SELLING TO THE SMBtheimagingchannel.com/print_issues/Oct_15.pdfdefine the smb office technology...

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PACKAGED SOLUTIONS DEFINE THE SMB OFFICE TECHNOLOGY LANDSCAPE

DEMYSTIFYING THE DESIGN OF A DOCUMENT STRATEGY

WHAT THE HECKHAPPENED? FROM ONE-TO-ONE SELLING TO ONE-TO-MANY BUYING

HOW TO CHOOSETHE RIGHT PRICING MODEL

SELLING TO THE SMB

SPEAKEASY:Q&A WITH MONA ABUTALEB,

MINDSHIFT

+

http://theimagingchannel.com/


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4 www.theimagingchannel.com

October 2015 volume 6, no. 4

15Proposed logo revision, 07/2010, EH

pg.

10

pg.

pg.

30IN EVERY ISSUE

6 Editor’s Letter Contributors 8 The Imaging Channel Online 9 Infographic: The MPS Market in 2015

10 Speakeasy: IT From the Outside Q&A With Mona Abutaleb by PATRICIA AMES

15 Demystifying the Design of a Document Strategy by KEVIN CRAINE

20 Packaged Solutions Define the SMB Office Technology Landscape by ROBERT PALMER

27 How to Choose the Right Pricing Model by MARTIN DE MARTINI, Y SOFT

30 What The Heck Happened? From One-to-One Selling to One-to-Many Buying BY BRAD RODERICK, TONERCYCLE/INKCYCLE

34 More Than an Imaging Supplier, Digitek’s Goal is ‘Trusted Advisor’ by AMY WEISS

38 Channel Chat: Selling to the SMB

IN THIS ISSUE

004 TICTOC.indd 4 9/28/15 2:27 PM


October 2015 volume 6, no. 4

15Proposed logo revision, 07/2010, EH

pg.

10

pg.

pg.

30IN EVERY ISSUE

6 Editor’s Letter Contributors 8 The Imaging Channel Online 9 Infographic: The MPS Market in 2015

10 Speakeasy: IT From the Outside Q&A With Mona Abutaleb by PATRICIA AMES

15 Demystifying the Design of a Document Strategy by KEVIN CRAINE

20 Packaged Solutions Define the SMB Office Technology Landscape by ROBERT PALMER

27 How to Choose the Right Pricing Model by MARTIN DE MARTINI, Y SOFT

30 What The Heck Happened? From One-to-One Selling to One-to-Many Buying BY BRAD RODERICK, TONERCYCLE/INKCYCLE

34 More Than an Imaging Supplier, Digitek’s Goal is ‘Trusted Advisor’ by AMY WEISS

38 Channel Chat: Selling to the SMB

IN THIS ISSUE

004 TICTOC.indd 4 9/28/15 2:27 PM

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Volume 6, Issue 4theimagingchannel.com

from THE EDITOR


Proposed logo revision, 07/2010, EH

PUBLISHER & EDITOR-AT-LARGE Patricia Ames

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Amy Weiss

CHIEF ANALYST Robert Palmer

ART DIRECTOR Susan Kidwell

REACHING THE STAFFStaff may be reached via e-mail, tele-phone or mail. A list of contact informa-tion is also available online at http://www.theimagingchannel.com.

E-MAIL: To e-mail any member of the staff, please use the following form: [email protected]

EDITORIAL OFFICE (weekdays, 8:00am – 5:00pm ET)Telephone: 407-900-1885

CORPORATE OFFICE (weekdays, 8:30am – 5:30pm PT)Telephone: 702-720-4889Fax: 440-625-5556

The Imaging Channel is published quarterly by BPO Media. Inquiries, back issue requests, and address changes: Email [email protected] or mail to: 840 S. Rancho Dr., Suite 4-558, Las Vegas, NV 89106

© Copyright 2015 by BPO Media. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. Reproductions in whole or part prohibited except by written permission.

The information in this magazine has not undergone any formal testing by BPO Media and is distributed without any war-ranty expressed or implied. Implementation or use of any information contained herein is the reader’s sole responsibility. While the information has been reviewed for accura-cy, there is no guarantee that the same or similar results may be achieved in all envi-ronments. Technical inaccuracies may result from printing errors and/or new developments in the industry.

Media Kits and Reprints: Direct your requests to [email protected]

I started off this morning with a monster migraine and the knowledge that I had to write a column for this issue on selling to the SMB. You might suspect that is not the most

auspicious start to the day, and you might be right. I’m no creative genius who turns suffering into art. I am, however, a huge fan of metaphors, and as I tiptoed around the slowly receding pain, being careful not to aggravate it into returning, I realized I had plenty of metaphors to work with.

I don’t mean to say the SMB is painful, or a giant headache. That’s not where I’m going with my metaphors at all. The point is more that there are potential pain points in any type of business dealings. It’s important to know what they are and what might trigger them, and how to deal with them when they do pop up.

Our “Channel Chat” column presented me with a lot of food for thought as I continued my metaphoric dive into the potential pain points of the SMB. The perspectives presented by the panel this month were particularly insightful, especially as I considered their take on things from my own perspective as an SMB customer.

Muratec’s Lou Stricklin, for instance, points out that SMB customers tend to be more nimble in their decision making than an enterprise account. This is true — the lack of red tape and layers of corporate approval is a wonderful advantage to the SMB. It also made me think of Brad Roderick’s article, “From One-to-One Selling to One-to-Many Buying.” Group buying decisions are a definite pain point for any salesperson, and although they certainly exist in the SMB, they become more layered and complicated as the size of the group — and business — increases. An average of

5.4 people are now involved in most B2B buying decisions. Talk about a headache.

Also important to the SMB is flexibility and agility. The SMB needs to do more with less, and is looking to its partners for the support and services with which to do it. Square 9’s Stephen Young and Epson’s Larry Trevarthen both point out that technology is leveling the playing field and bringing solutions once only available to the enterprise to the SMB. Robert Palmer touches on this concept a bit as well in his article, “Packaged Solutions Define the SMB Office Technology Landscape,” as he notes how vendors are rolling out solutions aimed specifically at the SMB customer.

Another positive/negative aspect to the SMB is their loyalty. As a couple of our panelists point out, SMB customers can be tremendously loyal to their partners. This is great for the existing partner, but tricky for a new player trying to break into the space and looking to convert or acquire a new SMB customer. Martin de Martini provides an example of how to be a trusted partner in his article “How to Choose the Right Pricing Model” — limited budgets also being one of the challenges noted by the Channel Chat panel.

Possibly the biggest takeaway from the panel in this issue is the fact that they enjoy working with their SMB partners. The challenges go hand-in-hand with the benefits, and create an overall positive experience. There are pain points to be sure — but what’s life without a little pain? And is there any better feeling in the world than eliminating pain, whether for yourself or someone else?

Amy WeissEditor-in-Chief

BPO Media strives to be an environmentally friendly company. Please help us by sending address corrections

or removals by email to [email protected].

006_EdLetter_Mast.indd 6 9/29/15 11:06 AM

Volume 6, Issue 4theimagingchannel.com

from THE EDITOR



PUBLISHER & EDITOR-AT-LARGE Patricia Ames

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Amy Weiss

CHIEF ANALYST Robert Palmer

ART DIRECTOR Susan Kidwell

REACHING THE STAFFStaff may be reached via e-mail, tele-phone or mail. A list of contact informa-tion is also available online at http://www.theimagingchannel.com.

E-MAIL: To e-mail any member of the staff, please use the following form: [email protected]

EDITORIAL OFFICE (weekdays, 8:00am – 5:00pm ET)Telephone: 407-900-1885

CORPORATE OFFICE (weekdays, 8:30am – 5:30pm PT)Telephone: 702-720-4889Fax: 440-625-5556

The Imaging Channel is published quarterly by BPO Media. Inquiries, back issue requests, and address changes: Email [email protected] or mail to: 840 S. Rancho Dr., Suite 4-558, Las Vegas, NV 89106

© Copyright 2015 by BPO Media. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. Reproductions in whole or part prohibited except by written permission.

The information in this magazine has not undergone any formal testing by BPO Media and is distributed without any war-ranty expressed or implied. Implementation or use of any information contained herein is the reader’s sole responsibility. While the information has been reviewed for accura-cy, there is no guarantee that the same or similar results may be achieved in all envi-ronments. Technical inaccuracies may result from printing errors and/or new developments in the industry.

Media Kits and Reprints: Direct your requests to [email protected]

I started off this morning with a monster migraine and the knowledge that I had to write a column for this issue on selling to the SMB. You might suspect that is not the most

auspicious start to the day, and you might be right. I’m no creative genius who turns suffering into art. I am, however, a huge fan of metaphors, and as I tiptoed around the slowly receding pain, being careful not to aggravate it into returning, I realized I had plenty of metaphors to work with.

I don’t mean to say the SMB is painful, or a giant headache. That’s not where I’m going with my metaphors at all. The point is more that there are potential pain points in any type of business dealings. It’s important to know what they are and what might trigger them, and how to deal with them when they do pop up.

Our “Channel Chat” column presented me with a lot of food for thought as I continued my metaphoric dive into the potential pain points of the SMB. The perspectives presented by the panel this month were particularly insightful, especially as I considered their take on things from my own perspective as an SMB customer.

Muratec’s Lou Stricklin, for instance, points out that SMB customers tend to be more nimble in their decision making than an enterprise account. This is true — the lack of red tape and layers of corporate approval is a wonderful advantage to the SMB. It also made me think of Brad Roderick’s article, “From One-to-One Selling to One-to-Many Buying.” Group buying decisions are a definite pain point for any salesperson, and although they certainly exist in the SMB, they become more layered and complicated as the size of the group — and business — increases. An average of

5.4 people are now involved in most B2B buying decisions. Talk about a headache.

Also important to the SMB is flexibility and agility. The SMB needs to do more with less, and is looking to its partners for the support and services with which to do it. Square 9’s Stephen Young and Epson’s Larry Trevarthen both point out that technology is leveling the playing field and bringing solutions once only available to the enterprise to the SMB. Robert Palmer touches on this concept a bit as well in his article, “Packaged Solutions Define the SMB Office Technology Landscape,” as he notes how vendors are rolling out solutions aimed specifically at the SMB customer.

Another positive/negative aspect to the SMB is their loyalty. As a couple of our panelists point out, SMB customers can be tremendously loyal to their partners. This is great for the existing partner, but tricky for a new player trying to break into the space and looking to convert or acquire a new SMB customer. Martin de Martini provides an example of how to be a trusted partner in his article “How to Choose the Right Pricing Model” — limited budgets also being one of the challenges noted by the Channel Chat panel.

Possibly the biggest takeaway from the panel in this issue is the fact that they enjoy working with their SMB partners. The challenges go hand-in-hand with the benefits, and create an overall positive experience. There are pain points to be sure — but what’s life without a little pain? And is there any better feeling in the world than eliminating pain, whether for yourself or someone else?

Amy WeissEditor-in-Chief

BPO Media strives to be an environmentally friendly company. Please help us by sending address corrections

or removals by email to [email protected].

006_EdLetter_Mast.indd 6 9/29/15 11:06 AM ad template.indd 16 9/29/15 9:53 AM

http://bpomedia.com/


ONLINEtheimagingchannel.com{ }

Visit The Imaging Channel Website For Exclusive Blogs and Product Profiles

� Your ERP, Your Way: DPOE Gears Up With MWAi FORZA SAP by Patricia Ames

� Every Communication is Critical by Brad Banyas

� The Future of Print: The Ever-Growing Document Outsourcing Industry by Toni DuGal

� HP Inc. — Will It Make a Difference? by Greg Walters

� What Does a Good Entry-Level Sales Candidate Look Like? by Steven Branstetter

� Jim Lyons Observations: Summer Reading – Farming and Hunting by Jim Lyons

� When it Comes to Security, the Best Defense is a Good Offense by Amy Weiss

Connect With UsWe want to stay connected with you, and we love to hang out on Twitter! In addition to the @ImagingChannel Twitter feed, follow us individually: @atweiss (Amy Weiss), @palmerrg (Robert Palmer) and @OTGPublisher (Patricia Ames). We look forward to building a rapport with you both in print and online.

Miss an Issue of The Imaging Channel?Full issues of The Imaging Channel are available in a digital edition at http://www. theimagingchannel.com/index.php/getting-started/digital-editions

Industry Blogs

� Samsung Touts Mobility and Solutions at 2015 National Dealer Summit

� Xerox Targets SMB With New Channel Partner Initiative

� HP Refreshes Instant Ink Program, Offers MFP Bundles With Up to Two Years of Ink

� Memjet Sues HP, Claims Patent Infringement of Page-Wide Printing Technology

� Epson’s EcoTank Rollout for North America: Is the Old Ink Cartridge Doomed?

� Lexmark Posts Revenue Decline and Net Loss in Q2, But Business Mix is Improving

Analyst Corner

Insights and thoughts from members of the imaging industry

� Comparison of Four Color A4 Small Workteam MFP Devices: Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE C250iF, Kyocera ECOSYS M6526cidn, Xerox WorkCentre 6655/X, and HP Officejet Enterprise Color Flow MFP X585z.

� Back to School Comparison of Three A4 Personal Color MFP Inkjets: Canon PIXMA MG3620, HP Deskjet 2540 e-AiO, and Epson Expression Home XP-320.

� Comparison of Four Small Office/Home Office A4 Color AiO Inkjets: Epson WorkForce ET-4500 EcoTank, Brother MFC-J485DW, HP Officejet 4630 e-AiO and Canon PIXMA MX492.

The gapTCO Report

The Imaging Channel’s Chief Analyst Robert Palmer breaks down the big stories

Each month gap Intelligence and The Imaging Channel bring you the gapTCO, an intuitive, graphical user experience designed to

allow simple and easy analysis of the total cost of ownership of printer and MFP devices.

008Online.indd 8 9/28/15 2:27 PM


ONLINEtheimagingchannel.com{ }

Visit The Imaging Channel Website For Exclusive Blogs and Product Profiles

� Your ERP, Your Way: DPOE Gears Up With MWAi FORZA SAP by Patricia Ames

� Every Communication is Critical by Brad Banyas

� The Future of Print: The Ever-Growing Document Outsourcing Industry by Toni DuGal

� HP Inc. — Will It Make a Difference? by Greg Walters

� What Does a Good Entry-Level Sales Candidate Look Like? by Steven Branstetter

� Jim Lyons Observations: Summer Reading – Farming and Hunting by Jim Lyons

� When it Comes to Security, the Best Defense is a Good Offense by Amy Weiss

Connect With UsWe want to stay connected with you, and we love to hang out on Twitter! In addition to the @ImagingChannel Twitter feed, follow us individually: @atweiss (Amy Weiss), @palmerrg (Robert Palmer) and @OTGPublisher (Patricia Ames). We look forward to building a rapport with you both in print and online.

Miss an Issue of The Imaging Channel?Full issues of The Imaging Channel are available in a digital edition at http://www. theimagingchannel.com/index.php/getting-started/digital-editions

Industry Blogs

� Samsung Touts Mobility and Solutions at 2015 National Dealer Summit

� Xerox Targets SMB With New Channel Partner Initiative

� HP Refreshes Instant Ink Program, Offers MFP Bundles With Up to Two Years of Ink

� Memjet Sues HP, Claims Patent Infringement of Page-Wide Printing Technology

� Epson’s EcoTank Rollout for North America: Is the Old Ink Cartridge Doomed?

� Lexmark Posts Revenue Decline and Net Loss in Q2, But Business Mix is Improving

Analyst Corner

Insights and thoughts from members of the imaging industry

� Comparison of Four Color A4 Small Workteam MFP Devices: Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE C250iF, Kyocera ECOSYS M6526cidn, Xerox WorkCentre 6655/X, and HP Officejet Enterprise Color Flow MFP X585z.

� Back to School Comparison of Three A4 Personal Color MFP Inkjets: Canon PIXMA MG3620, HP Deskjet 2540 e-AiO, and Epson Expression Home XP-320.

� Comparison of Four Small Office/Home Office A4 Color AiO Inkjets: Epson WorkForce ET-4500 EcoTank, Brother MFC-J485DW, HP Officejet 4630 e-AiO and Canon PIXMA MX492.

The gapTCO Report

The Imaging Channel’s Chief Analyst Robert Palmer breaks down the big stories

Each month gap Intelligence and The Imaging Channel bring you the gapTCO, an intuitive, graphical user experience designed to

allow simple and easy analysis of the total cost of ownership of printer and MFP devices.

008Online.indd 8 9/28/15 2:27 PM

Source: CompTIA Managed Print Services Topics survey, June 2015Copyright (c) 2014 CompTIA Properties, LLC. All Rights Reserved. | CompTIA.org

The Managed Print Marketin 2015

New clientacquisition

40%60%

Existing client growth

Health care52%

Legal32%

Education40%

Finance30%

State & LocalGovernment

23%

Retail16%

FederalGovernment

13%

Other2%

Health care is the vertical market MPS providers are most interested in learning how to sell into. When asked to choose three, it topped the list, ahead of education and legal. 23% of respondents were not interested in learning more about any additional verticals

Vertical Markets: Health Care is Hot

Would you like information on selling into any of these verticalmarkets?

MPS Businesses are Growing

45%38%

15%

1%1%

The majority of �rms report that business has grown over the past 12 months, and nearly half report signi�cant growth.

New client acquisition is the predominantsource of growth, although existing clientsaccount for 40%.

Grown signi�cantly

(10% or more)

Grown modestly

Flat/no

change

Decreasedmodestly

Decreasedsigni�cantly

(drop of10% or more)

October 2015 9

infographic

009infographic.indd 9 9/28/15 2:28 PM


SPEAKEASY:IT From the OutsideQ&A With Mona Abutaleb

BY PATRICIA AMES

THE IMAGING CHANNEL had the chance recently to meet with Mona Abutaleb, president

and CEO of mindSHIFT Technologies, and discuss that firm’s in-tegration into the Ricoh Americas family. Of course there were

a few surprises. Join me in the SpeakEasy.

What is your current state of mind?I’m probably more positive about our industry today, and about mindSHIFT within the industry, than I’ve ever been. A part of it is Ricoh, but a lot of it is the industry. Cloud is very in vogue. It’s highly accepted now, so it is a great time for the industry. And then there is Ricoh. We’re only

a little over a year into the ac-quisition, and they have been a fabulous parent. I’ve been on both sides of the equation before — I know how it feels with a good ac-quisition and a bad one. This one is really good. A big part of it is the businesses that we’re in, and the convergence of those busi-nesses — it’s a very logical con-vergence. Another part of it is just who Ricoh is, the Ricoh Americas team; they’re just a great team to work for.

Speakeasy_1015TIC.indd 10 9/28/15 2:20 PM


SPEAKEASY:IT From the OutsideQ&A With Mona Abutaleb

BY PATRICIA AMES

THE IMAGING CHANNEL had the chance recently to meet with Mona Abutaleb, president

and CEO of mindSHIFT Technologies, and discuss that firm’s in-tegration into the Ricoh Americas family. Of course there were

a few surprises. Join me in the SpeakEasy.

What is your current state of mind?I’m probably more positive about our industry today, and about mindSHIFT within the industry, than I’ve ever been. A part of it is Ricoh, but a lot of it is the industry. Cloud is very in vogue. It’s highly accepted now, so it is a great time for the industry. And then there is Ricoh. We’re only

a little over a year into the ac-quisition, and they have been a fabulous parent. I’ve been on both sides of the equation before — I know how it feels with a good ac-quisition and a bad one. This one is really good. A big part of it is the businesses that we’re in, and the convergence of those busi-nesses — it’s a very logical con-vergence. Another part of it is just who Ricoh is, the Ricoh Americas team; they’re just a great team to work for.


October 2015 11

How many people are working at mindSHIFT?Almost 900. We just did an inte-gration — Ricoh had a small IT services team, mindSHIFT had a bigger IT services team, and now everybody that works on IT ser-vices within the Ricoh Americas family reports into mindSHIFT.

Tell us something you discovered after working with Ricoh in this last year that you weren’t necessarily aware of before.I will tell you that the most remarkable thing for me was to discover the incredible desire and the momentum to be services-led. If you had asked me two years ago about the print/copy businesses, Ricoh or otherwise, I would have described them as hardware folks. But the reality is, certainly within Ricoh at least, there is the drive to really lead with services, to be a service company, to be exceptional at services. It’s really refreshing for somebody that comes from the services world.

As an outsider looking into the imaging channel and seeing firsthand the convergence — do you feel that the imaging channel has a chance at gaining traction within the IT services sector?I think the imaging channel has a great opportunity and I can’t overstate it. What the copier dealers have and what Ricoh has in their direct channel is the trust of their clients. They have cre-ated excellent relationships. This covers the entirety of the market from the independent dealers active in the SMB markets as well as Ricoh direct in the national and global markets. The relation-ships are very strong. Now that

a high level of trust has been established, they can go in and augment the services they have been offering. They can also de-liver a client’s e-mail, offer e-mail archiving, network management and even help desk services. Once you are a trusted partner, that extension of trust is much easier. I think that it is a fabulous opportunity for them — if we can get it right. And I think we’re get-ting it right with the dealers.

mindSHIFT started in the multi-tenant world, which is effectively what we call the cloud today. We built an automation platform in front of it that we have used for our direct business, and we are now going to extend it to the dealers. While we don’t gener-ally extend it to a reseller chan-nel, the fact that we are going to extend it to the Ricoh dealer channel is really a testimony to the value that Ricoh places on their dealers. They’ll now be able to come in and bundle IT services under their own brand. It’s a great opportunity.

Do you feel that the imaging channel sales teams will be able to sell that solution to their clients and have that conversation? Will they have access to someone from mindSHIFT when they need specific subject matter expertise?They certainly can. Over time, they’ll be able to do more and more of it independently. They can sell the straightforward services immediately. Eventually, this will become second nature to them. Quite frankly, they have customers now that are asking them about these services. Now they will be able to respond to a customer and say, “Yes, I can deliver that, and by the way, I can

deliver it from the cloud.” What we are offering is automated pro-visioning. We’ll provision services in near real time and they’ll have customers up and running imme-diately. When a customer needs support, they’re going to call in to our help desk and get that sup-port that they need.

One of the things that we tell customers is that when you call our center, we’re going to resolve 50 percent of the cases within the first hour, while you’re on the phone with us. To be able to deliver that level of support, we need to have people that can think on their feet, that have seen these problems repeatedly and therefore know how to resolve them quickly. I don’t think the vast majority of dealers can build that kind of support infrastruc-ture. It takes a long time to build — it takes a whole different skill set. I think it is really important that Ricoh has put together the infrastructure to augment that capability for them.

Both the imaging channel and the IT services channel are male dominated. You are a top CEO in the IT industry. How do you feel navigating this landscape?I studied electrical engineering in school and then I started my career in the telecom industry — I spent almost 20 years there. Then I spent some time in the media industry. This is my third job, I’ve been here almost 10 years. I have been in male domi-nated industries for my entire career. For me it is about hard work, it’s about good ethics, and it’s really just about keeping your nose to the grindstone. It’s never been a gender issue for me.

I’ve never felt that I’ve been faced with discrimination. I’ve



been very lucky. If you can lead people effectively, then I think you get lots of good opportunities regardless of the industry.

In this next year, what are you investing the most in; what initiatives do you have going on right now?There are three areas that I’ll talk about. First of all, Ricoh has a terrific national and global pres-ence and we have some very large customers that we service today. Those customers seek certain kinds of services related to host-ing and private clouds and very secure offerings. We announced recently that we are building a new data center in Long Island. We’re investing quite significantly in this new data center in order to deliver our infrastructure as a shared infrastructure for our small and midsize customers, but also so that we can deliver private, highly secure clouds for our large customers.

The second area is in our software-as-a-service business. We have a very large hosted exchange Office 365 business that we have run for some years that is self-service, self-provisioning. We’re investing fairly significantly to grow that business. We’re go-ing to increasingly deliver more products online, like virtual desk-tops, which we currently deliver to our direct channel but not our online channel. Items like virtual servers, server management, help desk management, a whole suite of IT services — we’re going to augment the suite we already have with additional services in our software-as-a-service offering.

The third area of investment is in the geographic expansion that we’re doing with Ricoh. Today we’re in 29 markets, and 12 of them are fairly mature. We’ve

been in these mature markets for some time, but we are building and getting more people on the ground in those 17 other markets. The goal is to grow them to be as successful as the legacy 12 origi-nal mindSHIFT markets. Because so many of our services are de-livered remotely we really can be in centralized locations and then cover a very wide swath.

Who would your typical client be for the software-as-a-service business that you’re augmenting?The average customer size is about 10 employees, but we have customers with more than 1,000 employees that buy just one prod-uct, and then we have customers that have only five employees that will buy a whole host of products. It’s literally all online, it’s self-pro-visioned and it’s delivered directly to the customer.

I think that as we look into the future and consider how business-es will buy, more and more will buy online. For us, it is important that our presence be very wide — as wide as our current product set, and then also very deep. We need to have the ability to support those services on every level.

Let’s talk a little bit about vertical markets. You’re in Washington, D.C. You’re setting up a new data center in Long Island. Are there specific verticals that you are particularly strong in?We are very strong in five specific verticals. Legal, which is a great one to be in for Washington, D.C. We are also strong in associations and nonprofits, education, health care and niche financial — not banks, but venture capital firms, investment firms, wealth manage-ment groups. Those are the five

verticals we’re in, it’s where most of our business comes from. They represent 50-60 percent of our customer base and more than 60 percent of our revenue.

Are there certain applications that you need to develop for these verticals that are tailored to their unique needs? We have some very specific ap-plications that we support for the various verticals, such as a legal desktop that we offer our legal customers that has their entire desktop in the cloud. Nothing sits on their local computer because of their emphasis on security. We have an array of products that ap-peal to those particular verticals.

Ricoh has a very large le-gal channel. When discussing document management, records management, litigation support, if you consider the suite of services that Ricoh mindSHIFT can offer to a legal client base — it’s a very powerful value proposition. I don’t think anyone else can deliver the scope of services that we can to the legal vertical — from running the mail room, to document man-agement and copy and print imag-ing, all the way through to data backup and recovery, security, and putting a network infrastruc-ture into place. We have a very strong presence.

Security is a key component to everything IT-related and there has been quite a bit about security in the news lately, due to the stream of big data breaches. How has that affected what you do? Have you had to work even harder to provide more robust solutions to wrap around your customer environment so that they can feel protected?Security is a big concern for all of



been very lucky. If you can lead people effectively, then I think you get lots of good opportunities regardless of the industry.

In this next year, what are you investing the most in; what initiatives do you have going on right now?There are three areas that I’ll talk about. First of all, Ricoh has a terrific national and global pres-ence and we have some very large customers that we service today. Those customers seek certain kinds of services related to host-ing and private clouds and very secure offerings. We announced recently that we are building a new data center in Long Island. We’re investing quite significantly in this new data center in order to deliver our infrastructure as a shared infrastructure for our small and midsize customers, but also so that we can deliver private, highly secure clouds for our large customers.

The second area is in our software-as-a-service business. We have a very large hosted exchange Office 365 business that we have run for some years that is self-service, self-provisioning. We’re investing fairly significantly to grow that business. We’re go-ing to increasingly deliver more products online, like virtual desk-tops, which we currently deliver to our direct channel but not our online channel. Items like virtual servers, server management, help desk management, a whole suite of IT services — we’re going to augment the suite we already have with additional services in our software-as-a-service offering.

The third area of investment is in the geographic expansion that we’re doing with Ricoh. Today we’re in 29 markets, and 12 of them are fairly mature. We’ve

been in these mature markets for some time, but we are building and getting more people on the ground in those 17 other markets. The goal is to grow them to be as successful as the legacy 12 origi-nal mindSHIFT markets. Because so many of our services are de-livered remotely we really can be in centralized locations and then cover a very wide swath.

Who would your typical client be for the software-as-a-service business that you’re augmenting?The average customer size is about 10 employees, but we have customers with more than 1,000 employees that buy just one prod-uct, and then we have customers that have only five employees that will buy a whole host of products. It’s literally all online, it’s self-pro-visioned and it’s delivered directly to the customer.

I think that as we look into the future and consider how business-es will buy, more and more will buy online. For us, it is important that our presence be very wide — as wide as our current product set, and then also very deep. We need to have the ability to support those services on every level.

Let’s talk a little bit about vertical markets. You’re in Washington, D.C. You’re setting up a new data center in Long Island. Are there specific verticals that you are particularly strong in?We are very strong in five specific verticals. Legal, which is a great one to be in for Washington, D.C. We are also strong in associations and nonprofits, education, health care and niche financial — not banks, but venture capital firms, investment firms, wealth manage-ment groups. Those are the five

verticals we’re in, it’s where most of our business comes from. They represent 50-60 percent of our customer base and more than 60 percent of our revenue.

Are there certain applications that you need to develop for these verticals that are tailored to their unique needs? We have some very specific ap-plications that we support for the various verticals, such as a legal desktop that we offer our legal customers that has their entire desktop in the cloud. Nothing sits on their local computer because of their emphasis on security. We have an array of products that ap-peal to those particular verticals.

Ricoh has a very large le-gal channel. When discussing document management, records management, litigation support, if you consider the suite of services that Ricoh mindSHIFT can offer to a legal client base — it’s a very powerful value proposition. I don’t think anyone else can deliver the scope of services that we can to the legal vertical — from running the mail room, to document man-agement and copy and print imag-ing, all the way through to data backup and recovery, security, and putting a network infrastruc-ture into place. We have a very strong presence.

Security is a key component to everything IT-related and there has been quite a bit about security in the news lately, due to the stream of big data breaches. How has that affected what you do? Have you had to work even harder to provide more robust solutions to wrap around your customer environment so that they can feel protected?Security is a big concern for all of


October 2015 13

speakeasy

us. End users tend to be the worst breaches of security. We are vigi-lant and aggressive about protect-ing the security of the networks. We also offer a very robust suite of security offerings to customers to protect themselves, like laptop en-cryption and full disk encryption.

Do you see more customers picking up those extra security features and enhancements?We push it. We’re going to keep pushing it. Take disaster recovery, for instance — it’s easy not to make that investment, believing the chance is minimal of getting hit by a major catastrophe, but the reality is even a little chance with security now is too big a chance.

Besides security, what is the greatest challenge you face today?Our greatest challenge is con-tinuing to find ways to offer both traditional mindSHIFT and Ricoh customers the most compre-hensive and effective solution in the market today. We were just acquired a year ago by Ricoh, and we still have a lot of integra-tion activities that are going on. We very much want to be more integrated into the Ricoh suite — that is both our challenge and our greatest opportunity. Ricoh has hundreds of thousands of custom-ers in the United States. mind-SHIFT is a small company, so our ability to be a part of that environ-ment, to work with a whole new group of clients, is a wonderful opportunity, and it’s the thing I fo-cus on the most day to day. How do we most effectively become a bigger part of that engine?

What do you see as your biggest opportunity right now?The cloud. It makes our sales proposition much easier. Everyone

wants a piece of the cloud. It makes decision making difficult for customers because they don’t know which provider to go with.

mindSHIFT has been in the integrator business for years — we don’t make hardware, we don’t make software. When we come and give advice about which products and services to use, it’s not because we have a vested in-terest in any of them. We’re giving the advice about what we believe to be best for your business or your industry. That’s a fabulous opportunity.

We advise people on how to get into the cloud, into hosted servic-es and away from an on-premise model. If you HAVE to be on-premise, so be it, we’ll help you be there smoothly and securely. But we also discuss how you can move some critical services off-premise, how you can move some disaster recovery services into the cloud so that you’re not so reliant on a single on-premise individual or a single box.

When you’re in that trusted adviser role and having that conversation with the client, do you encounter resistance from people in the IT department? Sometimes. We sell to two types of buyers — the SMB and then the larger corporate environments. In the smaller businesses, if they have an IT person, our services could end up replacing them. In the larger companies, we are talking to that IT person about becoming an extension of their services. The IT folks inside the larger companies should be work-ing on improving business pro-cesses, workflow automation, how to make the company more suc-cessful. Somebody else should be maintaining the plumbing, keeping

the water running. If you’re focused on simply keeping the water running, you’re not focused on how to improve business for your company. We come in and discuss how we can take some of that maintenance off of their hands so they can focus on things that will make a difference.

What’s the next big thing?I don’t know, but I do think we’re going to find that what we think of as the office environment currently will change dramatically. I think the big things to come are all go-ing to be in the mobile space. It’s going to be about how you work – how you actually work. I think that will be a whole new area for us to start to dive into.

If your employees could describe you in three words, what do you think they would be?Trustworthy. Team focused. And I hope they would tell you that I am smart.

What is your greatest concern for this industry?Differentiation. Everybody can say they are a managed services or a cloud provider now, whether they know what they’re doing or they don’t. My fear is that we get en-trants that really don’t know what they’re doing. It poisons the water for the companies that have a long and successful career within the industry. It’s very easy now to look like you know what you’re doing when you don’t.

on the webmindSHIFTa Ricoh companyhttp://www.mindshift.com


Your total guide to the evolvingoffice technology landscape.

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http://bpomedia.com/

Your total guide to the evolvingoffice technology landscape.

print | digital | website | e-bulletins print | digital | website | e-bulletins bpomedia.com

Workflow:A publication, website and e-newsletter

for the business process automation

and content management industry.

Workflow delivers leading-edge

information to the principal IT VARs,

dealers, resellers, OEMs, vendors, and

distributors.

The Imaging Channel:An integrated resource for the print and

imaging industry that brings together

the leading market information,

business concepts, strategies and

people in managed print

Vo

lum

e 03 |

Num

ber

02

MAY 2015

GOOD DATA LEADS

TO GOOD DECISIONS

THE INTELLIGENCE

OF BUSINESS

PERFORMANCE

MANAGEMENT

SMARTER BUSINESS

INTELLIGENCE EQUALS

INTELLIGENT BUSINESS

THE SHIFTING

CLOUD LANDSCAPE:

FROM COST SAVINGS

TO INNOVATION DRIVER

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

0515_wkf_cover.indd 1

4/27/15 9:27 PM

Ap

ril 2

015 Vo

lum

e 6, N

o. 2

the

ima

gin

gc

ha

nn

el.c

om

C H A N N E LEVOLUTION

CHANNEL EVOLUTION,CHANNEL OPPORTUNITIES:A GUIDE TO GOING PAPERLESS

OF ZOMBIESAND BUTTERFLIES:THE NEED FOR CHANNEL DIVERSIFICATION

HP ROLLS OUTCOMPLETE LASERPRINTER REDESIGNFEATURINGJETINTELLIGENCE

TECHNOLOGY

0415_tic_cover_V1.indd 1

3/24/15 4:36 PM

June

201

5 V

olum

e 6,

No.

3th

eim

agin

gch

anne

l.co

m

WHATDOES YOURTRAININGREGIMENLOOK LIKE?

THE CHANNELEVOLUTION:TIMES, STRATEGIESAND DEVICESARE CHANGINGMATCHINGMARKET& CUSTOMERTO FIND SALESAND MARKETINGSUCCESS

WHAT DOESA TOP SALESPROFESSIONALLOOK LIKE?

Best Practices in Sales and Marketing

Volu

me

03 |

Num

ber

03

SEPTEMBER 2015

THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN IT

ROBOTIC PROCESS

AUTOMATION WILL BE

THE NEXT BIG DISRUPTOR

TURNING HIDDEN

DOCUMENT DATA

INTO VALUE THAT CAN

BE MINED

DEMYSTIFYING THE

FEARS AND DEFINING

TRUE AUTOMATION

WHY AUTOMATION IS

THE MVP IN RETAIL

AU

TO

MA

TIO

N

& IN

NO

VA

TIO

N

SubscribeToday!

Go to www.Work�owOTG.com &www.TheImagingChannel.comand click on “Subscribe” to receive

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October 2015 15

Demystifying the Design of a Document Strategy BY KEVIN CRAINE

HOW WELL WE manage docu-ments and information has a great deal to do with how well we man-age our businesses and organiza-tions. And as the line between traditional printed documents and modern digital information contin-ues to become less and less dis-tinct, the challenge of designing effective document strategies has become even more difficult. The evolving role of documents, the complications of technology, and changing business demands all conspire to make the task seem overwhelming.

All organizations are in the document businessMost organizations do not consider themselves to be in the document business. Nevertheless, docu-ments are really a second ven-ture for nearly all organizations. Whether on paper or in pixels, documents drive the fundamental functions of every organization. Pick any process and you can bet that documents are at the heart of the activity. So it makes sense that we design workflow and processes around those key documents that drive the business with the aim

to improve and bolster things like cost control, efficiency, customer service and compliance.

Using a document strategy modelOnce you decide to implement a document strategy, the question becomes: How do I go about de-veloping one? The answer doesn’t lie in the newest technology or in advanced systems. What is needed most is a process to guide the de-velopment of your strategy so that it is meaningful, practical and ensures worthwhile and lasting results.

Craine_1015TIC.indd 15 9/28/15 12:18 PM


Characteristics of the process When it comes to a document strategy, no one size fits all. How can you move forward? Consider the following characteristics as a foundation to help demystify the design of a strategy tailored to your particular organization and set of requirements.

Comprehensive, yet manage-able. The process of designing a document strategy must be com-prehensive enough to ensure that nothing important is overlooked, but also manageable enough to avoid the risk of a project so large and slow that nothing ever gets done. Strike a balance by focusing efforts on those areas that are the most important and the most likely to bring about worthwhile im-provement. Consider the “80/20” rule: it is likely that 80 percent of improvements can be found by concentrating on 20 percent of the overall scope.

Linked to company goals. Ultimately, the real test of a docu-ment strategy will be its effect on organizational performance. Does your strategy decrease operating costs and increase opportunities for revenue? Does it increase cus-tomer satisfaction? Does it serve executive vision? For a docu-ment strategy to have meaningful benefit and gain executive support it must bring about benefit and improvement in those areas that are of fundamental importance to the firm.

Clearly demonstrated mea-surements. The adage “you can improve only that which you can measure” holds true. Measurements that help validate your efforts bring advantages and benefits, indicate where changes and adjustments are needed, and ensure that your strategy is pro-ducing results. Once your plan has been put into place, measurements

help demonstrate, in a quantifiable way, the results of the improve-ment efforts and justify continued investment and support.

Addresses corporate culture. One very influential factor that is often overlooked is the influ-ence of corporate culture on the design and outcome of a docu-ment strategy. Internal politics, lack of support and resistance to change are all difficult factors. The questions are: How do you sell your document strategy? How will people react to the changes you propose? Will the culture of your organization help your efforts or hinder your progress?

Facilitates implementation and evaluates results. The best strategies are of little value if they are not executed effectively. For a document strategy to be of practical value it must facili-tate specific actions to achieve specific goals. Once those actions are put into place, evaluation and re-measurement are vital because the success of your strategy is recognized only if it can be demonstrated.

The Document Strategy ModelWith these basic characteristics in mind, consider the Document Strategy Model as one approach

to the design of a document strategy. This model is a useful guide and has five elements as a framework.

The Document Strategy Model is not intended to be linear. The overlapping circles of the model demonstrate that the steps will often overlap. You might find that you don’t need to follow every step in detail or there are times when you must retrace your steps back to square one. The frame-work can and should be adapted to suit your particular situation, organization or requirement. The model helps to provide focus, avoid pitfalls and save valuable time and energy.

Baseline assessment The process starts with a baseline assessment that establishes a baseline about the direction of your strategy and the hard numbers that measure its success. A baseline assessment also explores the most pressing problems that challenge the organization and the most advantageous opportunities for improvement. Ask questions like: • What needs must be satisfied?

What pressures and constraints must be managed?

• What are the most important measures of your performance?

The DocumentStrategy Model

Craine_1015TIC.indd 16 9/30/15 8:23 AM


Characteristics of the process When it comes to a document strategy, no one size fits all. How can you move forward? Consider the following characteristics as a foundation to help demystify the design of a strategy tailored to your particular organization and set of requirements.

Comprehensive, yet manage-able. The process of designing a document strategy must be com-prehensive enough to ensure that nothing important is overlooked, but also manageable enough to avoid the risk of a project so large and slow that nothing ever gets done. Strike a balance by focusing efforts on those areas that are the most important and the most likely to bring about worthwhile im-provement. Consider the “80/20” rule: it is likely that 80 percent of improvements can be found by concentrating on 20 percent of the overall scope.

Linked to company goals. Ultimately, the real test of a docu-ment strategy will be its effect on organizational performance. Does your strategy decrease operating costs and increase opportunities for revenue? Does it increase cus-tomer satisfaction? Does it serve executive vision? For a docu-ment strategy to have meaningful benefit and gain executive support it must bring about benefit and improvement in those areas that are of fundamental importance to the firm.

Clearly demonstrated mea-surements. The adage “you can improve only that which you can measure” holds true. Measurements that help validate your efforts bring advantages and benefits, indicate where changes and adjustments are needed, and ensure that your strategy is pro-ducing results. Once your plan has been put into place, measurements

help demonstrate, in a quantifiable way, the results of the improve-ment efforts and justify continued investment and support.

Addresses corporate culture. One very influential factor that is often overlooked is the influ-ence of corporate culture on the design and outcome of a docu-ment strategy. Internal politics, lack of support and resistance to change are all difficult factors. The questions are: How do you sell your document strategy? How will people react to the changes you propose? Will the culture of your organization help your efforts or hinder your progress?

Facilitates implementation and evaluates results. The best strategies are of little value if they are not executed effectively. For a document strategy to be of practical value it must facili-tate specific actions to achieve specific goals. Once those actions are put into place, evaluation and re-measurement are vital because the success of your strategy is recognized only if it can be demonstrated.

The Document Strategy ModelWith these basic characteristics in mind, consider the Document Strategy Model as one approach

to the design of a document strategy. This model is a useful guide and has five elements as a framework.

The Document Strategy Model is not intended to be linear. The overlapping circles of the model demonstrate that the steps will often overlap. You might find that you don’t need to follow every step in detail or there are times when you must retrace your steps back to square one. The frame-work can and should be adapted to suit your particular situation, organization or requirement. The model helps to provide focus, avoid pitfalls and save valuable time and energy.

Baseline assessment The process starts with a baseline assessment that establishes a baseline about the direction of your strategy and the hard numbers that measure its success. A baseline assessment also explores the most pressing problems that challenge the organization and the most advantageous opportunities for improvement. Ask questions like: • What needs must be satisfied?

What pressures and constraints must be managed?

• What are the most important measures of your performance?

The DocumentStrategy Model

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• What are your most important objectives?

• What are the initiatives under-way to achieve those goals?A baseline assessment also

explores the most pressing prob-lems that challenge the organiza-tion and the most advantageous opportunities for improvement.

Documents, technology and peopleDocuments are created with tech-nology to be used by people, so it makes sense that these three fac-tors surface as guiding beacons for a document strategy. You can keep your efforts manageable by viewing them through three basic frames of reference: Documents are the subject of your strategy, technology is how you produce them, and people are why they exist. Ask questions like:• Which documents are most

vital to the success of the organization?

• What technology is used to cre-ate them?

• Who are the people who use and care about these documents? Chart a meaningful course by

compiling a list of target docu-ments, assessing how those docu-ments are produced, and under-standing the needs of the people who use and care about them.

Problems and solutionsIt is impossible to determine appropriate solutions until you understand and define the problems that exist. Do this by comparing how the current pro-cess performs versus the desired state. Once you have defined the problems that exist you will be in a position to select the best solutions to solve those problems and improve the processes. Ask questions like:

• How does the document pro-cess really perform?

• How should the process per-form in order to meet the needs and requirements?

• What problems prevent the pro-cess from performing adequate-ly, and why do they exist?

• How will you solve the problems you discover and make im-provements to the process?

• What is the best solution among the many available?

Selling your strategy and managing changeYour ability to engender support for your strategy and manage change will significantly influence your document strategy. It is im-portant to explore the roles people play in a successful change initia-tive and consider the natural and emotional reactions that people have during times of change. Ask questions like:• How can you “sell” your docu-

ment strategy to those who must approve and sponsor it?

• How will you get the support of your co-workers?

• How will people react to change?

• What is the prevailing culture of your organization?

• How will certain cultural charac-teristics influence the success of your strategy?

Project planning and implementationProject planning and implementa-tion is where all of your assess-ment, analysis and planning must come together. Do so using a proj-ect plan that is clearly understood by everyone involved and guides your efforts to a successful imple-mentation. Ask questions like:• How will you implement your

strategy? Who must do what, how, and when?

• What must you deliver in order to be successful?

• What are the risks associated with your plans, and how will you mitigate those risks?

• How will you assess and dem-onstrate your success?

Moving forwardA document strategy is a topic that is often talked about, but less often achieved. While a great many tech-nologies and systems exist, the fact is that designing an effective strategy remains a complicated and indistinct undertaking that requires more than simply installing a new software or buying a new machine. Documents are varied, technology is complex, and people play the biggest and most diverse role in the document process. As a result, it is important to devise a clear roadmap to guide the design of an effective plan.

Use these fundamental charac-teristics and the five-phase model as a foundation for the develop-ment of your document strategy. Chart your directions using a clear understanding of the cur-rent process, what opportunities exist for improvement, and specific measures to gauge your effort and success. Look for partners and providers with the right mix of capability, expertise and vision to make the most of your document strategy.

contributorKevin Craine is the author of the book “Designing a Document Strategy,” and host of Everyday MBA on C-Suite Radio. He is the managing director of Craine Com-munications Group. Contact him at [email protected] or visit www.crainegroup.com

Craine_1015TIC.indd 18 9/30/15 8:49 AM


• What are your most important objectives?

• What are the initiatives under-way to achieve those goals?A baseline assessment also

explores the most pressing prob-lems that challenge the organiza-tion and the most advantageous opportunities for improvement.

Documents, technology and peopleDocuments are created with tech-nology to be used by people, so it makes sense that these three fac-tors surface as guiding beacons for a document strategy. You can keep your efforts manageable by viewing them through three basic frames of reference: Documents are the subject of your strategy, technology is how you produce them, and people are why they exist. Ask questions like:• Which documents are most

vital to the success of the organization?

• What technology is used to cre-ate them?

• Who are the people who use and care about these documents? Chart a meaningful course by

compiling a list of target docu-ments, assessing how those docu-ments are produced, and under-standing the needs of the people who use and care about them.

Problems and solutionsIt is impossible to determine appropriate solutions until you understand and define the problems that exist. Do this by comparing how the current pro-cess performs versus the desired state. Once you have defined the problems that exist you will be in a position to select the best solutions to solve those problems and improve the processes. Ask questions like:

• How does the document pro-cess really perform?

• How should the process per-form in order to meet the needs and requirements?

• What problems prevent the pro-cess from performing adequate-ly, and why do they exist?

• How will you solve the problems you discover and make im-provements to the process?

• What is the best solution among the many available?

Selling your strategy and managing changeYour ability to engender support for your strategy and manage change will significantly influence your document strategy. It is im-portant to explore the roles people play in a successful change initia-tive and consider the natural and emotional reactions that people have during times of change. Ask questions like:• How can you “sell” your docu-

ment strategy to those who must approve and sponsor it?

• How will you get the support of your co-workers?

• How will people react to change?

• What is the prevailing culture of your organization?

• How will certain cultural charac-teristics influence the success of your strategy?

Project planning and implementationProject planning and implementa-tion is where all of your assess-ment, analysis and planning must come together. Do so using a proj-ect plan that is clearly understood by everyone involved and guides your efforts to a successful imple-mentation. Ask questions like:• How will you implement your

strategy? Who must do what, how, and when?

• What must you deliver in order to be successful?

• What are the risks associated with your plans, and how will you mitigate those risks?

• How will you assess and dem-onstrate your success?

Moving forwardA document strategy is a topic that is often talked about, but less often achieved. While a great many tech-nologies and systems exist, the fact is that designing an effective strategy remains a complicated and indistinct undertaking that requires more than simply installing a new software or buying a new machine. Documents are varied, technology is complex, and people play the biggest and most diverse role in the document process. As a result, it is important to devise a clear roadmap to guide the design of an effective plan.

Use these fundamental charac-teristics and the five-phase model as a foundation for the develop-ment of your document strategy. Chart your directions using a clear understanding of the cur-rent process, what opportunities exist for improvement, and specific measures to gauge your effort and success. Look for partners and providers with the right mix of capability, expertise and vision to make the most of your document strategy.

contributorKevin Craine is the author of the book “Designing a Document Strategy,” and host of Everyday MBA on C-Suite Radio. He is the managing director of Craine Com-munications Group. Contact him at [email protected] or visit www.crainegroup.com

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October 2015 21

PACKAGED SOLUTIONS DEFINE THE SMB

OFFICE TECHNOLOGY LANDSCAPE

by Robert Palmer

THE OFFICE PRINTING mar-ket is as competitive as it has ever been, and nowhere is this more evi-dent than in the ever-growing SMB space. Nearly every vendor these days is rolling out full-blown market-ing strategies aimed specifically at the SMB customer. No matter how you slice it, the overall opportunity for office document technology in the SMB segment is huge.

In a recent announcement, Xerox projected that small and

medium-sized businesses would spend more than $40 billion on document-related technology and services this year in North America and Western Europe alone, with more than 75 percent of that revenue moving through indirect channels. Xerox also suggested that SMB customers would purchase 8 million new printers and print 1 tril-lion pages over that same period.

Is it any wonder that hard copy OEMs are focused so intently on the

SMB space? Small- and medium-size businesses are dealing with changes occurring in IT infrastruc-ture, workforce dynamics and information management. Many are struggling with the transition from paper to digital, and they need help formulating a strategy to deal with a mobilized workforce, security chal-lenges and the promise of big data.

As a result, the landscape for office document technology in the SMB sector is changing rapidly.



Vendors are driving hardware inno-vation in areas other than speeds and feeds, while pushing solutions across a broad spectrum of appli-cations and vertical markets.

Hardware trendsNot that long ago, advance-ments in hardware were measured primarily through improvements in price and performance. With each replacement cycle, you could count on new printer models that were faster and cheaper than their predecessors. Today, however, the

office printing market has matured and products have reached such parity that hardware differentiation is very difficult to accomplish.

Vendors have pushed laser price/performance about as far as it can go. Introduced in 1984, HP’s first LaserJet printer featured a print speed of 8 ppm and sold for $3,495, or roughly $437 for each ppm. Today, HP’s 19-ppm LaserJet Pro P1102w sells for just $99.99 — only $5.26 per ppm. This demon-strates just how far laser printing technology has progressed over the past 30 years. At the same time, it underscores the challenge vendors face when it comes to driving more value into new print-ers and MFPs.

As technology has progressed, so has the office printing market it-self. Office users today place much less emphasis on the hardware itself and more on the solutions, services and applications that surround the device. As a result, improving the user experience has

become the number one criteria when it comes to designing new printing products. More than ever, printing hardware is being tailored to meet the demands of specific target customer segments.

In the SMB space, vendors are focused on delivering machines that address the concerns of a more fragmented, diverse and always mobile workforce. This has manifested itself in a variety of ways, but the focus is clearly on developing products that address issues such as environmental

sustainability, space limitations, mobility and security.

The desire for smaller products is driven by the need to push devices closer to the application: remote offices, retail environments, public kiosks, technicians’ labs, and point of sale, for example. Space limita-tions have become a concern in virtually every office environment as businesses have downsized and the workforce has become more mobile. While users need machines that are compact in size, they are not necessarily willing to sacrifice in areas of performance or functionality.

Several vendors have made strides in this area. In March, HP rolled out four printer/MFP models based on its new JetIntelligence technology. Among other features, the new HP LaserJets consume up to 53 percent less energy and take up to 40 percent less space compared with previous products. HP has since introduced a vari-ety of models that leverage the

JetIntelligence technology aimed at both SMB and enterprise cus-tomers. Other vendors are pushing to drive greater functionality into smaller and smaller form factors.

Reducing the carbon footprint has become just as important as reducing the physical footprint. Sustainability and green initiatives are gaining momentum in the U.S. and it seems the printing market may have reached a tipping point in 2015. Almost every vendor is pro-moting green strategies these days. From a hardware perspective, ven-

dors are designing products that are much more energy efficient, with intelligence to move in and out of sleep mode more efficiently and provide for faster wake-up times. Vendors are also increasing car-tridge yields and offering long-life supplies to improve environmental impact and reduce waste.

Packaged solutionsSolutions strategies are evolving just as rapidly as hardware strate-gies. In the past, vendors viewed document solutions more as a means for pulling through hardware sales. In today’s market, solutions take the lead, and hardware is often positioned as the vehicle to enable the software needed to address specific customer requirements.

The number of embedded solu-tions continues to grow, particu-larly as it relates to device security. Today’s smart printer or MFP is just as susceptible to a data breach as any other device on the net-work. As a result, more vendors

Today, the office printing market has matured and products have reached such parity that hardware differentiation is

very difficult to accomplish.



Vendors are driving hardware inno-vation in areas other than speeds and feeds, while pushing solutions across a broad spectrum of appli-cations and vertical markets.

Hardware trendsNot that long ago, advance-ments in hardware were measured primarily through improvements in price and performance. With each replacement cycle, you could count on new printer models that were faster and cheaper than their predecessors. Today, however, the

office printing market has matured and products have reached such parity that hardware differentiation is very difficult to accomplish.

Vendors have pushed laser price/performance about as far as it can go. Introduced in 1984, HP’s first LaserJet printer featured a print speed of 8 ppm and sold for $3,495, or roughly $437 for each ppm. Today, HP’s 19-ppm LaserJet Pro P1102w sells for just $99.99 — only $5.26 per ppm. This demon-strates just how far laser printing technology has progressed over the past 30 years. At the same time, it underscores the challenge vendors face when it comes to driving more value into new print-ers and MFPs.

As technology has progressed, so has the office printing market it-self. Office users today place much less emphasis on the hardware itself and more on the solutions, services and applications that surround the device. As a result, improving the user experience has

become the number one criteria when it comes to designing new printing products. More than ever, printing hardware is being tailored to meet the demands of specific target customer segments.

In the SMB space, vendors are focused on delivering machines that address the concerns of a more fragmented, diverse and always mobile workforce. This has manifested itself in a variety of ways, but the focus is clearly on developing products that address issues such as environmental

sustainability, space limitations, mobility and security.

The desire for smaller products is driven by the need to push devices closer to the application: remote offices, retail environments, public kiosks, technicians’ labs, and point of sale, for example. Space limita-tions have become a concern in virtually every office environment as businesses have downsized and the workforce has become more mobile. While users need machines that are compact in size, they are not necessarily willing to sacrifice in areas of performance or functionality.

Several vendors have made strides in this area. In March, HP rolled out four printer/MFP models based on its new JetIntelligence technology. Among other features, the new HP LaserJets consume up to 53 percent less energy and take up to 40 percent less space compared with previous products. HP has since introduced a vari-ety of models that leverage the

JetIntelligence technology aimed at both SMB and enterprise cus-tomers. Other vendors are pushing to drive greater functionality into smaller and smaller form factors.

Reducing the carbon footprint has become just as important as reducing the physical footprint. Sustainability and green initiatives are gaining momentum in the U.S. and it seems the printing market may have reached a tipping point in 2015. Almost every vendor is pro-moting green strategies these days. From a hardware perspective, ven-

dors are designing products that are much more energy efficient, with intelligence to move in and out of sleep mode more efficiently and provide for faster wake-up times. Vendors are also increasing car-tridge yields and offering long-life supplies to improve environmental impact and reduce waste.

Packaged solutionsSolutions strategies are evolving just as rapidly as hardware strate-gies. In the past, vendors viewed document solutions more as a means for pulling through hardware sales. In today’s market, solutions take the lead, and hardware is often positioned as the vehicle to enable the software needed to address specific customer requirements.

The number of embedded solu-tions continues to grow, particu-larly as it relates to device security. Today’s smart printer or MFP is just as susceptible to a data breach as any other device on the net-work. As a result, more vendors

Today, the office printing market has matured and products have reached such parity that hardware differentiation is

very difficult to accomplish.

Palmer_1015TIC.indd 22 9/28/15 12:55 PM ad template.indd 16 9/29/15 12:08 PM

http://www.digitek.com/


are embedding security features to help protect the device from outside intrusion.

HP recently rolled out a series of embedded device protection features for its latest LaserJet ma-chines. With its Sure Start technol-ogy, HP validates the integrity of the BIOS code upon startup. If the BIOS is compromised, the technol-ogy can revert back to the original state by rebooting the device and reloading the previous, safe “golden copy” of the BIOS. HP also added whitelisting technology to ensure that the device only loads good firmware. Lastly, Run-Time Intrusion

Detection is a feature that performs continuous in-memory scanning to search for anomalies and ongoing malicious attacks. Again, if any at-tack is detected the technology will reboot to put the system back in a known good state.

Mobile print and pull-print func-tionality have become quite popular this year. Secure printing technolo-gies such as pull printing provide an extra layer of security by holding print jobs in the cloud until they are released at the printer or MFP, either with a PIN or card swipe. Samsung recently announced that it has embedded its PrinterOn solution into the firmware of certain printers. The firm offers a new PrinterOn app, which is available through the Samsung app store, so that users can locate compatible devices through a location-based map service.

Vendors are also taking steps to enable simpler and faster work-flow automation tools that can be enabled at the device itself. Most

of these solutions are built around three core elements: print manage-ment, advanced document capture, and intelligent document workflow. By combining scanning software and intelligent workflow tools, SMB customers can more easily convert paper to digital format and begin to automate certain paper-based processes.

Many of these solutions have been around for quite some time and are enabled through the open system architecture that runs on the device. Samsung recently show-cased several new solutions running on its XOA-enabled products using

its Smart UX interface. By utilizing the Android-based tablet interface, customers and dealers can quickly deploy solutions ranging from smart widgets designed to improve the user experience to full-blown pro-cess automation apps.

Packaged MPSThere has been no shortage of hype surrounding the MPS op-portunity in the SMB market. Most market research firms are predicting double-digit growth for MPS among small- and medium-size businesses. Research suggests that 75 percent of SMBs do not currently have a managed print service contract in place. Given the saturation of MPS in the enterprise sector, vendors and channel partners alike are eager to move MPS further down market.

The challenge, of course, is that SMB customers require a much higher level of channel engagement. Several vendors have begun to deliver packaged MPS solutions de-signed to make it simpler for channel

partners to deploy MPS programs. These solutions range from basic supplies fulfillment to assessments and workflow optimization tools. Vendors are not only equipping the channel with tools and programs to deliver MPS, but also the training and education to adequately ad-dress SMB customer needs.

To increase penetration in the SMB, it will be necessary to re-shape the MPS value proposition. For many SMBs, printing does not represent a significant portion of the overall IT budget, so reduc-ing print costs could have limited appeal. Instead, these customers

are looking for ways to increase productivity, automate workflows, reduce the burden on IT staff, and consolidate vendors. Instead of leading with reduction in print costs, it is likely more effective to lead with services and solutions that can deliver greater productivity, drive process efficiencies, and save time.

It is interesting to see how the attack on the SMB market is chang-ing the landscape for printing and print-related services. It is expected vendors will continue to innovate in areas that cater specifically to this segment of the market. From what we have already witnessed, one could expect to see continued consumerization of hardware, with an emphasis on tablet-based inter-faces and embedded solutions.

on the web Contact Robert Palmer

[email protected]

To increase penetration in the SMB, it will be necessary to reshape the MPS value proposition.



are embedding security features to help protect the device from outside intrusion.

HP recently rolled out a series of embedded device protection features for its latest LaserJet ma-chines. With its Sure Start technol-ogy, HP validates the integrity of the BIOS code upon startup. If the BIOS is compromised, the technol-ogy can revert back to the original state by rebooting the device and reloading the previous, safe “golden copy” of the BIOS. HP also added whitelisting technology to ensure that the device only loads good firmware. Lastly, Run-Time Intrusion

Detection is a feature that performs continuous in-memory scanning to search for anomalies and ongoing malicious attacks. Again, if any at-tack is detected the technology will reboot to put the system back in a known good state.

Mobile print and pull-print func-tionality have become quite popular this year. Secure printing technolo-gies such as pull printing provide an extra layer of security by holding print jobs in the cloud until they are released at the printer or MFP, either with a PIN or card swipe. Samsung recently announced that it has embedded its PrinterOn solution into the firmware of certain printers. The firm offers a new PrinterOn app, which is available through the Samsung app store, so that users can locate compatible devices through a location-based map service.

Vendors are also taking steps to enable simpler and faster work-flow automation tools that can be enabled at the device itself. Most

of these solutions are built around three core elements: print manage-ment, advanced document capture, and intelligent document workflow. By combining scanning software and intelligent workflow tools, SMB customers can more easily convert paper to digital format and begin to automate certain paper-based processes.

Many of these solutions have been around for quite some time and are enabled through the open system architecture that runs on the device. Samsung recently show-cased several new solutions running on its XOA-enabled products using

its Smart UX interface. By utilizing the Android-based tablet interface, customers and dealers can quickly deploy solutions ranging from smart widgets designed to improve the user experience to full-blown pro-cess automation apps.

Packaged MPSThere has been no shortage of hype surrounding the MPS op-portunity in the SMB market. Most market research firms are predicting double-digit growth for MPS among small- and medium-size businesses. Research suggests that 75 percent of SMBs do not currently have a managed print service contract in place. Given the saturation of MPS in the enterprise sector, vendors and channel partners alike are eager to move MPS further down market.

The challenge, of course, is that SMB customers require a much higher level of channel engagement. Several vendors have begun to deliver packaged MPS solutions de-signed to make it simpler for channel

partners to deploy MPS programs. These solutions range from basic supplies fulfillment to assessments and workflow optimization tools. Vendors are not only equipping the channel with tools and programs to deliver MPS, but also the training and education to adequately ad-dress SMB customer needs.

To increase penetration in the SMB, it will be necessary to re-shape the MPS value proposition. For many SMBs, printing does not represent a significant portion of the overall IT budget, so reduc-ing print costs could have limited appeal. Instead, these customers

are looking for ways to increase productivity, automate workflows, reduce the burden on IT staff, and consolidate vendors. Instead of leading with reduction in print costs, it is likely more effective to lead with services and solutions that can deliver greater productivity, drive process efficiencies, and save time.

It is interesting to see how the attack on the SMB market is chang-ing the landscape for printing and print-related services. It is expected vendors will continue to innovate in areas that cater specifically to this segment of the market. From what we have already witnessed, one could expect to see continued consumerization of hardware, with an emphasis on tablet-based inter-faces and embedded solutions.

on the web Contact Robert Palmer

[email protected]

To increase penetration in the SMB, it will be necessary to reshape the MPS value proposition.


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Join the MPSA and help shape the industry.

By becoming an MPSA member you participate in the development of standards and best practices that will bring order to document chaos and build stronger business models.

Visit www.yourMPSA.org today and let us support your MPS business growth.

Communication + Collaboration + Education + Standards = Success!


http://yourmpsa.org/

Join the MPSA and help shape the industry.

By becoming an MPSA member you participate in the development of standards and best practices that will bring order to document chaos and build stronger business models.

Visit www.yourMPSA.org today and let us support your MPS business growth.

Communication + Collaboration + Education + Standards = Success!


October 2015 27

How to Choose the Right Pricing Model

CHOICE IS ALWAYS good. But along with choice comes the bur-den of understanding the details of the choices involved.

The same is true when looking at print management contracts with subscription or license pric-ing options. Here we discuss the considerations for subscription pricing from an SMB solution provider and SMB customer point of view.

First, what is subscription pric-ing? Subscription pricing, often referred to as Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS, pricing, is where payments are made in increments,

usually monthly, for services. Similar to an apartment lease, there is often a minimum number of months of commitment but following that, commitment is on a month-to-month basis. With the SaaS pricing model, the customer is paying to use, but does not own, the software.

Contrast that with traditional licensing, where the customer purchases the software. Using the same analogy, it would be buying instead of renting your home. Both traditional licensing and subscrip-tions usually include upgrades and service/support agreements.

SMB solution provider: Which model is right for you?If you are a solution provider, you know that sales cycles always take longer than you’d like. Having many customers in various parts of the sales funnel is wise and each has to be nurtured along. Traditional licensing models yield large, but more infrequent, revenue income. Subscription model pricing can bring in more frequent deals but with smaller, up front revenue. Those are obvious points. Other considerations include:• With fewer but larger deals in the

pipeline, is your business at risk

BY MARTIN DE MARTINI, Y SOFT

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http://yourmpsa.org/

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http://www.bta.org/?

ImagingChanneltemplate.indd 1 9/15/15 9:32 AM

October 2015 29

should some of those deals fall through?

• With fewer but larger customers, is your business at risk should you lose some of those customers (either by going to a competitor, getting acquired or going out of business)?

• Can your sales organizations pursue deals through traditional licenses while also pursuing sub-scription models to balance your revenue risk? How do you manage sales compensation under licens-ing and subscription models?

• What does the impact of “services owed” have on your business? If your customer buys a multiyear service contract, is this counted as a liability on your business until the service term has been met?

• What are the tax implications of recurring subscription revenue versus licensing revenue for your business?

• Can your organization adequately support monthly billing accounting and collection?So, which model is best? The

answer, of course, is “it depends.” Each solution provider has to con-sider what is right for their business, if they can support both models or shape their business for one or the other. Work with the right print management solution provider that can provide you with the choice and answers your questions on how it works for your customers and your accounting systems.

SMB customer: Which model is right for them?SMB customers also have to con-sider the choices and implications of the two solution pricing models. Some considerations that customers evaluate include:• Minimizing risk – shorter contract

commitment and paying on a monthly basis makes it less of a revenue risk.

• On the other hand, shorter contract commitment does not give them leverage for price negotiations.

• A one-time payment for pur-chasing is less burdensome on accounting and contracting personnel whereas subscriptions need to be verified monthly (or quarterly — whatever the agree-ment period is for)

• Organizations are often called upon to reduce operating ex-penses. Will such a reduction impact your subscription rev-enue forecast? Additionally, by purchasing and being considered a capital expense, the organi-zation may have beneficial tax implications.

• Because print management solutions are often deployed in phases, monthly subscriptions ensure they only pay for the solution that is in use (if pricing is on a per-MFD basis). Similarly, if an MFD is no longer used, pric-ing decreases easily. Does the organization anticipate signifi-cant changes in the MFD needs?As an SMB solutions provider,

it is important to understand your customer’s business and what is important to them. Advising customers of the details behind the choices is what can turn you from a solutions provider to a trusted partner.

contributorMartin de Martini is a senior VP at Y Soft. Y Soft helps enterprises reduce costs, improve document security and increase employee productivity with YSoft SafeQ, its enterprise print management solution. Contact him at [email protected] or visit www.ysoft.com

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Get serious about managed print with a subscription to The Imaging Channel’s Total Print Solutions, an e-newsletter providing you with the tools you need to enter into the MPS space or enhance your company’s current offerings. Total Print Solutions is your link to the MPS world. Find out how to market your MPS program, learn tips and tricks from experts in the field and gain a tactical advantage as you position your service. Opt-in today. This e-newsletter is FREE and will be delivered to your inbox twice a month.

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WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED? FROM ONE-TO-ONE SELLINGBY BRAD RODERICK, TONERCYCLE/INKCYCLE

I SOLD MY first copier in 1985 — a small Canon with moving platen for $1,299. This was my first sales job and I was making cold calls, in person. I had absolutely zero sales experience and no natural ability, but it didn’t seem to matter. Back then, selling was simple: Buyers compared one copier against an-other based on speeds and feeds, time to first print and maybe duty cycle (CPP wasn’t part of the pic-ture yet. Trust me, I was there.)

I’d walk into a business and ask if they needed a way to make copies without leaving the build-ing. They’d grunt a reply and I’d tell them the price. It was one salesperson (me) to one buyer

(the decision-maker). Even large equipment sales followed a very straightforward, linear process: demo, proposal, follow-up, sold! That was pretty much it, other than price. If you had a better product that was priced competitively, you won the deal.

Few people weighed in on the buying decision. IT wasn’t part of the picture; to move the copier, you simply got a longer extension cord. Financing wasn’t a factor either; the customer leased the copier from the dealership or paid cash. And customers bought supplies from an OEM or by phone. We did talk about the advantages of our dealership versus others, but my

biggest challenge was getting to the right person —“The Ultimate Decision Maker.”

Oh, how times have changed!A few months ago I attended

a breakout session at an indus-try event. The topic was “Group Buying Consensus.” A few years ago this session would have been an empty room. This year, the ses-sion was packed. The presenter was Matt Behrend, chief sales officer at DemoChimp, a com-pany whose Software as a Service (SaaS) creates and automates product demos to drive buying consensus and accelerate B2B sales. Behrend explained that new research from CEB,

TO ONE-TO-MANY BUYING

Roderick_1015TIC.indd 30 9/28/15 1:47 PM


WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?FROM ONE-TO-ONE SELLINGBY BRAD RODERICK, TONERCYCLE/INKCYCLE

I SOLD MY first copier in 1985 — a small Canon with moving platen for $1,299. This was my first sales job and I was making cold calls, in person. I had absolutely zero sales experience and no natural ability, but it didn’t seem to matter. Back then, selling was simple: Buyers compared one copier against an-other based on speeds and feeds, time to first print and maybe duty cycle (CPP wasn’t part of the pic-ture yet. Trust me, I was there.)

I’d walk into a business and ask if they needed a way to make copies without leaving the build-ing. They’d grunt a reply and I’d tell them the price. It was one salesperson (me) to one buyer

(the decision-maker). Even large equipment sales followed a very straightforward, linear process: demo, proposal, follow-up, sold! That was pretty much it, other than price. If you had a better product that was priced competitively, you won the deal.

Few people weighed in on the buying decision. IT wasn’t part of the picture; to move the copier, you simply got a longer extension cord. Financing wasn’t a factor either; the customer leased the copier from the dealership or paid cash. And customers bought supplies from an OEM or by phone. We did talk about the advantages of our dealership versus others, but my

biggest challenge was getting to the right person —“The Ultimate Decision Maker.”

Oh, how times have changed!A few months ago I attended

a breakout session at an indus-try event. The topic was “Group Buying Consensus.” A few years ago this session would have been an empty room. This year, the ses-sion was packed. The presenter was Matt Behrend, chief sales officer at DemoChimp, a com-pany whose Software as a Service (SaaS) creates and automates product demos to drive buying consensus and accelerate B2B sales. Behrend explained that new research from Corporate Executive



October 2015 31

WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?FROM ONE-TO-ONE SELLINGBY BRAD RODERICK, TONERCYCLE/INKCYCLE

a publicly traded company that advises large com-panies on business best practices, indicates that 5.4 people on aver-age are now involved in most B2B buying decisions. Clearly, business leaders have come to see buying as a shared responsibility.

According to CEB, purchase likelihood drops from 81 percent to 55 percent, a 26 percent drop, when a second person joins a buying group. That number drops into the 40s when five people get involved.

As Behrend shared with us, CEB attributes this group-buying dynamic to several key factors. Today’s solutions are complex,

technological and integrated; they touch multiple departments from across the company. If the leaders from these various departments don’t participate during the buying process — and buy into the cho-sen solution — they may withhold the necessary resources to ensure a successful implementation after a deal is done. In addition, com-panies are now more risk averse, networked and global than in the past. This can be difficult because each member of the buying group brings a different set of perspec-tives and priorities to the buying process. These divergent points of view can create very little natural overlap among buyers. Under

these circumstances, unless care-fully executed, personalization can push buyers further apart, which contributes to “group-buying dysfunction.”

According to CEB’s new book “The Challenger Customer” — a sequel to CEB’s best-selling “The Challenger Sale” — this is an important issue because, left to themselves, buying groups tend to accentuate their differences and agree on the lowest com-mon denominators by default: a desire to avoid risk, maintain the status quo and save money. In fact, group-buying dysfunction can result in a buying group making no decision at all. In response to these




risks, CEB’s insights for facilitating group-buying consensus include the following:

1. Identify internal challengersor “mobilizers” who are inher-ently committed to helping theirorganizations change and whohave the credibility to facilitatebuying consensus from within.2. Equip mobilizers with com-mercial insights that frame thepain of doing nothing as beinggreater than the pain of makinga change.3. Make the shift from beinga salesperson to becoming abuying coach who facilitatesconsensus.4. First lead with content thathelps groups agree on the prob-lem to solve and the type or cat-egory of solution that can bestsolve it. Do this in a way thatleads to your specific solution.5. Provide credible, third-partysupport to back up the solutioncategory and your unique abilityto deliver them.6. Facilitate collective learningto drive consensus and high-quality deals.

Behrend taught us that, in today’s group buying environ-ment, you can’t simply hope that an internal sales champion will be able to present your value propo-sition to multiple stakeholders and facilitate consensus on her own. After all, most of our sales organizations spend four to eight months training a new sales rep on how to present the value of our offerings in a compelling way, along with the ability to adapt our stories to the unique needs of different stakeholders. Why would we entrust our story to a sales champion who just learned about our solution and expect them to

be able to adapt it to the unique needs of different buyers? Hoping that they can convey our value to their fellow buyers is a big bet and not a sound sales model.

Think for a moment about your last managed print, multi-machine, document management, managed services, or workflow sales attempt. How many people were involved? I’m going to put on my mind-reader hat for a mo-ment and guess. More than one? How did I do? Even for a relatively straightforward toner cartridge sale at a large organization your success is being influenced by purchasing, contracts, IT, fa-cilities, etc. One decision maker? Not likely.

We can either try to create a different message for each deci-sion maker, which can do more harm than good, or rely on the old “internal sales champ” (a figure that is as mythical as the unicorn) to pull everyone together on their own. Or we can find a better way.

That’s what Behrend’s company, DemoChimp has been work-ing on for the past two years — and with impressive outcomes. DemoChimp’s intelligent demo au-tomation videos include a brief in-troduction that give each prospec-tive buyer a high-level overview of your value proposition. Then a personalization menu prompts a buyer to choose the chapters of your product story that most inter-est them. Buyers rate each video module as being “Very Important,” “Somewhat Important” or “Not At All Important.”

Then DemoChimp’s intelli-gent demo automation platform instantly plays the video segments according to the sequence and length a buyer selected: buyers will see the long version of any segments they marked as being

“Very Important” and they’ll see a short version of the segments they marked as being “Somewhat Important.” Segments that they marked as “Not At All Important” won’t play at all. The sequence of video modules the DemoChimp platform plays — combined with the level of detail they go into — creates a unique and customized demo experience for each pros-pect because it helps them learn about an offering in a personally relevant way.

DemoChimp’s system also alerts you when someone is watching your demo so you can follow up in a timely way, and the demo analytics dashboard shows you who watched your demo, the topics they rated as being important, what they watched, and who they’ve shared it with. These insights help salespeople and mobilizers discover who is participating in the buying group and where they are aligned, so they can focus on the topics with the most support. As a result, DemoChimp’s customers have reduced sales cycles by as much as 68 percent and have increased their close rates by as much as 44 percent.

Buying groups are here to stay. Consensus-oriented solutions can help us partner with mobilizers to facilitate collective learning and drive high-quality deals.

contributorBrad Roderick is executive vice president of InkCycle Inc. He is an industry veteran with more than 25 years of sales and marketing expe-rience. He is an active member of the imaging industry as an author, trainer and speaker. Contact him at [email protected]

Roderick_1015TIC.indd 32 9/30/15 9:42 AM


risks, CEB’s insights for facilitating group-buying consensus include the following:

1. Identify internal challengers or “mobilizers” who are inher-ently committed to helping their organizations change and who have the credibility to facilitate buying consensus from within.2. Equip mobilizers with com-mercial insights that frame the pain of doing nothing as being greater than the pain of making a change.3. Make the shift from being a salesperson to becoming a buying coach who facilitates consensus.4. First lead with content that helps groups agree on the prob-lem to solve and the type or cat-egory of solution that can best solve it. Do this in a way that leads to your specific solution.5. Provide credible, third-party support to back up the solution category and your unique ability to deliver them.6. Facilitate collective learning to drive consensus and high-quality deals.

Behrend taught us that, intoday’s group buying environ-ment, you can’t simply hope thatan internal sales champion will beable to present your value propo-sition to multiple stakeholdersand facilitate consensus on herown. After all, most of our salesorganizations spend four to eightmonths training a new sales repon how to present the value ofour offerings in a compelling way,along with the ability to adapt ourstories to the unique needs ofdifferent stakeholders. Why wouldwe entrust our story to a saleschampion who just learned aboutour solution and expect them to

be able to adapt it to the uniqueneeds of different buyers? Hopingthat they can convey our value totheir fellow buyers is a big bet andnot a sound sales model.

Think for a moment aboutyour last managed print, multi-machine, document management,managed services, or workflowsales attempt. How many peoplewere involved? I’m going to puton my mind-reader hat for a mo-ment and guess. More than one?How did I do? Even for a relativelystraightforward toner cartridgesale at a large organization yoursuccess is being influenced bypurchasing, contracts, IT, fa-cilities, etc. One decision maker?Not likely.

We can either try to create adifferent message for each deci-sion maker, which can do moreharm than good, or rely on the old“internal sales champ” (a figurethat is as mythical as the unicorn)to pull everyone together on theirown. Or we can find a better way.

That’s what Behrend’s company,DemoChimp has been work-ing on for the past two years —and with impressive outcomes.DemoChimp’s intelligent demo au-tomation videos include a brief in-troduction that give each prospec-tive buyer a high-level overviewof your value proposition. Then apersonalization menu prompts abuyer to choose the chapters ofyour product story that most inter-est them. Buyers rate each videomodule as being “Very Important,”“Somewhat Important” or “Not AtAll Important.”

Then DemoChimp’s intelli-gent demo automation platforminstantly plays the video segmentsaccording to the sequence andlength a buyer selected: buyerswill see the long version of anysegments they marked as being

“Very Important” and they’ll seea short version of the segmentsthey marked as being “SomewhatImportant.” Segments that theymarked as “Not At All Important”won’t play at all. The sequence ofvideo modules the DemoChimpplatform plays — combined withthe level of detail they go into —creates a unique and customizeddemo experience for each pros-pect because it helps them learnabout an offering in a personallyrelevant way.

DemoChimp’s system alsoalerts you when someone iswatching your demo so you canfollow up in a timely way, and thedemo analytics dashboard showsyou who watched your demo,the topics they rated as beingimportant, what they watched,and who they’ve shared it with.These insights help salespeopleand mobilizers discover who isparticipating in the buying groupand where they are aligned, sothey can focus on the topics withthe most support. As a result,DemoChimp’s customers havereduced sales cycles by as muchas 68 percent and have increasedtheir close rates by as much as 44percent.

Buying groups are here to stay.Consensus-oriented solutions canhelp us partner with mobilizers tofacilitate collective learning anddrive high-quality deals.

contributorBrad Roderick is executive vice president of InkCycle Inc. He is an industry veteran with more than 25 years of sales and marketing expe-rience. He is an active member of the imaging industry as an author, trainer and speaker. Contact him at [email protected]

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IT IS NOT AN uncommon story in the imaging industry — or any technology-based industry, really — for a business to look completely different today than it did 10 years ago. After all, technology evolves, so it makes sense for a successful business to evolve along with it. The key word, however, is successful. For every business that has successfully completed a transformation, there may be 20 other empty offices, vacant factories and forgotten names. It stands to reason, then, that a business founded in 1998 is a success just by virtue of its continued existence. One that is not only existing, but thriving, goes beyond success, and becomes a model of excellence.

Founded in 1998, Digitek is such a business. When it launched it was focused largely on storage media, as the name might imply to those still familiar with the medium. Although the firm dabbled in certain imaging products early on, it was relationships with companies like Sony, Fuji and Maxell — leaders in the field of storage media at the time — that really grew the business. By 2004, says Digitek CEO Paul Martorana, the business incorporated some imaging supplies but was about 70 percent storage media. But Martorana was not content to let that rest.

“We saw the writing on the wall that the media space was going to be in decline, and meanwhile the imaging supplies market was

a multibillion dollar market that was growing,” he says. “That’s when we made a concerted effort to bring on imaging lines like HP, Xerox, and more. We felt that if we

could offer them to our customers we could get some traction — and that’s what we did.”

For that reason, says Martorana, Digitek isn’t necessarily a household name in the imaging industry. “We’ve been around for a while, but we started with one category and then made the decision to refocus on this channel. We haven’t really been a focused player in the space until the last six or seven years or so.”

It has been a busy and productive six or seven years, however, with loyal customers working with Digitek as it expanded from its Virginia

headquarters and into Chicago and California, as well as Columbus, Ohio, with the purchase of an additional storage media company. However it was

HP’s Tier 2 program that really put Digitek on the map in the imaging space. That program sought to push marketing programs from HP through to the smaller dealers and give them the attention that may have been lacking from the larger distributors.

“Our dealers could now get credit from HP for purchases they made from us,” said Martorana. “That opened the door for us to go after many resellers that wouldn’t really speak to us before, and helped us get onto the scene. There were a lot of little resellers out there, and we said, it’s great you have these

More Than an Imaging Supplier, Digitek’s Goal is ‘Trusted Advisor’by AMY WEISS

DIGITEK’S CEO Paul Martorana, left, and Senior Director of Solutions Aaron

Dyck, right.

ChProfile_Digitek1015TIC.indd 34 9/28/15 1:15 PM


IT IS NOT AN uncommon storyin the imaging industry — orany technology-based industry,really — for a business to lookcompletely different todaythan it did 10 years ago. Afterall, technology evolves, so itmakes sense for a successfulbusiness to evolve along withit. The key word, however, issuccessful. For every businessthat has successfully completeda transformation, there may be20 other empty offices, vacantfactories and forgotten names.It stands to reason, then, thata business founded in 1998 isa success just by virtue of itscontinued existence. One thatis not only existing, but thriving,goes beyond success, andbecomes a model of excellence.

Founded in 1998, Digitek is such a business. When it launched it was focused largely on storage media, as the name might imply to those still familiar with the medium. Although the firm dabbled in certain imaging products early on, it was relationships with companies like Sony, Fuji and Maxell — leaders in the field of storage media at the time — that really grew the business. By 2004, says Digitek CEO Paul Martorana, the business incorporated some imaging supplies but was about 70 percent storage media. But Martorana was not content to let that rest.

“We saw the writing on the wallthat the media space was goingto be in decline, and meanwhilethe imaging supplies market was

a multibillion dollar market thatwas growing,” he says. “That’swhen we made a concerted effortto bring on imaging lines like HP,Xerox, and more. We felt that if we

could offer them to our customerswe could get some traction —and that’s what we did.”

For that reason, saysMartorana, Digitek isn’tnecessarily a household name inthe imaging industry. “We’ve beenaround for a while, but we startedwith one category and then madethe decision to refocus on thischannel. We haven’t really been afocused player in the space untilthe last six or seven years or so.”

It has been a busy andproductive six or seven years,however, with loyal customersworking with Digitek as itexpanded from its Virginia

headquarters and into Chicagoand California, as well asColumbus, Ohio, with thepurchase of an additional storagemedia company. However it was

HP’s Tier 2 program that really putDigitek on the map in the imagingspace. That program sought topush marketing programs fromHP through to the smaller dealersand give them the attention thatmay have been lacking from thelarger distributors.

“Our dealers could now getcredit from HP for purchases theymade from us,” said Martorana.“That opened the door for usto go after many resellers thatwouldn’t really speak to usbefore, and helped us get ontothe scene. There were a lot oflittle resellers out there, and wesaid, it’s great you have these

More Than an Imaging Supplier,Digitek’s Goal is ‘Trusted Advisor’by AMY WEISS

DIGITEK’S CEO Paul Martorana, left, and Senior Director of Solutions Aaron

Dyck, right.


October 2015 35

channel profile

giant distributors for selling to the CDWs of the world, but who’s going to take care of a lot of the smaller dealers? We felt it was a chance to close the gap with the SMB dealer. We pioneered that model.”

From that point, it was just a matter of time for Digitek. “We grew pretty rapidly at that point and other manufacturers took notice,” recalls Martorana. “Lexmark signed us up a couple of years ago to be an authorized supplies distributor, and Xerox after that. And this year we got Xerox hardware.”

Now an authorized distributor for Lexmark and Xerox as well as HP, Digitek opened a Dallas location last year, and in the past year has increased its square footage for distribution by 50 percent. And although Digitek still sells some storage media — Martorana says it is approximately 15 percent of the firm’s revenue — it has become firmly entrenched in the imaging supplies space.

Tier 1 successA big part of Digitek’s success has been its relationship with HP. As many in the channel know all too well, there has been a great deal of change among HP’s supplier relationships over the last couple of years, so simply noting that in 2015 Digitek is a Tier 1 distributor for HP is impressive. That, too, has not been without challenges.

“When HP was eliminating the Tier 2 program, we were elevated

to a Tier 1 distributor if we so chose. That was an adjustment,” recalls Martorana. “We had been purchasing through distribution, getting product in one or two days, and now we were getting product in eight days. But overall, it was fairly smooth. The rough part was the transition from open to authorized, where the number of authorized dealers were pared down.”

In early 2013, HP made waves in the channel by announcing new programs and business models for its partner network that would lead to a more tightly

controlled distribution channel in the U.S. Effective November 1, 2013, in order for resellers and distributors to order or sell original HP supplies, now categorized as “authorized products,” they were required to be HP Authorized Partners. A year later, in November 2014, further changes to the supplies distribution policy meant resellers must have “qualified” status — reportedly leaving just a small percentage of resellers that once sold HP supplies remaining as authorized resellers.

“There are big things happening at Digitek,” says Aaron Dyck, Digitek’s senior director of solutions. It’s no exaggeration — there are big things happening indeed. Dyck, who came on board in mid-2015, brings with him a long and impressive imaging-industry pedigree and big plans.

In addition to being an authorized distributor for HP,

Lexmark and Xerox, and the aforementioned Xerox hardware, the firm distributes HP, Lexmark, Source Technologies and Troy printers, as well as shredders. It also offers its own lines of remanufactured and compatible ink and toner. The firm’s Premium line puts its primary focus on the highest quality possible, while the Expression line is Digitek’s value line, which, says Martorana, is primarily sold into the federal arena. “By virtue of our headquarters being near Washington, D.C., we do a lot of federal business,” he says. “We

help our resellers who need to provide government support with specific labeling on toner and boxes, shipping overseas — we do well with the federal dealer channel.”

As is the case for most players in the channel, however, Digitek is looking far beyond transactional selling when it comes to supplies and other product lines, and is bringing on board a plethora of solutions for its partners as well.

Digitek is currently integrated with the Private Supply Network, PSN functionality of e-automate. This technology isa next-generation solution forelectronic fulfillment from ECi.This functionality will bring allthe features of PO Processorworkflow inside e-automate toreduce the number of clicksand speed up the overall orderprocess. “We just recentlybrought on e-automate,” Dycksays. “We’re very excited about

“It’s great you have these giant distributors … but who’s going to take care of a lot of the smaller dealers? We felt it was a chance

to close the gap with the SMB dealer.”



the opportunities that brings with it. We have our own dedicated gateway so we can do EDI and XML transactions direct, which we have with numerous partners so we can connect with them.

The valued partnerDyck has other plans as well; plans that include being a truly integrated resource for Digitek’s partners. For Digitek, that includes not just meeting all their partners’ needs, but anticipating them.

“From a dealership perspec-tive you see a lot of buzz around managed IT and network manage-ment — when people own the network they own all the devices, and there’s a collision course,” he says. “There’s document manage-ment in that mix as well — it’s either the next natural step from MPS, or a complement. We looked at all that and said, there’s a huge opportunity to help our dealers grow. They’re either acquiring or merging, and they are looking for ways to train their sales reps on multiple solutions. We see a need in the market to create a consistent and repeatable platform for sales training. We’re not talking event-based sales training via webinar or onsite, and the training is not about product, not speeds and feeds of copiers or printers, but fundamen-tal selling skills for managed IT, managed print services and selling solutions.”

From that observation of needs came PartnerPro, a suite of business growth products that Digitek has been building for several months. Encompassing professional sales training, lead generation and inbound marketing services, PartnerPro is an online single-sign-on, video-based e-learning platform focused on selling MPS to win,

selling managed IT to win, and professional sales coaching with the selling-to-win program. Partner Pro is an online, visual platform designed to help dealers create a consistent and scalable training platform for all of their sales reps helping them generate more leads and bring in more business.

“PartnerPro gives dealers the ability to ensure all their sales reps are trained on 2016 concepts,” explains Dyck. “The sales landscape has changed and with easy access to information the buyer is more educated and informed than ever before. The challenge of sales is how to position your products and services within your customer’s business strategy and I don’t care what they sell — it could be water, toner, or printers, everyone needs to have a good grasp of the fundamentals. You watch a 15-minute video and take a quiz.After going through seven to 10modules for each solution set youget a certificate, and they can

always come back to reference it.” It’s a solution, says Dyck, for a lot of dealers who are struggling with high sales rep turnover.

Although it might seem surprising when speaking of 2016 sales concepts, a lot of focus is on the dealer’s website as well — surprising not because the Web is not still a traffic generator, but because there are businesses not utilizing their websites to the fullest.“

“Dealers want more sales leads, and we feel they don’t have enough,” says Dyck. “So we launched an inbound marketing/lead generation service. Dealers can completely outsource inbound marketing. We’ll blog for them, we’ll help with SEO value and with social channels, we’ll create content, emails, and white papers. We’ll convert website traffic and provide ROI specifically on how they’re leveraging their websites.”

PartnerPro will offer specialized training for MPS reps as well. “We focus on how to elevate the value of print to the decision maker, and how to challenge the

DIGITEK’S EXTENSIVE DISTRIBUTION provides the same major manufactur-

ers and brands as larger companies, but the company is small enough to be

nimble and flexible. Customers have a dedicated account manager they work

with who they can rely on to help them with special orders, new product lines,

delivery options and more.



the opportunities that brings with it. We have our own dedicated gateway so we can do EDI and XML transactions direct, which we have with numerous partners so we can connect with them.

The valued partnerDyck has other plans as well; plans that include being a truly integrated resource for Digitek’s partners. For Digitek, that includes not just meeting all their partners’ needs, but anticipating them.

“From a dealership perspec-tive you see a lot of buzz around managed IT and network manage-ment — when people own the network they own all the devices, and there’s a collision course,” he says. “There’s document manage-ment in that mix as well — it’s either the next natural step from MPS, or a complement. We looked at all that and said, there’s a huge opportunity to help our dealers grow. They’re either acquiring or merging, and they are looking for ways to train their sales reps on multiple solutions. We see a need in the market to create a consistent and repeatable platform for sales training. We’re not talking event-based sales training via webinar or onsite, and the training is not about product, not speeds and feeds of copiers or printers, but fundamen-tal selling skills for managed IT, managed print services and selling solutions.”

From that observation of needs came PartnerPro, a suite of business growth products that Digitek has been building for several months. Encompassing professional sales training, lead generation and inbound marketing services, PartnerPro is an online single-sign-on, video-based e-learning platform focused on selling MPS to win,

selling managed IT to win, and professional sales coaching with the selling-to-win program. Partner Pro is an online, visual platform designed to help dealers create a consistent and scalable training platform for all of their sales reps helping them generate more leads and bring in more business.

“PartnerPro gives dealers the ability to ensure all their sales reps are trained on 2016 concepts,” explains Dyck. “The sales landscape has changed and with easy access to information the buyer is more educated and informed than ever before. The challenge of sales is how to position your products and services within your customer’s business strategy and I don’t care what they sell — it could be water, toner, or printers, everyone needs to have a good grasp of the fundamentals. You watch a 15-minute video and take a quiz. After going through seven to 10 modules for each solution set you get a certificate, and they can

always come back to reference it.” It’s a solution, says Dyck, for a lot of dealers who are struggling with high sales rep turnover.

Although it might seem surprising when speaking of 2016 sales concepts, a lot of focus is on the dealer’s website as well — surprising not because the Web is not still a traffic generator, but because there are businesses not utilizing their websites to the fullest.“

“Dealers want more sales leads, and we feel they don’t have enough,” says Dyck. “So we launched an inbound marketing/lead generation service. Dealers can completely outsource inbound marketing. We’ll blog for them, we’ll help with SEO value and with social channels, we’ll create content, emails, and white papers. We’ll convert website traffic and provide ROI specifically on how they’re leveraging their websites.”

PartnerPro will offer specialized training for MPS reps as well. “We focus on how to elevate the value of print to the decision maker, and how to challenge the

DIGITEK’S EXTENSIVE DISTRIBUTION provides the same major manufactur-

ers and brands as larger companies, but the company is small enough to be

nimble and flexible. Customers have a dedicated account manager they work

with who they can rely on to help them with special orders, new product lines,

delivery options and more.


October 2015 37

channel profile

on the webDigitekhttp://www.digitek.com

current state of managed print — to differentiate,” says Dyck. Additionally, the program teaches that critical factor — expansion. “How do we help them branch out into complementary services, like workflow, mobility, security, as an extension of their MPS programs?” asks Dyck. PartnerPro features training specifically built to address those questions. Participants receive a custom-branded prospecting video, selling props for reps in the field, and branded brochures, so they can showcase themselves as an MPS specialist leveraging content that’s relevant in today’s MPS climate.

Also expanding its MPS capabilities and adding to its partner roster, Digitek recently announced a partnership with print management company Print Audit, in which Digitek distributes Print Audit’s Premier, Accelerator, and Insight software solutions.

“Print Audit brings a unique platform to our dealers in regard to user management,” says Dyck. “They have a ton of analytics in tracking — if someone printed 55 color pages, for example, they’re able to track who printed it. It takes it one step beyond managing hard copy output to managing the user — what’s the user actually doing? That’s who’s pushing the button. If we can help steer that behavior in the end user environment, we can really help streamline them. You hear a lot of conversation from Print Audit about being able to change the way they bill and report managed print, and that goes hand in hand with our 2016 approach from our training perspective — how do we help them branch out into complementary services?”

Of course, Digitek has long offered an internal MPS infrastructure as well — a hosted

FMAudit solution, integrating with ECi. “For dealers that want to outsource their MPS operations, we can install the software or we can manage it,” says Dyck. “We can run assessment services for the folks that don’t have the resources to go out and tag or map the devices. We have a full, turnkey MPS infrastructure, and what’s unique is that it’s a one-box solution. Hardware and supplies, whether OEM or compatible, we drop-ship direct to the end user and we can set up and configure it for them. It’s tailored depending on what their needs are.” The many distribution locations mean that Digitek can drop-ship hardware and supplies across the country in one to two days. The firm also provides full-service recycling capabilities for both consumables and hardware.

Thought leadersDigitek is branching out further as well, with thought leadership webinars a big item on the agenda. “Think TED Talks,” says Dyck in describing the new initiative in which Digitek plans to bring thought leadership to the marketplace on a monthly basis. “Maybe it’s industry specific, but maybe not. You may want to know about the economic climate of North America, or hear from a New York Times bestseller on how to grow your business. We want to bring fresh perspective, technology, and ideas forward to the dealers on a monthly basis, just to help be that trusted advisor.”

It’s a unique perspective from a for-profit channel dealer, but one that is becoming a bit more common, as more and more frequently companies that once tightly guarded their secrets for success are now sharing them with partners and

yes, competitors. Dyck says it’s another way in which technology has changed the face of business. “With the advent of the Internet of Things, the speed of technology, you can’t hold your cards close to your chest,” he says. “Share as much relevant information with your audience as you can so they look to you as a thought leader and trusted advisor.”

Martorana agrees. “We’re dealing with Buyer 2.0, but many dealerships are trying to operate and sell like they did 10 years ago. Consumer and purchasing habits have changed. Ten years ago very few people searched online before making a purchase. Today, 70 percent of purchases have already been researched through the Web and the buyer has an idea of what they’re going to do before contacting the vendor. That’s a huge shift in the way people buy. In order to respond to that, dealers and resellers need to have a relevant voice, and a value proposition that’s going to compel the buyers that contact them, and that’s one of the areas we’re focused on.

“It’s about creating a compelling value proposition to differentiate Digitek from others,” he continues. “Why is someone going to choose us over someone else? It’s important to have a compelling response, and the dealers who are facing the industry headwinds have to ask themselves the same thing, and decide where they want to be in five or 10 years. We’re going to help people grow the solutions business because we believe that’s the future.”



What do you like/dislike about working with the SMB customer? Gordon Snider: There are many great things about working with SMBs, including the lasting friend-ships that often develop, but the most professionally rewarding has to be their ability to adapt quickly to changing market trends. Successful SMBs are typi-cally run by problem solvers and that’s just exciting to be around.Lou Stricklin: SMB customers in general make deci-sions much faster than an enterprise account. They’re more willing to take risks (albeit small risks) and try

out new technologies, solutions and applications to help improve the business. SMBs are typically loyal and sales can often be centered around relationships — this can be viewed as good or bad depending on whether you’re the incumbent or newcomer to the account.Larry Trevarthen: The SMB customer is a terrific customer to serve, because they are looking for sup-port from OEMs and the channel, they can evaluate and make decisions quickly, and they provide fast and valuable feedback for future products. Working with them provides a great ability to enhance your solutions. To be successful with them, it’s critical that you have strong channel relationships that can augment and support your message since the SMB customer will typically look to the channel for informa-tion and purchase.Stephen Young: I’ve always enjoyed working with SMB customers because of the tremendous impact we have on their overall business strategy. SMB cus-tomers are frequently looking for an edge; a differen-tiator that will allow them to compete in a larger and sometimes even global marketplace.

How an SMB customer uses every resource is far more important than in an enterprise environment. Resources are limited in an SMB scenario, so every hire is magnified on their P&L as it could potentially lead to the success or failure of their business. If an SMB customer can invest, however, in a solution to automate processes that would have otherwise required a back-office hire, it frees up resources for revenue-generating activities such as sales or market-ing. At the same time it could also improve the overall customer service experience, which is critical to compete in today’s market.

By helping SMB users to find ways to operate more efficiently and productively, we can free up resources that will provide them with the edge they’re looking for. That makes it exciting for them and for us.

What trends are you seeing with SMB customers around outsourcing and managed services?Thomas Jensen: I’ve found that more and more business owners are adopting flexible work schedules

Channel Chat:Selling to the SMB

Thomas Jensen, Vice

President, Worldwide

Channel Sales &

Strategy, HP Printing

& Personal Systems

Gordon Snider, Vice

President, Business

Development, Densi

Corporation

Chris Strammiello,

VP of Global

Alliances & Strategic

Marketing, Nuance

Communications

Lou Stricklin

Director, Marketing &

Sales Support

Muratec America, Inc.

Larry Trevarthen

Director, Commercial

Printing and Scanning

Epson America, Inc.

Stephen Young,

President & CEO,

Square 9 Softworks

WHAT ARE THE highs and lows of selling to the SMB? We decided to find out by asking a few ques-tions of some industry leaders, giving them the op-portunity to answer some or all of the questions. The answers, like our panelists, are diverse, surprising and informative. Our panel this month:

ChannelChat_1015TIC.indd 38 9/29/15 3:37 PM


What do you like/dislike about working with the SMB customer? Gordon Snider: There are many great things about working with SMBs, including the lasting friend-ships that often develop, but the most professionally rewarding has to be their ability to adapt quickly to changing market trends. Successful SMBs are typi-cally run by problem solvers and that’s just exciting to be around.Lou Stricklin: SMB customers in general make deci-sions much faster than an enterprise account. They’re more willing to take risks (albeit small risks) and try

out new technologies, solutions and applications to help improve the business. SMBs are typically loyal and sales can often be centered around relationships — this can be viewed as good or bad depending on whether you’re the incumbent or newcomer to the account.Larry Trevarthen: The SMB customer is a terrific customer to serve, because they are looking for sup-port from OEMs and the channel, they can evaluate and make decisions quickly, and they provide fast and valuable feedback for future products. Working with them provides a great ability to enhance your solutions. To be successful with them, it’s critical that you have strong channel relationships that can augment and support your message since the SMB customer will typically look to the channel for informa-tion and purchase.Stephen Young: I’ve always enjoyed working with SMB customers because of the tremendous impact we have on their overall business strategy. SMB cus-tomers are frequently looking for an edge; a differen-tiator that will allow them to compete in a larger and sometimes even global marketplace.

How an SMB customer uses every resource is far more important than in an enterprise environment. Resources are limited in an SMB scenario, so every hire is magnified on their P&L as it could potentially lead to the success or failure of their business. If an SMB customer can invest, however, in a solution to automate processes that would have otherwise required a back-office hire, it frees up resources for revenue-generating activities such as sales or market-ing. At the same time it could also improve the overall customer service experience, which is critical to compete in today’s market.

By helping SMB users to find ways to operate more efficiently and productively, we can free up resources that will provide them with the edge they’re looking for. That makes it exciting for them and for us.

What trends are you seeing with SMB customers around outsourcing and managed services?Thomas Jensen: I’ve found that more and more business owners are adopting flexible work schedules

Channel Chat:Selling to the SMB

Thomas Jensen, Vice

President, Worldwide

Channel Sales &

Strategy, HP Printing

& Personal Systems

Gordon Snider, Vice

President, Business

Development, Densi

Corporation

Chris Strammiello,

VP of Global

Alliances & Strategic

Marketing, Nuance

Communications

Lou Stricklin

Director, Marketing &

Sales Support

Muratec America, Inc.

Larry Trevarthen

Director, Commercial

Printing and Scanning

Epson America, Inc.

Stephen Young,

President & CEO,

Square 9 Softworks

WHAT ARE THE highs and lows of selling to the SMB? We decided to find out by asking a few ques-tions of some industry leaders, giving them the op-portunity to answer some or all of the questions. The answers, like our panelists, are diverse, surprising and informative. Our panel this month:


October 2015 39

channel chat

and the “work from anywhere, anytime” mentality – especially smaller organizations with few employees. Because of this shift, SMBs are seeking improved mobility, cloud computing and backup/recovery solutions, which sets them up well for a managed services environment. The managed services market among SMBs will continue to grow in the coming years as business owners look for cost-effective ways to reduce risk, increase agility and, to put it simply, lower stress. Stricklin: We are definitely seeing an upward trend when it comes to outsourcing and managed ser-vices in the SMB space. Many businesses, especially upstarts, are trying desperately to keep costs down while building a solid business infrastructure. They’re more willing to outsource the fundamental business processes in order to enable their employees to focus on the revenue drivers within the business. It’s the app mentality. Why spend the time, resources and energy to develop (and/or manage) something if there’s an outsourced business application that can do it for you?

Are there any unique challenges when it comes to selling to the SMB? Jensen: As SMB customers demand new ways to enhance productivity and mitigate security risks, there is a growing market opportunity for channel partners. The challenge, though, is that SMBs typically do not have the time or resources to invest in complex IT processes. When selling to SMBs, take the extra step to become a strategic adviser to the company. Often, you’ll be working directly with the business owner, as opposed to a dedicated IT professional, who has very general knowledge of their technological needs. Take the time to fully understand their challenges and provide simple solutions that are easy to maintain and require minimal support. Right-size your offerings so that it’s easier for SMBs to understand, deploy and manage a modern IT environment.Chris Strammiello: Except for the skills and knowl-edge related to the market niche they serve, a small business owner is typically a generalist when it comes to business operations. Unless your product or ser-vice is tied to a specific profession or industry, engage the SMB customer with different language than you would for an enterprise. Don’t use acronyms or tech-nical specifications; instead, talk about the situation a small business owner may be facing and demonstrate how your product or service addresses their issue.Trevarthen: Because the SMB market is so large and diversified, it is much more effective to support

them with value added resellers (VARs), and provide a solution that is customized for their needs. Ensuring these VARs understand the capabilities of any OEMs’ solutions is therefore key to providing support for the SMB market. With technologies, business models and customer requirements changing, ensuring a tight communication path between the channel and the OEMs is critical.

What technologies are bringing the SMB and enterprise closer together?Snider: It’s not really technology, but with the digitiza-tion of so much information, the ability of the SMB to get actionable data and analytics is bridging the gap between SMB and Enterprise. Stricklin: SaaS and cloud utility models are the technology drivers that are leveling the playing field between the SMB and enterprise. For reason-able monthly fees an SMB can spin up a powerful CRM system (with complete sales forecasting and analytics), automate business processes (expense reporting, accounting), maintain the latest versions of office technology solutions (Office 365), accept mobile payments, deliver an exceptional e-commerce platform and create a professional online presence … all without any IT staff. SMBs can outsource the business headaches while focusing on the areas that drive the business.Trevarthen: Technologies and solutions that have historically been focused on the enterprise are moving down to the SMB. Document management, with its ability to organize and manage the important records of any enterprise, is increasingly adopted in SMBs as scanning and document management solutions have moved to the desktop. In a similar vein, managed print services have increasingly penetrated the SMB market. SMBs are using MPS less for cost reduction and control, but more to be able to get an optimized fleet of devices, which allow them to market them-selves effectively and grow as enterprises. Therefore they are deploying distributed color printing within their MPS environments.Young: We’re in a time where the use of technology has helped to level the playing field between SMB and enterprise organizations. Cloud offerings that can be rented rather than purchased and lower-priced productivity solutions applications have made enterprise-class solutions available to organizations of every size. We refer to that as the democratization of software.

Take, for example, a product like SalesForce.com (SFDC). A CRM was a solution that only larger



organizations could cost justify previously, but SFDC changed that with a product that can scale to any size. At Square 9 we used it as a young startup with only three employees. Many years later we continue to use the SFDC platform to automate internal pro-cesses for greater efficiency and have integrated it into everything from our commission system and proj-ect management platform to our help desk environ-ment and of course our own ECM platform. A tool like SFDC provides the platform for reporting that enables companies of all sizes to be metrics driven, which is critical in this era of “big data.”

CRM is not the only solution that has helped to level the playing field between large and small busi-nesses. While it seems like there is an app for every-thing, other big difference makers that I can point to include products like Basecamp for project manage-ment, Intacct and FinancialForce.com for accounting, and of course WebEx and GoToMeeting. Who would have thought 10 years ago that a small company could compete in a global market delivering not only product demonstrations but also Web-based cus-tomer support just as easily as their enterprise-sized counterparts? I would also encourage companies of all sizes to explore some of the new crowdsourcing applications that are available. One of my favorites is 99Designs for crowdsourced graphic design projects.

What would you say are the top IT challenges facing the SMB customer? Jensen: SMB’s limited budgets are certainly their biggest challenge when it comes to implement-ing advanced technology solutions. They are well aware that security, mobile device management, and compliance are all crucial aspects of their business, but they still need to control cost and may not be able to justify the investment. Another challenge is the lack of a dedicated IT staff – with-out those skills in-house, partners should em-power them with the appropriate tools they need to increase productivity and meet their business objectives without requiring too much maintenance or operational cost. Snider: Security and risk management: Ensuring security and privacy of the organization’s systems and data. Data management: How to effectively organize, manage and secure the growing amounts of data within the organization. Mobile and BYOD: The line between personal and business use for company devices is non-existent. An employee bringing their own devices and apps poses a sig-nificant security and productivity challenge for IT.

Strammiello: Security is by far the top IT challenge facing the SMB customer. CloudEntr’s 2015 State of SMB Cybersecurity survey found that 77 percent of respondents indicated that their employees are the weakest link in maintaining data and network security. There are simply too many touchpoints throughout business processes that expose sensitive data to security risk. SMBs must gain control of their informa-tion by implementing digital capture workflow solu-tions, safeguarding collaboration processes with PDF software, and securing document output with print management programs.Stricklin: Investment in analytics tools to help them truly understand their customers, business opportuni-ties and challenges within the business. Managing and maintaining accurate customer data. Unifying employees from a technology/application stand-point and enforcing policy. Mentally putting their trust in the cloud and being willing to embrace the concept of outsourced IT and business infrastruc-ture. Procurement, inventory and e-commerce … and the nightmare that those things are. The SMB is challenged with providing an engaging, easy-to-use e-commerce platform to simplify the consumer ex-perience, while at the same time integrating into their supply chain the systems of multiple vendors, freight carriers, etc. This keeps a lot of SMBs up at night. (Thanks, Amazon.)

Name three differences you encounter when working with the SMBs versus enterprise Strammiello: Unlike the enterprise, key performance indicators (KPIs) trump ROI as the new metric for determining what IT investments to make. We have found they provide SMBs with specific, actionable in-sights on business performance and what areas need improvement. With so many vendors fighting for SMB dollars, SMBs will increasingly seek out those that help them understand what KPIs are most relevant for their business and industry, and those that provide credible, specific metrics about how their solutions, not products, affect these KPIs.

SMBs also tend to opt for an incremental, inte-grated solutions approach. SMBs prefer a Lego-like approach that enables them to acquire only what they need at a given point of time with the ability to easily add-on functionality. They are looking for solutions that allow non-technical users to configure integra-tions without coding if they understand business integration workflows and requirements.

SMBs have dynamic needs but limited resources. Their buying processes are different and far less



organizations could cost justify previously, but SFDC changed that with a product that can scale to any size. At Square 9 we used it as a young startup with only three employees. Many years later we continue to use the SFDC platform to automate internal pro-cesses for greater efficiency and have integrated it into everything from our commission system and proj-ect management platform to our help desk environ-ment and of course our own ECM platform. A tool like SFDC provides the platform for reporting that enables companies of all sizes to be metrics driven, which is critical in this era of “big data.”

CRM is not the only solution that has helped to level the playing field between large and small busi-nesses. While it seems like there is an app for every-thing, other big difference makers that I can point to include products like Basecamp for project manage-ment, Intacct and FinancialForce.com for accounting, and of course WebEx and GoToMeeting. Who would have thought 10 years ago that a small company could compete in a global market delivering not only product demonstrations but also Web-based cus-tomer support just as easily as their enterprise-sized counterparts? I would also encourage companies of all sizes to explore some of the new crowdsourcing applications that are available. One of my favorites is 99Designs for crowdsourced graphic design projects.

What would you say are the top IT challenges facing the SMB customer? Jensen: SMB’s limited budgets are certainly their biggest challenge when it comes to implement-ing advanced technology solutions. They are well aware that security, mobile device management, and compliance are all crucial aspects of their business, but they still need to control cost and may not be able to justify the investment. Another challenge is the lack of a dedicated IT staff – with-out those skills in-house, partners should em-power them with the appropriate tools they need to increase productivity and meet their business objectives without requiring too much maintenance or operational cost. Snider: Security and risk management: Ensuring security and privacy of the organization’s systems and data. Data management: How to effectively organize, manage and secure the growing amounts of data within the organization. Mobile and BYOD: The line between personal and business use for company devices is non-existent. An employee bringing their own devices and apps poses a sig-nificant security and productivity challenge for IT.

Strammiello: Security is by far the top IT challenge facing the SMB customer. CloudEntr’s 2015 State of SMB Cybersecurity survey found that 77 percent of respondents indicated that their employees are the weakest link in maintaining data and network security. There are simply too many touchpoints throughout business processes that expose sensitive data to security risk. SMBs must gain control of their informa-tion by implementing digital capture workflow solu-tions, safeguarding collaboration processes with PDF software, and securing document output with print management programs.Stricklin: Investment in analytics tools to help them truly understand their customers, business opportuni-ties and challenges within the business. Managing and maintaining accurate customer data. Unifying employees from a technology/application stand-point and enforcing policy. Mentally putting their trust in the cloud and being willing to embrace the concept of outsourced IT and business infrastruc-ture. Procurement, inventory and e-commerce … and the nightmare that those things are. The SMB is challenged with providing an engaging, easy-to-use e-commerce platform to simplify the consumer ex-perience, while at the same time integrating into their supply chain the systems of multiple vendors, freight carriers, etc. This keeps a lot of SMBs up at night. (Thanks, Amazon.)

Name three differences you encounter when working with the SMBs versus enterprise Strammiello: Unlike the enterprise, key performance indicators (KPIs) trump ROI as the new metric for determining what IT investments to make. We have found they provide SMBs with specific, actionable in-sights on business performance and what areas need improvement. With so many vendors fighting for SMB dollars, SMBs will increasingly seek out those that help them understand what KPIs are most relevant for their business and industry, and those that provide credible, specific metrics about how their solutions, not products, affect these KPIs.

SMBs also tend to opt for an incremental, inte-grated solutions approach. SMBs prefer a Lego-like approach that enables them to acquire only what they need at a given point of time with the ability to easily add-on functionality. They are looking for solutions that allow non-technical users to configure integra-tions without coding if they understand business integration workflows and requirements.

SMBs have dynamic needs but limited resources. Their buying processes are different and far less


October 2015 41

channel chat

formal than the enterprise. We have learned that small businesses in particular often don’t know, or care, whether a problem is financial or operational, market-ing- or technology-based. They simply know they have a problem that needs to be fixed quickly and easily.Trevarthen: Because of their size, SMBs are often able to make decisions faster. However their imple-mentations are often broader and more complex since enterprise tends to implement solutions within a specified scope. Because of the breadth of solutions required by SMBs, it’s critical to have the channel involved for customization of the solution as well as ongoing support.

Have you seen any difference in technology ad-aptation between the SMB and enterprise (e.g., mobile, cloud, etc.)? Snider: Definitely. The enterprise space is usu-ally much quicker to adopt new technology, usually

because new technology also means expensive and often unproven. SMBs simply cannot afford to take the risks associated with early adoption of technology.Strammiello: Small and medium-size businesses are completely inundated by paper, and they’re respond-ing to that overload with even more paper due to habit and convenience. Unlike larger enterprises, small business owners don’t realize – or are too busy to contemplate – that paper-based processes waste time and money. SMBs should migrate to digital pro-cesses because their customers have come to expect the convenience of digital capabilities, their employ-ees would be much more productive and resourceful, and they will reduce the security risk of printed infor-mation falling into the wrong hands. Channel partners have a huge opportunity to bring in new revenue by encouraging SMB customers to move away from pa-per and integrate digital workflows into their existing business processes.

Also, cloud adoption is expected to increase through 2018 for both SMB and enterprise. The data that we have found shows very little difference in the percentages for those businesses that plan to

increase their use of cloud. The number one benefit of cloud adoption in SMB is the ability to add new users without difficulty. We are still seeing security as the number one reason SMBs are not moving to cloud. SMBs continued to expand their use of cloud and mobile resources while strengthening traditional on-premise resources. Security emerged as an especially important investment area for SMBs.

Young: I personally feel that the difference in tech-nology adaptation has more to do with the culture of an organization’s IT department and the nature of their industry than their revenue or employee count. We’ve seen both SMB and Fortune 500 organizations embrace the cloud fully with its reduced costs in IT infrastructure and management. At the same time we’ve seen similar sized organizations in a different industry absolutely reject it. One thing I do see con-sistently is a difference in the mobile policies of larger organization and financial organizations in particular.

It’s more and more common to see companies taking great steps to lock down their mobility platforms and limit functionality. That means no texts, limited Web and even disabled cameras in many cases.

As a developer of content management solutions we find the question of security largely drives the decision over whether to deploy a cloud or mobil-ity platform. I listened recently to an interview with Michael Daniel, the White House cybersecurity czar, who stated that there was simply no way to protect against a security breach in any environment. He went on to say that short of paying cash for every-thing and essentially going off the grid, there was no way to protect yourself 100 percent against potential hackers and that you could really only mitigate this through risk assessment.

If your documents are highly sensitive or contain confidential information, the idea of storing them in the cloud is certainly something that can give you pause. As a result, many organizations are deploying cloud based document solutions on a departmental basis where risk can be assessed more carefully on an application to application basis.

SMBs have dynamic needs but limited resources. Their buying processes are different and far less formal

than the enterprise.



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