Print

Comment

Email

Digg

Del.icio.us

Reddit

Twitter

Document management is a critical function and in the era of convergence, any form of digital communication right from digital office files to emails has to be managed intelligently. While document management makes for the entire lifecycle management of the enterprise document workflow, the management of printers constitutes a key component in document management.

In this backdrop, over the years, the industry has seen the evolution of newer methods in optimally managing the printing infrastructure. One such model is managed print services (MPS). Probably WeP can be considered a pioneer in this space with its on-demand and pay-per-use of print. In time, other vendors have jumped into the bandwagon despite the total addressable market for MPS still remaining largely untapped. The three leading players in the space are Xerox Global Services, HP and WeP.

The MPS Market
A look at the MPS landscape reveals its segmentation across total document outsourcing to enterprise print management. While the former takes into account the entire document workflow, the latter addresses the printing needs of the enterprises. Traditionally, players like HP are into standalone printing sales and for large deployments has taken a solutions approach. But with the untapped market potential, HP has forayed into MPS and its now part of its balanced deployment strategy.

According to Nitin Hiranandani, director, enterprise sales and services, Imaging and Printing Group (IPG), HP India, HP Managed Print Services can help enterprise customers to leverage 10-30% cost reduction while simplifying the management of their imaging and printing environment, and focus on their core business.

Before offering our MPS services, we do a complete audit of the enterprise print patterns and study the print volumes generated by various work groups and suggest the best possible print regime.

Based on the enterprise print requirements, HP offers a range of MPS services. Says Hiranandani, The beauty of balanced deployments is that enterprises can manage their printing and imaging infrastructure with tailor-made solutions, thats scalable to future demands too. HPs includes five key servicesassessment services; financial and procurement; transition and implementation; support; and document workflow services.

Meanwhile companies like Xerox adopt a document outsourcing model which has a component called Office Document Assessment (ODA). According to Mark Petit, executive director, Xerox Global Services, We segment the document lifecycle patterns and evolve a solution that best matches the requirements. The ODA is a component of our document outsourcing services and our model makes for complete transformation of the enterprise document workflow by ushering greater manageability and huge cost savings.

Companies like Xerox and HP are considerably upping their ante in this space and the ongoing recession augurs well for them. The down economy has pushed many companies to explore cost effective information management methods. Clearly managed printing services tops high on their agenda. According to IDC, 90% of companies cannot estimate their document costs, yet they spend as much as 15% of their revenue on document related activities. The same IDC study also reveals that of those organizations that cant estimate their document costs, 60% have started initiatives to reduce those costs.

What makes MPS more ideal is the management agility enterprises get. Print management despite coming into the domain of the CIO, is a big pain and its not the CIOs core area. Through MPS CIOs can have tighter control on their document output costs and at the same time liberate themselves from the elementary job of managing and buying various printer assets. Another driver for MPS is in managing obsolescence. Through total print outsourcing, the managed service provider upgrades the devices and thus, the enterprise need not worry about product upgrades. Moreover, enterprises do not want to create fixed device assets that will become redundant as new technologies come to fore. For instance, the current printer might get repositioned due to new technology or the user wants to reposition a printer that was until a couple of months ago perfectly fine. It is a CIOs nightmare to invest in a technology that is not useful in a couple of months down the line. This is one of the major USPs of print outsourcing.

Way Forward
The concept of MPS is not new in India and the entry of players like HP signifies that there is a big market potential. But the current trend is more toward total document outsourcing than just print. If we take the print part alone the traditional pay-per-output model still holds good and is ideal for the SMB space. From the large enterprise perspective, one of the biggest challenges they face is managing the various print technologies, and this alone is a good enough reason for them turning to managed print infrastructure. But while selecting a managed print services partner, a CIO has to be very careful in deciding whether the services offered will take the enterprise to a truly managed level.

In the Indian context, the MPS is beginning to become mainstream. SMBs have long adopted MPS and thanks to companies like WeP which has sowed the seeds of MPS. While MPS will never become a threat to standalone printer sales, it will continue to grow as vendors like HP and Xerox pitch on the ease of fleet management through MPS. But it can become a threat when total document outsourcing gains more ground. Moreover, some observers feel that there can never be total outsourcing of print and other document assets as with some verticals like BFSI, there is an element of confidentiality that calls for in-premise self managed printers. Thats a miniscule population and will not impact MPS much. Moreover, in security intensive scenarios, careful planning by the CIO is needed when managing the security issues. Also among the larger audiences, there is some confusion between AMC and MPS. These are totally different. In a typical MPS service, what differentiates it from AMC is the ownership. The service provider takes care of the entire lifecycle of the printer and maps each and every printer and puts an optimal print output strategy.

Going by the market intelligence forecasts, MPS is set to grow and large enterprises will benefit the most as the print and the device diversity is the most here. Large enterprise will increasingly look at various models of MPS and will create a document management strategy that liberates them from the day-to-day managing of the device and document management problems. The biggest benefits enterprises of all sizes derive is the high degree of agility and scalability in print, thats unheard of in an area like printing. The road ahead for MPS looks promising and its surely on the growth path.

Shrikanth G
shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in

Page(s)   1