology in the imaging market become irrelevant?

Absolutely not. In fact, in a services business technology becomes even more important. Technology becomes the enabler. It is the backbone that make services scalable, efficient and in some cases, user friendly. Without a lot of very complex and integrated technology, services like cellular phones would not be possible.  Let alone, easy to use.

In order to make managed print services work, there is an incredible amount of technology required within imaging devices themselves, the infrastructure to manage them, and to support the ‘people infrastructure’ required to assess fleets, enhance document management workflows, and the many other tasks associated with controlling, managing, and enhancing the customers imaging environment.  In fact, this year Photizo Group launched a new service, MPS Techwatch™, just to track and monitor the different technologies being deployed in the MPS industry.

When considering Stage 4 MPS engagements, where the world of MPS and information technology outsourcing (ITO) and business process optimization (BPO) collide, vendors must make a significant leap in the technology for MPS. The level of technological sophistication and integration grows as you move up the proverbial food chain for advanced services.

The challenge for most imaging firms is to balance the focus on offering services against the lure of being a product-centric company focusing solely on technological development. For firms shifting to a services-led business model, the decision filter is straight forward for examining technology. Will this technology improve my results in one of two key areas?  Will it allow me to provide new services to my customer and drive incremental revenue and profit to my firm? Or, will it allow me to operate more efficiently and effectively, reducing costs?

From a customer perspective the technology required for MPS should be transparent. It should enable vendor performance as well as provide the ability to track vendor performance. It should provide you with stats in real time. it should be comprehensive in terms of scale and support for the entire organization, and it should be delivered based upon a thorough understanding of your firm’s objectives and your internal user’s needs and requirements.

While technology is only one of the five key pillars of delivering managed print services (the others being people, knowledge, metrics, and partnerships), it is a critical enabler for the other four pillars. For example, a cloud-based system for managing fleets provides a perfectly scalable and global solution critical for a client with a global fleet. Even the most basic MPS engagements rely on software (technology) to remotely monitor the fleet. To circle back to the original question: Yes, technology is important. Without a doubt.

Ed Crowley has more than 20 years of experience in the imaging industry including key leadership positions at QMS, DataProducts and Lexmark. He was the senior manager for the global marketing and product strategy in Lexmark’s PS&SD Division. Crowley is a board member of the MPSA and a speaker at conferences worldwide on the topics of brand strategy, the hardcopy markets and marketing strategy and intelligence.