The topic was posted by Michael O'Leary, Director- Document Outsourcing at Info Trends.
A sampling of the responses:
"...I hope I did make this point in my explanation--print management is a services-led sales strategy. You will sell equipment but frequently that revenue stream becomes a fulfillment of the print management engagement rather than the entry point..."
- Tom Callinan
"...One of the biggest problems I find in discussing MPS, or PM or any other name that is developed, is that no one is working from the same definition..."
- Shawn Robison
"...I don’t view print management or MPS as new; they are evolving, but what doesn’t? I sold “fleet management” agreements inside of facilities management (FM) agreements for the last 10+ years (A services-led sales approach). Admittedly, we didn’t look at the cost to print at the individual asset level other than trying to move prints to copier-based products or the production center (a mistake)..."
- Tom Callinan
"... in our definition Print Management is two components: Printing Management and Printer Management.
Printer Management is also mostly known out there as MPS. It has everything to do with the device; meter reads, supplies reporting, supplies fulfillment, break-fix information, and various alerts as to what is happening on the machine..."
- John MacInnes, President & CEO Print Audit
"...one company I recently interviewed (one of the largest managed print services installations in Europe) had a very good perspective on this. They said (and I paraphrase a bit here): "Most vendors are approaching Managed Print Services as 'wrapping' services around hardware in order to sell more hardware."
"What we want, and where the market is moving to, is for a vendor to offer me all of the services required to manage my fleet and hardcopy strategy just like I manage any other IT technology. And oh, by the way, if they provide the hardware also, that's a bonus."
- Ed Crowley, Industry Pundit - Managed Print Services
### Update ###
This great discussion is done brewing, having been removed from the group. It was good while it lasted.
Click to email me.
2/22/09
"...one company I recently interviewed (one of the largest managed print services installations in Europe) had a very good perspective on this. They said (and I paraphrase a bit here): "Most vendors are approaching Managed Print Services as 'wrapping' services around hardware in order to sell more hardware."
ReplyDeleteI would say that's the most accurate definition.