Managed Print Services: Nearing A Tipping Point?
For the third time in recent weeks, MSP software providers are pushing the managed print services (MPS) market forward. The latest example comes from Level Platforms, which offers managed print and cloud management capabilities in the new Managed Workplace 2011 R3 release. Somewhat similarly, LabTech Software and N-able Technologies have also been talking up managed print services in recent weeks. After several false starts, MSPmentor believes the managed print services market is finally poised for considerable channel growth. Here’s why.
Generally speaking, I think all of the major RMM (remote monitoring and management) software providers are introducing managed print capabilities. Level Platforms claims its latest release, Managed Workplace 2011 R3, allows MSPs to:
“comprehensively monitor and manage printing and imaging assets, optimizing the return on investment of their customers’ document production processes through increased printer uptime, reduced costs and new programs including just-in-time supply replenishment and Cost-per-Copy programs.”
Software Companies Back Managed Print Services
The new Level Platforms release debuts a few weeks after the IT Nation conference, where ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini demonstrated managed print services integrated with LabTech and ConnectWise software. Also, N-able and its technology partners heavily promoted managed print services during the N-able Partner Summit in October 2011.
Bottom line: Perhaps the managed print services market is beginning to reach a tipping point in the channel. Over the past two years or so, printer companies have increasingly promoted managed print services. Xerox continues to evangelize its PagePack and eConcierge services. And Konica Minolta is planning a partner conference in January 2011 to further the managed print discussion.
Managed Print Services’ Steady Rise
Here’s the challenge: Many of those printer companies don’t have deep relationships with MSPs. In 2010, only about 20 percent of top MSPs offered managed print services, according to last year’s MSPmentor 100 survey. But this year’s MSPmentor 100 survey — which continues through Dec. 23, 2011 — indicates that nearly 30 percent of MSPs offer managed print services, according to preliminary survey data.
What’s behind the uptick? I believe RMM software providers deserve the credit, pulling printer companies into their conferences and helping MSPs to find potential recurring revenues that they’ve previously overlooked. Photizo Group also deserves some credit; the company has organized a range of managed print services conferences and continually bangs the drum for MPS.
Still, I’m not suggesting managed print services will become a widespread service for MSPs. Plenty of MSPs have tried managed print services, only to abandon the model because of sales, pricing and support challenges.
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Joe,
I couldn’t agree with you more. In the North American market we definitely see MSP’s moving more aggressively into MPS. In fact, this is one of the major topics at our Transformation conference next spring. I do think there are challenges for MSPs, not just in pricing, but also in services delivery. The reality is that while PC’s, printers, MFP’s, and servers are all ‘infrastructure’ that can be monitored remotely, actual management of these devices can be quite different. And, as you pointed out, the pricing and sales challenges are not insignificant. In North America, 2012 might just be the year of the MSP in the MPS space!
Ed, Good luck with the Transformation conference and let us know what trends emerge.
-jp
Hi All,
I came across this article in one of my feeds and I wanted to write a quick comment about it. Today Level Platforms officially launched the Managed Workplace 2011 r3 version of the software. I try to run as much of my operational/support stuff through the product as I can. I have reviewed different managed print packages and subscriptions that talk to my PSA, but they all introduced more software, installable agents, different workflows, and various email and report mechanisms that were not a fit for us. Since we have our RMM tool installed at sites all over the country, the last thing I want to do is install and support more stuff. So for us managed print wasn’t really too interesting. But now that its all in my RMM package that I use – it’s a no brainer!
Today I installed the r3 Product and deployed it to all of my sites. I have gone ahead and created some policy’s and applied it to groups of printers across multiple sites. Funny enough within an hour of deployment I had 2 printers out there that triggered on low toner alerts. The low toner alerts then flowed over to my PSA as a ticket. Now that they are in my PSA I just tagged them as sales opportunity’s for the sales team to look at and work. Its neat to have the tool do research for me and find opportunity’s for us. For our team, not introducing another tool to have the tech teams learn and manage is a HUGE win. It’s also pretty cool to be able to show a customer a report that can show them that when everyone leaves for the day, the color copies go up as homework gets printed for the kids 🙂
I am super excited for what the managed print modules can do for our customers within our Level Platforms system. I don’t think we will be going crazy and making Managed Print contracts where we charge a price per page – but we are not closing the door either. All in all this feature is going to be a huge win for us to know when a toner is low. This feature has been talked about for a while, and now its here and in production.
It’s a real value add for us to be able to get in front of tasks like this, versus being told the printer is dead when we cant get onsite and we get unhappy customers. This year alone we had 2 customer’s who put the toners into the printers and didn’t get all of the packing strips off the toner and it caused havoc for us while we had to get new parts and clean the mess.
All in all, the Managed Print feature is really cool and will help us help our customers. If you guys ever think of doing an updated Level review or in-depth report on the product – let me know, I would be happy to assist!
Thanks for your time!
Charles L
Charles L,
Thanks for your note. While MSPmentor doesn’t run product reviews, we definitely listen closely to MSPs — such as you — who have first-hand experience with key platforms. Please keep us posted as you leverage r3 in additional ways. And thanks for reading MSPmentor.
-jp
I agree the integration of the monitoring tools into the management tools will go a long way to driving MPS in Managed Service Provider’s. Still the current MPS landscape is way too confusing for the average MSP/VAR. There are still challenges with MSP entering the market , at the top of the list, is convincing the end user, that this is a better approach that will save them money and improve productivity. Although the new survey information is interesting and promising, it would be more interesting to find out how much revenue/margin is generated by the 20% that were in the MPS market for over a year. It is one thing to “offer”, it is another to sell.
Bill@5: I agree with your constructive criticism. I’ll further the point by sharing my own bias — I don’t think managed print is about saving customers money. In some cases, I believe, customers could wind up spending more on a managed print solution vs. non-managed.
That said, I think managed print is really about the end-user experience. No more broken printers, out of ink, out of paper problems. The printers just work and users can get their jobs done… And when a problem pops up, MSPs can solve many of the issues remotely…
-jp