Xerox eConcierge – Showing Partners the Money

We’ve all wished at some point or another that we could wave your magic wand and poof… make money appear. But what if this was a reality with little or no effort on your end? With Xerox eConcierge, once you set up your storefront, recurring revenue is just that easy. What is Xerox eConcierge and how does it benefit our VARs?

Xerox eConcierge is a new service offered by Xerox and free to download at:
www.xerox.com/econciergesignup. It is a cloud-based, supplies management system that is one of the easiest ways for end-users to monitor and purchase supplies. And for our partners, this represents a new way for a partner to deliver, under their own brand, an incremental value to their customers in the form of this supplies management system, while securing the post-sale revenue stream in a way that changes the economics of being in the printer business for the partner.

Showing our partners the money

One of the main reasons Xerox eConcierge was create was to provide our partners with a way to recapture the supplies revenue on the hardware they sell.  If one thinks about the dynamics of the printer industry over the last few years, there has been quite a lot of pressure on margins, especially for those partners that are in the business of selling printers. It’s increasingly difficult to build a robust business on equipment alone. And in talking to our partners, we learned that probably only about 10% of them capture all the supplies revenue against the devices that they sell (and maybe 30% capture 15% of that).

So what we’ve done is create this very easy system  that allows a partner to attach that supplies revenue to the sale of a device. For example, a $1,000 printer or $2,000 multifunction device will provide about 3-5 times the amount of revenue in supplies over its lifetime. That’s exactly why we have designed Xerox eConcierge, to allow them to capture and make print/toner revenue a robust category for them once again. In addition to that, we have built in some opportunities to increase the service revenue for those of our partners that are authorized service providers. Again, we are providing several opportunities for multiple recurring revenue streams with minimal effort.

Free Service Warranties for customers and Recurring Revenue for partners

On top of making recurring revenue easier for our partners, if they sign up customers who have Xerox eConcierge installed for at least 30 days and order at least two suppliers per printer, they are eligible to receive a free service warranty coverage for each supported printer as long as they continue to order supplies through Xerox eConcierge. Customers receive savings benefits and reduced hassles knowing that they no longer have to worry about service warranties, while partners enjoy the recurring revenue. Once the partner’s eConcierge storefront is set up, the system handles the rest. No additional effort required.

What are the real dollars and cents? $250,000 in incremental supplies revenue per year

Numbers vary by partner, based on size of business, customer profile, and number of devices on managed print contracts today. For example, an average sized IT VAR or managed service provider has 50 customers and each office has an average of about 12 devices. Over the course of a year, if those  devices and those customers were on Xerox eConcierge,  this calculates into about $250,000 in incremental (and recurring) supplies revenue that for many of our partners isn’t being captured today.

So you have to do some digging into your own business to look at where Xerox eConcierge fits but you can check out more at our Website: www.xerox.com/econciergesignup.

So check that out, and we encourage you to look into how this can financially benefit your business.

Bob Schnyder is manager of Internet marketing programs at Xerox. Monthly guest blogs like this are part of The VAR Guy’s annual sponsorship program.