by Corey Smith for BERTL
The competitive landscape for toner resellers is increasing every year. The challenge for resellers is to find additional avenues of growth for revenue and increase profit margins in this very competitive environment. In addition to the challenges that resellers face in providing services end users have challengers of their own.
Resellers have long found an opportunity in providing toner and other consumables to their clients. With print volumes growing at a rate of 11% in 2007, those opportunities certainly are not going away. Vendors like Parts Now! and Static Control provide high quality consumables for resellers ensuring that resellers can meet the demands of the consumer.
This year at the World Expo from Recharger Magazine resellers received key training on many ways to improve their business opportunities. As toner rechargers and print resellers find increased competition, the opportunity for moving to managed print services becomes very compelling. Because print volumes are increasing, the opportunity of reselling consumables will not diminish, however, the way in which resellers compete will change.
In order to effectively compete, print resellers must develop managed print services contracts to the customer to ensure a secure source of revenue. Utilizing tools from companies such as FMAudit, those prints can be effectively managed providing print resellers as well as consumers with many new opportunities.
The Opportunity for Resellers
Even with the goal of the paperless office, print volumes are continuing to grow at a rate of 11% annually. This produces an advantage to toner resellers who have focused on providing toner and service to printers within their market area. In addition to print volume increases, it is estimated that copy volume is declining at a rate of 1%-2% annually.
According to Jim Salzer, President of DocuAudit International, in 2007, HP sold approximately 60 million printers worldwide, whereas Xerox sold over 3 million and Kyocera sold only about 115,000 during the same time period. According to Salzer, the volume on the average laser printer is just over 3,000 pages per month and less than 3% of those printed pages are currently under a managed print services contract.
As resellers develop a comprehensive plan to proactively manage devices and materials, they can support all the devices for end users while billing only one monthly invoice for the pages printed. This strategy typically provides businesses with a stable cost of operation while increasing the services they receive.
The Opportunity for End Users
While print volume increases at a rate of 11% per year, costs for businesses are also on the rise for print production. The particular challenge that businesses face is that they simply do not understand what they have now and how those devices are being used. Because a lack of understanding of how their current print reproduction is truly being managed, businesses struggle with understanding their true cost.
According to a recent IDC study, every $1 spent on printing a document requires an additional $9 to manage. This management cost not only comes from physically managing the device, but in coordinating repair services from a vendor, ordering supplies, misdirected prints and power requirements. IDC estimates that by 2010, half of the top 2000 companies will spend more on power than the hardware. Salzer comments, "Security and green initiatives are weighted equally to cost in many situations."
As businesses begin to eliminate their direct involvement in managing print devices, as well as the related materials and services, they will realize increased productivity in their office and often find a reduction in print reproduction costs. Moreover, with the single invoice from one vendor, the financial requirements for managing devices are simplified providing a greater level of understanding of total actual costs for print reproduction.
The Strategy
As resellers develop strategies to implement managed print services, they will find that their cost of servicing equipment is reduced and their responsiveness to their customers’ needs is increased. As customers develop strategies to implement managed print services, they will find a reduction in total cost of operation of their print devices as well as increased efficiencies in their office.
Jan De Kesel, President of TCO Partners said, "A managed print services contract provides both the reseller and the end user with key advantages. The print reseller develops a contract for sustained revenue and the end user will find a reduction in their total cost of operation." Developing a sound strategy for managing a company’s print environment is critical for resellers and end users alike.
Through network print tracking software such as FMAudit’s WebAudit, companies can analyze their current costs and develop an appropriate strategy for managing and deploying printer fleets in the most cost effective manner provides benefits to the reseller and end user alike. This same strategy can assist in reducing consumable and management costs for the end user and increase the revenue base for the reseller.
This article originally appeared on BERTL.
