The Future of Managed Print Blog

Can Managed Print Become Unmanagable?

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A recent trip out west to see a couple of our ‘gold' level clients had me wondering if & when Managed Print Services may not work for a company. The meeting started out innocent enough. Two senior employees from our customer along with a Vice President from LaserNetworks and myself sat down in their boardroom...and the first questions from the customer were:

1. Would you like the responsibility of leading our Managed Print solution?
2. Can you do it?

Wow...guess they don't mince words out west. I would say LaserNetworks has a very strong relationship with the client, including an Account Manager that informs the client of everything...positive & negative (yes, we're not perfect yet!!!). So, if we're going to expand our relationship, we'd better have the technology, systems, experience, people, partners, and required energy to make this fly.

These questions triggered new questions: are there situations so complex that a managed print offering won't work today? My thoughts on the capabilities of LaserNetworks:

A. Size doesn't matter. No really...the company can print 50 million pages/year or have 10,000 printers in their fleet and it doesn't (necessarily) increase the complexity.
B. Multi-Site. To date, LaserNetworks has proven successful managing some of the largest companies in North America...some with upwards of 700 locations. It does become more challenging when supporting locations 6 hrs from the closest gravel road (no lie).
C. Multi-Country. When staying within North America, we haven't experienced a ‘No Go' situation...yet (see ‘B' above for potential issues). LaserNetworks has presence in every Canadian province and almost every state in the US (still hoping to book that trip to Hawaii to open up Honolulu!).
D. Multi-Continent. Now we're talking! Time change, currency, language, and culture all make this challenging. Safe to say this is not our ‘sweet spot' and, depending on the country, may require significant partner support.

By the way, our initial reply to the above questions:
1. Yes, we'd be very interested
2. We're not sure

An hour later we left the meeting knowing we can make a real difference for our customer. However, it wasn't an automatic yes. Real managed print experience is critical to understand when to say Yes or, even more important, when to say No. There have been many lessons over the years that have taught us a great deal - including the development of a unique model that can be modified to meet the ever-increasing expectations of our clients.

Thanks to Deb & our great clients out west for making us a better company!