Thursday, June 4, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Shocking survey results...
Better Buys for Business just surveyed 175 office equipment purchasers and found that 32 percent plan to make a purchase or lease within the next 12 months.
And what did those surveyed say they look most for in their printers?
Answer: Price (46%), cost of ownership (27%), service guarantee (21%), networking and interfacing capabilities (20%), first-hand experience with a brand or product line (19%). Brand reputation (12%), feature set (10%), speed (4.5%).
It drives me nuts that most buyers look at price almost twice as more then they do cost of ownership...this is not logical to me at all. Suppose you are going to go buy a car and you go to your local Ford dealer and he has two cars for sale. Both cars have the exact same features, bells and whistles...the only differences are in the price of the car and the rated MPG for the vehicle. vehicle one costs $5000 and gets 1 mile to the gallon of gas and vehicle two costs $20000 and gets 38 miles to the gallon of gas. For most people, the more economical decision would be to buy the $20,000 vehicle because over the course of owning the car they would be far ahead of the game due to the 38 mpg!!! Now if the car is going to be driven 100 miles a year, I guess the $5000 car makes more sense...
My advice to office equipment buyers is this make sure you pay attention to your total cost of ownership. I have seen it numerous times where a buyer goes to Staples and buys a $300 multi-function printer and within a month they spend over $300 on supplies for the machine. Yet they think they got a great deal because they did not buy the $3000 machine that would have cost $30 a month to operate...simple math shows that within a year the $3000 purchase is ahead of the game...
And what did those surveyed say they look most for in their printers?
Answer: Price (46%), cost of ownership (27%), service guarantee (21%), networking and interfacing capabilities (20%), first-hand experience with a brand or product line (19%). Brand reputation (12%), feature set (10%), speed (4.5%).
It drives me nuts that most buyers look at price almost twice as more then they do cost of ownership...this is not logical to me at all. Suppose you are going to go buy a car and you go to your local Ford dealer and he has two cars for sale. Both cars have the exact same features, bells and whistles...the only differences are in the price of the car and the rated MPG for the vehicle. vehicle one costs $5000 and gets 1 mile to the gallon of gas and vehicle two costs $20000 and gets 38 miles to the gallon of gas. For most people, the more economical decision would be to buy the $20,000 vehicle because over the course of owning the car they would be far ahead of the game due to the 38 mpg!!! Now if the car is going to be driven 100 miles a year, I guess the $5000 car makes more sense...
My advice to office equipment buyers is this make sure you pay attention to your total cost of ownership. I have seen it numerous times where a buyer goes to Staples and buys a $300 multi-function printer and within a month they spend over $300 on supplies for the machine. Yet they think they got a great deal because they did not buy the $3000 machine that would have cost $30 a month to operate...simple math shows that within a year the $3000 purchase is ahead of the game...
Friday, March 6, 2009
Fortune Magazine Most Admired Technology Company...
My Xerox Application Engineer, Jeremy Thompson, sent me this info...Here is a link to the article from Fortune magazine that ranks Xerox as the "Most Admired Company" in the computer industry.
Want a Greener Office?
Good news about Xerox..."Xerox is the first technology company to be named a Performance Track Corporate Leader by the U.S. EPA, one of only five companies to ever receive this distinction."
Here are 7 tips from Xerox to Green your office...
One
Go digital – read, send and
store digital documents.
Two
Use paper wisely.
Three
Recycle the paper you use.
Four
Reach for ENERGY STAR®.
Five
Replace stand-alone office products
with multifunction systems.
Six
Return print/copy cartridges and
supplies for recycling.
Seven
Seek office equipment designed for
remanufacturing recycling.
Thanks to Damian Garafalo, Xerox Account Manager, for this info.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Why Bantam choose Xerox as its main manufacturer to represent?
Bantam made the strategic decision to partner with Xerox because we feel that Xerox offers the best hardware and far more importantly the best pre and post sales support in the industry. Seems Gartner group agrees with this...
Xerox Positioned in the 'Leaders' Quadrant in the MFPs and Printers Magic Quadrant
Gartner released the 2008 Magic Quadrant for MFPs and Printers report and Xerox was positioned in the 'Leaders' Quadrant. Here is a link to the Gartner Report.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Why pay attention to printing in your business?
"Office printing is typically the 3rd highest expense for businesses behind payroll and rent. Employees print on average 34 pages per day and 17% of printed pages end up not being used and thrown away or recycled"
"Each employee consumes on average $900 a year in printing resources and when they are told that their printing is tracked and monitiored, a typical reducition of 25% is found."
Companies have begun to realize that these costs need to be managed and the market is now delivering the solutions to this problem.
Source: PrintAudit
"Each employee consumes on average $900 a year in printing resources and when they are told that their printing is tracked and monitiored, a typical reducition of 25% is found."
Companies have begun to realize that these costs need to be managed and the market is now delivering the solutions to this problem.
Source: PrintAudit
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Why Managed Print Services?
"Typically, most enterprises don't manage their printers. Organizations have fragmented purchasing for printers; usually, purchasing is done departmentally and supplies aren’t centralized, so they are paying the maximum amount that they can," says Peter Grant, the managing VP of Printing Markets for Gartner Research.
"A lot of time when IT managers go into these exercises, they don't even know how many printers that they actually have. In every case, people have more printers than they thought they had. In some cases, they have more printers than they have users in their organizations. Most organizations need to carefully examine their printer fleets. These network discovery tools are important and can find more savings than IT managers can do on their own. It is worth going through [the tools]," says Steve Reynolds, a printer analyst with Lyra Research.
I have yet to run an assessment for a client and had them tell me accurately how many printers they had. They typically are off by 20%.
"A lot of time when IT managers go into these exercises, they don't even know how many printers that they actually have. In every case, people have more printers than they thought they had. In some cases, they have more printers than they have users in their organizations. Most organizations need to carefully examine their printer fleets. These network discovery tools are important and can find more savings than IT managers can do on their own. It is worth going through [the tools]," says Steve Reynolds, a printer analyst with Lyra Research.
I have yet to run an assessment for a client and had them tell me accurately how many printers they had. They typically are off by 20%.
Tough Economic Times
Clearly we are in the midst of an economic downturn and nearly every business is struggling to varying degrees. What should we be doing for our clients and customers in order to grow our respective businesses? Maintain a laser focus on delivering value and cost recovery are what I am finding as the answer. In eleven years of selling I have never heard from the market as huge of a demand for solutions to reduce costs associated with office printing/copying and document management. Is this always possible? I wish the answer was yes, but more often then not we are finding ways to recover costs for our clients.
If your business is struggling I would suggest that you either look for ways to help your clients grow significantly their revenues or reduce costs. These are not revolutionary concepts, but today more then ever we have to clearly deliver these benefits for our clients and prospective clients.
If your business is struggling I would suggest that you either look for ways to help your clients grow significantly their revenues or reduce costs. These are not revolutionary concepts, but today more then ever we have to clearly deliver these benefits for our clients and prospective clients.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
We are all set.
Fellow document consultants may be able to understand this dreaded response that is so often heard when we initially market our services. Here is the scenario; you meet a President of a company that has 50 or more printers and copiers in his business. You ask him, 'suppose we could improve your printer fleet and reduce your costs associated with your fleet by 40%, what would you say?" And they respond with the dreaded, "We are all set" or "We have contracts for that stuff", etc, etc, etc.
Many of you are as passionate about your solutions and services as I am and are probably frustrated by these responses. Why the frustration? In my ten years of being in this business, I have yet to find a company that when completely open with me (trusts me) in regards to their printer and copier inventory and costs that I could not make recommendations that would greatly improve their fleet and recover cost. These great results are what cause us to be passionate about bringing our services to the market place.
So, when we here the 'all set' objection to our marketing we get frustrated. How to overcome this? I have come to the conclusion that most prospects have an initial distrust of us, because we are viewed as the dreaded sales person. Admit it, none of us love salespeople. Think about going to buy car, is dealing with the salesperson the favorite part of the transaction for you? Unfortunately, the bad feelings we naturally have for car sales people are probably what our prospects have initially for us.
I have been helped greatly in understanding this by a sales coach I hired over two and half years ago, Chris Socha with TEM Associates. If you are frustrated with your sales efforts or looking to sell more, you may want to have a conversation with him. Here is a link to Chris Socha.
Many of you are as passionate about your solutions and services as I am and are probably frustrated by these responses. Why the frustration? In my ten years of being in this business, I have yet to find a company that when completely open with me (trusts me) in regards to their printer and copier inventory and costs that I could not make recommendations that would greatly improve their fleet and recover cost. These great results are what cause us to be passionate about bringing our services to the market place.
So, when we here the 'all set' objection to our marketing we get frustrated. How to overcome this? I have come to the conclusion that most prospects have an initial distrust of us, because we are viewed as the dreaded sales person. Admit it, none of us love salespeople. Think about going to buy car, is dealing with the salesperson the favorite part of the transaction for you? Unfortunately, the bad feelings we naturally have for car sales people are probably what our prospects have initially for us.
I have been helped greatly in understanding this by a sales coach I hired over two and half years ago, Chris Socha with TEM Associates. If you are frustrated with your sales efforts or looking to sell more, you may want to have a conversation with him. Here is a link to Chris Socha.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Goldmine in your business?
Is there a goldmine of untapped cost recovery in your business? Gardner group reports that companies spend on average 1-3% of total revenues on their copier/printer fleets. Our process of developing strategies to optimize an organization's printer fleet typically recover 20-47% of this spend!
In today's ever increasing competitive atmosphere and tough economic times, it may make sense for your comapany to be sure you are not bleeding money in your printer fleet. Want to make sure you are optimized and determine if there may be an oppourtunity to recover as much as 1% of your total revenues and return them to your bottomline? If so, give me a call @ 860-985-8960.
In today's ever increasing competitive atmosphere and tough economic times, it may make sense for your comapany to be sure you are not bleeding money in your printer fleet. Want to make sure you are optimized and determine if there may be an oppourtunity to recover as much as 1% of your total revenues and return them to your bottomline? If so, give me a call @ 860-985-8960.
Improve your companies IT experience
With the economy in a rut, businesses are looking to cut costs wherever they can and technology is usually the first place they look. We have partnered with NowITworks because of their awesome client service and the niche service they deliver can have a huge impact on many businesses bottomline.
In 2008, NowITworks had three large companies that decided to outsource with them rather than maintaining internal staff. They were able to save each company thousands of dollars on their costs and still offer more maintenance and proactive services. It made sense to them to have an outsourced department of skilled technicians proactively working 24/7 rather than one employee who only works 40 hours per week, not to mention the costs associated with hiring and maintaining employees (sick time, vacation, workers comp, etc). This may make sense for your business.
To learn more check out their website, www.nowitworks.com
In 2008, NowITworks had three large companies that decided to outsource with them rather than maintaining internal staff. They were able to save each company thousands of dollars on their costs and still offer more maintenance and proactive services. It made sense to them to have an outsourced department of skilled technicians proactively working 24/7 rather than one employee who only works 40 hours per week, not to mention the costs associated with hiring and maintaining employees (sick time, vacation, workers comp, etc). This may make sense for your business.
To learn more check out their website, www.nowitworks.com
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