Posted on Thu, Jan 07, 2010
I didn't hear many people shedding tears as they said Good Riddance to 2009 last week. However, when you look back at the past ten years, should we also be happy to say goodbye to the decade?
From a stock market perspective, the 2000's will go down as the worst decade on record in terms of investor returns. Seeing the demise of Nortel, Worldcom, Enron, and the meltdown in the financial markets, I guess it's not that surprising.
In the print world, we've also seen a significant shift in the ‘players'. At the turn of the century, Xerox and Kodak employed almost 40,000 employees in Rochester. Today, that number is just over 15,000. Both of their challenges have been well documented with Kodak selling its copier business (to Danka, subsequently sold to Konica Minolta) and losing much of its dominance in the photographic market. Xerox also given up its Catbird seat to HP, Canon, and Ricoh. In addition, Xerox was forced to restructure and has since outsourced most of its copier & print technologies to partners including Okidata, Samsung, and Fuji.
We have seen HP follow the path of IBM. Both are huge ($100B+) and have become increasing aware of the need to become more service focused. Of the major OEM companies, HP appears to have the lead in migrating to this service model.
So, the decade ahead...what's next for print? Well, Managed Print Services (MPS) has become the new trendy term, with many technology companies painting themselves as service organizations. My belief is we'll see this term last the decade...and may even have it defined before 2020! We'll see continued consolidation in the market, in terms of both acquisitions and hardware partnerships (Xerox-Samsung, HP-Canon, Lexmark-Oki, etc). From a customer perspective, maximizing the efficiency and productivity of their staff will be paramount in the coming ‘jobless recovery'. Therefore, customers will demand a complete managed print program, including software, hardware, realtime asset information, and a solution that maximizes uptime while minimizing capital expenditures.
And, finally - we'll see those Consulting companies (Gartner, Photizo, Lyra) shift their business models to recognize the best print/copy service-based companies...including LaserNetworks. It's the right thing to do for both customers and the industry. Without it, are we destined to repeat our mistakes of the 00's? As of Oct. 18 2001, all 15 analysts tracked by Thomson Financial/First Call rated Enron a "buy"--12 of the 15 called it a "strong buy." Even as late as Nov. 8, the date of Enron's disclosure that nearly five years of earnings would have to be recalculated, 11 of the 15 recommended buying the stock. There were three "holds" and one "strong sell." Enron declared bankruptcy Dec 2, 2001.
Happy New Year!
Brian
Posted on Wed, Dec 16, 2009
My previous post discussed my thoughts around the print/copier consulting industry and my overall concerns with the Gartner rating system. Well, here is a very interesting blog article about Gartner and a current court challenge regarding the merits of their ‘research'.
http://thedeathofthecopier.blogspot.com/2009/12/gartners-magical-quadrant-and-scales-of.html
One of the shocking notes is the following comment from the blog: Gartner plainly admits that it attempts to leverage value from its largest clients, many of whom are also vendors covered in the company's research.
A further note states: Gartner argued to the Court that its rankings and other statements in the proprietary Magic Quadrant Reports are merely opinions that are not based upon fact, and that they are understood as such by the readers of those reports. However, Gartner's past statements in marketing materials, white papers, blogs and even the Magic Quadrant Reports themselves, assert that their research and analysts' opinions are based on a body of facts compiled through what is asserted to be a rigorous process.
If your company utilizes the Gartner Group for information or research purposes, it may be worth a further review to determine if you are truly receiving the value and benefits you are seeking.
Posted on Tue, Dec 15, 2009
Think back to the spring of 2009. US banks are failing by the day. House pricing are in total freefall. Unemployment is climbing at a rate of 500,000 per month. We've also just sat through another Lyra Symposium wondering where the copier & print market is about to go. If anyone is talking Managed Print Services, it's only the Photizo Group. Heck, we've been ‘doing it' for almost 15 years & we're still calling it Print Fleet Management or Cost Per Page (our trademarked brand for this print management thing).
May arrives & the Photizo Group holds the first ever Managed Print Services Conference in San Antonio. Here's to Ed & his team for pulling this off in the middle of an economic mess. But they did pull it off, with excellent attendance. So, I guess this is when Managed Print Services began. Once there's a conference, there's an industry!!! Event side note: LaserNetworks is recognized as being the Top Managed Print Provider at the Conference.
Fast forward six months & it seems everyone has a ‘Managed Print' program, with Gartner even recognizing some as (already) being in the Magic Quadrant. Congrats to HP & Xerox but wow! Imagine these hardware companies transitioning their business models from technology companies to service companies, essentially overnight. While I'm a bit sore about not seeing LaserNetworks name in that top box (or anywhere!), it's also disappointing not to see other industry leaders such as Printelligent up there.
Although, maybe we're coming down the hype curve & Gartner will begin to recognize the leaders in the space...to date, these have not been manufacturers. Two weeks ago, at a Gartner event in Toronto, they noted about MPS: "there's an over-commitment and under-delivery from many of the providers." Cause for optimism for the companies that have built their business models on MPS for 10+ years???
2010 should continue to be an exciting year for MPS, from manufacturers, service-based companies, and most of all - the consulting industry. While Gartner does have a stranglehold on the IT industry, and will only get stronger with its recent acquisition of AMR, they may be losing their Magic Quadrant Print/Copy status to Photizo or NewField IT (Europe).
It will be interesting to see if Photizo continues to maintain their first-in position & begin to promote and recognize the companies that are truly aligned with the customer. Looking forward to seeing their Magic Quadrant rating at some point down the road...
Here's to a very interesting 2010!!!
Posted on Mon, Oct 26, 2009
According to the Gartner Group, the average employee spends 150 hours per year looking for misplaced documents. That's almost 4 weeks of 'wasted'!!!
From my perspective, that's an alarming number & I'm happy to be below average on this one. However, if you're working in a document-intensive industry, I suppose it's possible due to the amount of information flow that exists today. This would also help explain the huge growth we've seen in our Workflow Consulting and Application Software components of our business.
In many respects, Print is the last unmanaged expense in an organization. By understanding the true pain in the environment, customers will quickly have the information necessary to drive change needed to reduce those 150 wasted hours per year. The Photizo Group calls this "Stage 3"...the understanding of Business Processes and Business Workflow. They estimate 20% of Managed Print companies understand this Stage, of which LaserNetworks is one. For additional information on the Photizo Group & the benefits around Stage 3, you can find them at managed_print_services.com. Also, in their upcoming MPS Insights Journal, the edition is dedicated to Stage 3 and includes an update on LaserNetworks and how we're supporting our customers in their quest to reduce waste and create a sound output strategy.