I’ve said it many times, “ the path to MpS nirvana is littered with the skeleton frames of burnt out MpS Managers, Directors and Sales People”.
No sour grapes -
I’m sure there are dozens of good reasons for termination and every separation has at least two stories. In the past decade I've been a Practice Manager, advisor and support specialist. I’ve thrived, struggled and witnessed good people churned under the seven step, "xerographic process".
And that’s exactly what I mean - the copier niche can destroy vision, creativity, and dumb down every business solution into 30 day segments. Managed print Services is the latest victim, with managed IT services right behind.
Some of our industry leaders are no more than box movers - they confuse ‘applications’ with business solutions and project hubris as wisdom. Take a trip through the LinkedIN community and notice how many times we compliment each other or brag about the latest sale, certification, trip or baseball team we're associated.
It is one big, circle-jerk.
These are observations not complaints. We all get what we deserve and this industry deserves its decent into obscurity.
But not just yet.
I've seen this before, from above and below and can list cautionary red-flags for the folks still selling MpS.
Here are some signs indicating you should give my friend Steve Spencer(MpS recruiter) a call:
lie
lack of vision
too many rules
change the rules
filter out all creativity
do not see beyond 30 day cycles
incentivize for equipment sales only
promote month/qtr/year end specials
narrow-minded C-Level management
put MpS under the service department
dependent on hardware/service revenue
refuse to integrate MpS and Managed IT services
bad, complicated or non-existent compensation plans
a corporate culture centered around past copier success
focus on leasing and linking equipment inside MpS deals
install a C-level executive with little or no experience beyond the box
enforce identical activity expectations for support specialists and down the street copier sales people
say "X is a major part of the business", yet majority of revenue is copier generated
utilize a foggy compensation plan & do not enforce gates on sales teams
Here's a big one: Does your leadership yell? Do your C-Level meetings include loud voices, hands slapping desks and belligerent attitudes?
“You’ve got to be tough out there”
“This industry isn’t for the thin skinned”
“If you can’t take this, you’ll never make it in sales”
I’m no snowflake. This type of behavior says leagues about the yeller and the enabling organization. At the very least this is unprofessional - would management slam desks or scream at prospects?
When people communicate in this manner, the organization is:
Insecure
Afraid
Negative
This is not normal behavior - Leave. Now. Call Steve.
Not every organization operates like this, I bet not many at all. But if you're in one, in any industry, consider your self-worth and get the hell out. It's a big world. No matter your current skill set or personal/professional goals, there are companies and positions out here for you.
2/2018 I remember the first time somebody said to me, "We've been doing managed print services for 20 years..." that was ITEX, 2008. Which of course meant this person had been optimizing, assessing, rightsizing, and billing service and supplies on a cost-per-image basis - back in 1988.
"What? Did you bill for re-inked ribbons?" He was not amused.
Back then, there was a bunch of talk about how MPS was nothing new; the facilities folks had been assessing fleets and selling bodies for years. The Electronic Document Management guys had been selling scan-to-file for at least a decade and the toner re-manufacturers were old hats at dumpster diving for cores.
Revolution.
The copier-heads saw MpS as a scam; nothing more than a marketing ploy effectively duplicating what they had been doing since 1970. They laid claim to managed print services.
The move into managed print services took a few years, as OEM after OEM assembled and rolled out their unique program. Back then, most programs supported a homogenous fleet meaning the "best" MpS solution was one that included the brand "I SELL" versus the brands customers currently utilized - "Rip And Replace" took on a significant meaning.
Months passed. Iterations of software like PrintAudi, FM-Audit, and PrintFleet. WebJet Admin was HP's software - the most expensive free software you could ever want. Still, monitoring software was in its infancy.
The MpS world struggled to move away from faxed and manually collected meter reads. Billing was half the challenge, managing toner shipments incorrectly morphed profitable contracts into nightmare losses.
Shipping costs, undefined commission structures, premature exchanges of toner, and blown motherboards killed many MpS endeavors. The smart guys looked at meter reads and toner usage data as possible predictors. Algorithms were developed and applied to create predictive models of toner usage down to the device.
Golden Age of MpS.
As MpS matured, the advanced players moved from 'hardware agnostic' to 'hardware neutral' covering multiple vendors' devices.
Toner fillers and re-manufacturers got into the game as well, assembling and providing managed print services programs complete with data collection agents, mapping software bundled with sales training, and marketing deliverables.
Everybody, even traditional IT VARs, jumped into the MpS ocean. MpS was full of possibilities, a departure from copiers toward IT and beyond. ITEX stacked the floor with MpS providers and training sessions - we even had a Managed Print Services Conference.
But a funny thing happened on the way to MpS nirvana. By 2015 MpS had come full circle - the pioneers of the MPS rarely appear, MPS consulting firms fade away leaving MpS training to the "drill and fills". Manufacturers release dozens of A4 devices like it was always their idea. In an interesting twist of irony, the biggest critics of managed print services find themselves leading MpS organizations.
Everyone ignored the Signs. Small OEDs slipped into history or glommed on to bigger dealers - circling the wagons and selling out. Dawn of The Planet of the Mega Dealer
The Late, Great MpS
Today, 2018 dealers, full of hubris and dripping with chunk-watches, brag about 30% cost reductions, all the while installing A3 for end users who've forgotten what tabloid paper looks like. Prospects implement print policies on their own, realizing the folly of letting companies that derive revenue from prints help them reduce print.
Founding members of the industry transform:
Lexmark, once an American darling, sells out to an arch enemy. Xerox, a one-time American, corporate icon, begs her neighbor for shelter. HP, Lady Blue, suffers through Edgeline, TouchPad and Leo, breaks in two and emerges stronger.
This has happened before, industries rise and fall. Weaving machines displace textile workers. Horsepower replaces manpower. Automobiles supplant horses. One day soon, managed print services will be the buggy-whip of the once prevalent, Copier Industry.
3,650 Days
