Four Keys to Choosing the Right MPS Provider

There is no question that gaining control over an enterprise’s print environment can yield significant savings. IDC research has found that an organization with 1,000 knowledge workers may lose up to $6 million annually if it fails to adequately manage its information. And in addition to time that is wasted searching for documents and data, IDC points out there is also the hidden cost of poorly-based decisions when critical information is not available.

While managed print services (MPS) projects hold the promise of improving an organization’s bottom-line by avoiding such costly inefficiencies, not all end up realizing the benefits projected when the engagement began. Ensuring success starts as all good business decisions do – with choosing the right partner.

Here are four things to be considered to ensure that your MPS provider delivers success:

1. The ability to provide a sound assessment. Make sure your organization works with an MPS provider that will at the very outset conduct a complete assessment of the organization. If your organization’s footprint is too large for every part of it to be assessed, it is essential that the provider base the assessment on a sample that is representative of the organization as a whole. And the analysis shouldn’t just focus on hardcopy devices, break-fix costs and supplies. It should also give you a complete picture of your document workflows, imaging and archiving processes, and sustainability issues.
2. Ask how the provider will implement change. A common pitfall is the lack of employee compliance with the changes proposed by the MPS provider. The number one reason that technology initiatives fail is end-user resistance or lack of understanding. Even though management has signed-off on proposed changes to procedures and processes, that does not mean that employees will actually follow the recommendations.The MPS provider needs to have a proven methodology for ensuring that the proposed changes are implemented. Be sure to ask your potential MPS provider about the change management techniques they will use to inform employees about the purpose and benefits of the proposed changes and motivate them to implement and comply with the recommended changes to work flow and processes.
3. Set out your organization’s expectations in service-level agreements. It is also a good practice for the company to require that the MPS provider agree to a number of service-level agreements (SLAs) concerning the provider’s key deliverables and deadlines. Regular reporting on compliance with the SLAs will keep the company informed of the progress of the MPS engagement and of any issues that need to be addressed or resolved.
4. Choose a provider with the experience and solutions to meet evolving needs. Finally, the enterprise should look beyond its needs today. Choose an MPS provider that has the proven technology and expertise to address the organization’s evolving needs with innovative IT and document processing solutions. Doing so will help your organization keep pace with important evolving trends; including the cloud, a growing mobile workforce, remote management, hard-copy and paper-based document security, regulatory compliance, digital document management and sustainability.

Addressing these four areas with your prospective MPS provider up-front will go a long way toward making sure the relationship develops into a true partnership and delivers the cost-efficiencies, lasting process improvements, and sustainability benefits that define success.

Source: http://mdsblog.ricoh-usa.com

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CompTIA Study: Managed Print Services On the Rise

Managed print services (MPS) finally seem to be gaining moment but the market for MPS services will still face some challenges, according to a recent study by CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry Association.

The CompTIA study, entitled Examining the Print and Document Management Market, has some mixed results. Three out of four companies surveyed said that going paperless and adopting green initiatives is important to them. But those companies are also realists. They know printing is a huge part of their day-to-day business operations.

So if they must print, why not adopt a managed print services strategy to cut costs and free up staff? We’ve seen recent examples of this when an Ohio community college contracted Xerox for managed print services and Ricoh signed a managed document services deal with Benedict College. Both were done in an effort to cut costs.

The survey included 400 IT and business executives who are directly involved in their company’s print and managed document operations. The majority said they would like to see maintenance and management around their printing operations improve to achieve greater uptime rates.

The study included small businesses and enterprises and revealed a sharp difference between the two: About half of the enterprises said they already use managed print services in some capacity, while only 20 percent of small businesses do so. CompTIA Vice President of Research Tim Herbert attributed the gap to more complex printing needs for higher organizations.

The study also found that firms currently offering managed print services anticipate strong double-digit year-over-year growth, in some cases approaching 60 percent growth. Those firms expect to see an increase in demand from Enterprises and SMBs, with falls in line with Bill DeStefanis’ assessment last week that SMBs are ready for managed document services.

Source:  www.mspmentor.net

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Ricoh India Annual General Meeting

Parent continues to remain optimistic about the future of its Indian subsidiary

The company held its AGM and was addressed by Mr. T. Takano MD and CEO Key highlights Broadly, the Copier printer business constitute about 80% of total turnover, digital printers about 3%, laser printers about 5% and IT enabled services and Managed document services constitute about 1% each of the total revenue of the company. Ricoh India has a unique business policy where by it is not at all competing with jobbers or for that matter companies like Canon. The main business of Ricoh India comes from clients like Pfizer, Siemens, Glaxosmith, HUL and such other large domestic and MNC players. Broadly, 40% of sales come from Government organizations including the PSU companies and the rest from the domestic and international giants. Currently, the company has about 70000 such customers and has direct distribution model for metro customers and about 250 dealers for sale in Tier 2 and 3 cities. Broadly, 60% of sales comes from Tier 2 and 3 cities and about 40% from Metros. Of the total sales of about Rs. 296 crore for FY'11, roughly 50% came from sale of equipment and the rest came from maintenance, lease and other services. Of the 50% sales from maintenance and other services, about 70% are from per copy print charges, which it charges based on a meter that is kept on its machine. This is a high margin business, as the company charges less on equipments and more on the per copy print charges which is more of recurring in nature and of healthy volumes. Management continues to remain optimistic about the future business prospects of the company and expects to grow the core copier business by about 12% every year. The digital printing business is a market of about Rs. 200 crore in India and is growing around 5% every year and Ricoh India is expected to grow in that range for next year. The margins in digital printers are higher than the traditional copier printers. The laser printing business is expected to grow around 14% every year. The real growth drivers according to the management are the IT business services which at this point of time constitute only about 1% each, and is expected to grow @25% every year. Ricoh India has acquired a company called Momentum Infocare in FY'11 at around Rs. 14.2 crore. Momentum Infocare is into core IT service business which provides software contents, cloud computing and such other software services. The whole object of Ricoh India is to create synergy by thus offering software requirements including scanning, hardware like computers, laptops etc along with its existing product line so as to be a complete hub of office automated solution provider. Ricoh India has already started offering the products of Momentum Infocare to its existing customers and vice versa. Thus going forward in next 3 years, the management wants its traditional copier print business to be about 45% of total turnover from current 80%, simply because of the significant growth in the other segment of businesses. For Q1 FY'12, momentum Infocare reported net sales of about Rs. 7.5 crore and was more or less breakeven during the first quarter even after restructuring exercise. During Q1 FY'12, there was a one-time acquisition costs of about Rs. 6.85 crore which was booked immediately, rather than capitalized. Further during Q1 FY'12, the government orders took more time than the normal, resulting in increase in fixed costs and to add to that about 100 new employees were hired and trained so as to ensure that company is able to sell the products of both Ricoh India and Momentum Infocare in a package format. All these resulted in higher costs and thus losses in Q1 FY'12. The management has indicated that the losses are temporary and one off in nature. Though initially margins may remain under pressure in coming quarter may be one or two, the margins are bound to improve going forward. The company imports by and large most of its machining equipments from the Parent in US $ currency and is hedged till next month. As long as Re does not breach Rs. 50, there will not be any major forex losses to worry about. But if Re breaches Rs. 50, then the forex losses can come. The company has a capex plan of about Rs. 60 crore for next couple of years, which may include some acquisitions as well. For Ricoh Parent, about 44% of its total sales come from Japan and the rest from the Rest of the World market. Of the rest of the world market, Asia Pacific region would constitute about 9% of the total sales and is the only market, which is growing in double digit. Thus according to the management, India and China both are very important markets for the Parent and it has no plans for any delisting. In fact it wants more and more product offerings to happen through its Indian and Chinese arms.  Source: www.indiainfoline.com

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