With increasing digitisation, the software component in every infrastructure is increasing rapidly. The data centre space is already becoming extremely software defined, and now the traditional bastions such as printers too are increasingly becoming more software defined. Traditional printer vendors, who are finding it difficult to exponentially grow their printer business, are now finding huge growth in an area which is exploding fast. This is the Managed Print Services arena, and almost all the major printer vendors are finding huge double digit growth in this segment. CRN India spoke to major printer vendors to find out their perspective
Digitization in the government space is a new opportunity for our partners
Your view on the growth of the printing business.
From a printing perspective, we have been leaders for over 25 years in the country. It is safe to say that one out of two printers sold is of HP. We are the only company which has laser ink or the PageWide technology. From a product portfolio perspective, we have the entire range. The other key element to the leadership is that we participate in all the segments, right from a home consumer to the largest of the enterprises and government customers. We look at making printing affordable, because that is the key. Ultimately, it’s all about the cost of printing.
To an enterprise, we can give a per page concept. An enterprise does not have to own the asset. It does not have to buy the devices and then worry about the printing cost and infrastructure. We can look at managed print services for enterprise and large government customers. We also take over existing fleet of devices and refresh them. That’s what we call as the CPP model – Cost Plus Play.
We are also looking at smarter solutions for boosting our growth. The other big area that we have entered is the A3 copier segment. HP was never present in the A3 copier segment until last year, after we launched A3 portfolio; A3 globally is a $55 billion market.The good part is that after launching, we almost touched double digit numbers. We have also acquired a Samsung print business recently. This is really helping from an A3 perspective, because Samsung has a good A3 portfolio.
We are building an A3 ecosystem parallel to that because some of the A3 markets are driven by partnerships. The other important one is digitisation- the whole Digital India approach and focus in the country. We are working closely with a lot of government departments, ministries, high courts and public-sector banks to convert every physical document into digital. For example, one of the projects that we have almost completed is for the Bihar Land Records, wherein we have archived all the old documents which are almost 50-60 years old and have to be handled carefully. This is a big thrust from the government. This is where we saw the opportunity earlier and are now working closely with a lot of government departments.
What is the scale like?
To give you a perspective, in the High Court, there is an RFP in Kolkata for 80 crore pages and these are only high courts. Then there are district courts as well. There are about three billion documents that need to be archived. The fact is that we work closely, so we are bidding in a lot of high courts. This is a huge focus because we sell it as a service. Customers only have to pay per page. We take the documents, scan them, archive them and then index it and give it back to them for easy retrieval.
Is the MPS business one of the biggest markets for you?
Right now, it’s the biggest priority for us. Security clearly is the biggest theme on which we build our products. There is a myth that printers cannot be hacked. A printer is nothing, but a PC. It has got its memory, the BIOS, network connectivity and you can send e-mail from a printer as well. So, I think when you talk to CIOs and CXOs, the biggest priority is to make sure that infrastructure is secure, which is the storage device. There is a lot of awareness now and we are working with lot of enterprises and mid market customers to ensure security. We have what we call the ‘3D approach’ – Data, Devices and Documents, from a printer perspective. We keep the device secure with a security solution. From a data perspective, the data is encrypted in the printer.
When you break the overall print business into services part, is it greater than the actual printer business?
Services are from a digitisation prospect. The other services are linked to be more on the printing market. Digitisation is a new area, which involves the scanning part, wherein, you have a lot of RFPs come out and this is mandate of the government as well.
The MPS business is growing fast. We have been in the MPS space for the last four to five six years now and we have been a leader. We have lot of enterprise accounts with us. We have managed security service for printers, which is part of the MPS Solutions right now. We talk about security as a key theme in MPS as well. We are also training our partners from a skillset point of view, so that they are better equipped to provide greater value. We do regular training, enablement and business planning with partners. As part of that, we discuss the entire solution that we have.
Digitisation in the government space is a new opportunity for our partners. For example, some of the ministries are looking at archiving records. They have all kind of documents, so how to archive them and keep land records, revenue department, high courts or courts per se, district and sessions court is a huge mandate. These are again aligned to the Digital India plan of the government where some of them are funded from the Centre and executed in states.
The whole journey is really transformed and customers are keen to know how will it benefit them. When customers move from a disparate or managed printer infrastructure to a managed print services, the savings can be anywhere in the range of 15 per cent to 20 per cent.
India is the fastest growing market for MPS business in Asia Pacific
How has the MPS market evolved over the years? What sort of traction are you witnessing in the India market?
According to a Transparency Market Research (TMR) report, the global MPS market is anticipated to expand at 14.8 per cent CAGR from 2016 to 2024 and reach a value of US $94.97 billion by 2024. On the basis of size, the global managed print services market will be led by large enterprises. MPS is used extensively for managing complex IT infrastructure in large enterprises, thereby boosting the growth of the segment.
The MPS market is still under explored in India, despite the fact that India is one of the fastest growing global markets in the sector. The impact of the economic downturn in India made most organisations re-think their costs. MPS became an attractive proposal because it offered lower costs while enabling businesses to focus on their core tasks. The majority of MPS commitments come from mid-market to enterprise levels of accounts. However, small and medium enterprises are also opening up towards the innovative ideas of cost reduction and are now considered a potential market in India for MPS. Some major sectors understanding the benefits of MPS are education, BFSI, manufacturing, healthcare, and IT. Most of the MPS tie-ups are with local branches of multinational organisations or rapidly emergent national firms. The future for MPS is promising with high prospects of the service becoming assimilated with mainstream practices of most enterprises.
What’s the current contribution of MPS to your overall printing business?
WeP is a pioneer in MPS business and started the MPS business in the year 2002. Since then the business has progressively expanded to over 2,000 locations across India for more than 500 customers with over 25,000 printer/copiers. WeP has the highest market share in the country and has been awarded India’s No 1 MPS company 2017 award from IBC, USA. We are also amongst the first few companies to manufacture and market Billing Printers for large retail segment in India.MPS contributes 52 per cent to the overall business.
What has been the year-on-year growth of MPS business?
The penetration of MPS in India stands at about 15 to 20 per cent, which is the lowest in the Asia Pacific region. However, this is improving by about two to three points every year. India is the fastest growing market for MPS business in Asia Pacific and this market is likely to touch a 40 per cent penetration rate by 2021. These are completely our estimations based on the present market scenario, as there is no published data on the growth of MPS in India as of now. Our year-on-year growth ranges between 5-10 per cent. However, we have had a growth of 5 per cent in the last financial year.
As a market leader, what’s the USP of your offerings that gives you a competitive advantage over others?
WeP MPS helps in addressing the following common print problems and provides customers with additional value.
wRemote monitoring: This tool can be used to replace manual processes like placing service calls or submitting supply orders with automated alerts and notifications. Remote monitoring enables proactive device management, reducing downtime and increasing efficiency for customers.
- Supply and service management: Customers are often faced with a feast or famine dilemma when it comes to their supplies where they end up with too little or too much of what they need. Similarly, they may not be aware of an issue with a device until long after it happens, resulting in costly and inconvenient device downtime. Alerts based on supply thresholds and error codes can be used to create a proactive supply and service program that provides customers with what they need, when they need it.
- Reduced IT workload: Many customers do not have a dedicated resource to manage devices in the office. The responsibility often falls to IT staff who also take care of the company’s other IT needs. From diagnosing device problems on their own to placing helpdesk calls, IT staff can end up spending a lot of time dealing with device maintenance. Our MPS solution helps eliminate the time spent on device-related issues. The IT team can thus focus its efforts on the primary responsibilities, effectively making device management more efficient and increasing productivity.
- Control and accountability: WeP MPS solutions come with powerful reporting tools that can provide customers with insights into their print activities including information about problem devices, utilisation, page coverage and more. These metrics help in optimising the print environment, increasing efficiency, and decreasing costs.
- Reduced environmental impact: Businesses are increasingly becoming aware of the environmental impact of their day-to-day activities, including print. For many people and organisations, print is still a necessary part of their work day, but an effectiveMPS like that offered by WePcan make print more environmentally friendly by: consolidating devices, reducing the amount of wasted toner in a cartridge, and using paper consumption data to reforest your company’s paper footprint
How does your MPS offering help customers achieve a cost-effective and productive imaging and printing environment?
Before we venture into any account, we deep dive and do a thorough assessment of the print infrastructure. Several parameters such as power consumption, print volume, office space, security, special printing needs, and future scalability are considered. We provide the appropriate printer for the right requirement and support better utilisation of customers’ existing assets. This further helps in the optimum usage of resources, eliminates manpower, reduces costs, and increase RoI. With us, customers do not need not worry about spare costs, change of spares, or machine downtime, which translates to increased productivity.
WeP has recently signed an agreement with Israel-based ePaper for bringing world-class secure printing solutions for organisations in India. We are the only entity in the country to provide solutions powered by Sentinel, a secure, pull printing solution developed by ePaper. Sentinel is a print management software with flexible, modular architecture that can be customised according to the needs of any organisation. The solutions provided under this agreement include security, cloud printing, and device management. Organisations can now protect their confidential data and print from anywhere to anywhere, thus omitting the dependency on any other network. It will now become possible to monitor, manage and track all the printers spread across any geographic region through one dashboard.
Are there any client examples/success stories that can be shared with us?
One success story is that of an organixation called Curiositi, an activity-based learning portal. The company had to outsource all its printing requirements to a third-party vendor due to which they were unable to deliver to their full potential. They also had to follow a standardixed format every time, which made customisation difficult. They also found it challenging to maintain the inventory. After a careful assessment, the WeP team deployed four printers at their premise and the entire printing process was setup in house. This solved Curiositi’s primary problem and they could customise their activity and meet a one-day TAT. With their dependency on third-party vendors removed, the company not only saved costs, but also printed 24 hours owing to heavy order flow. WeP also provided them with standby printers and toners to avoid any machine downtime.
Apart from this, WeP also provide solutions and services for sectors such as BFSI, hospitals, and hotels and specialises in business-critical printing.
Do you also run a channel program targeted at MPS? If yes, please highlight the uniqueness of the program and how are your partners benefiting out of it?
We do not run any channel program targeted at MPS so far. Our operations are direct in India and we have plans to increase our reach through strategic alliances in India with the help of organisations who are into IT management. We are also looking at partners who have expertise in managing the account relationship which when combined with our core competencies in MPS will benefit the customer.
Future roadmap to further grow this business
WeP aims to become India’s leading MPS provider. We realise that the penetration rate of MPS in India is really low and customers are reluctant on investing in this service. To address this, we have introduced something called the WeP Asset Management, wherein customers do not have to invest anything upfront. All the existing assets (printers) will be taken care of by WeP. We believe this will be a good motivation for them to start exploring the benefits of MPS. We are also increasing our reach in all locations through direct and indirect presence. We are developing cloud printing solutions to help people print with ease, anytime, anywhere. People can now upload their files and pay and print from kiosks.
We have witnessed a double digit growth of our MPS business
How has the MPS market evolved over the years? What sort of traction are you witnessing in the Indian market?
The MPS market has evolved over the past few years. Organizations have become more open to outsourcing non-core business processes. We have worked with many organizations that are on different scale of maturity of their MPS deployment and have helped them with their business transformation. For example, we helped organizations transition from an ad-hoc un-managed print environment to a managed environment. In addition to that, we have also helped organizations move from a managed environment towards business process transformation.
Xerox Next Generation MPS offerings extend far beyond managing a fleet of output devices, providing an OPEX business model and driving down TCO for organizations, it penetrates into areas which directly has impact on core businesses and sustainability objectives of organizations. Xerox helps organizations through an entire journey, right from printing for less to printing less altogether targeting slow, inefficient paper based process and moving them to a digital platform enables organizations to be more productive and more responsive to their customer’s needs while reducing print needs.
What’s the current contribution of MPS in your overall printing business?What has been the year-on-year growth of MPS business?
MPS is a major contributor to the Xerox India business. At Xerox India, we have witnessed a double digit growth of our MPS line of business. At this rate, we believe that our growth is faster than the market.
As a market leader, what’s the USP of your offerings that give you a competitive advantage over others?
Our strength lies in the depth of our vision and the proven abilities to deliver on its deliver. Our offerings are supported by the innovation we bring, which is not only limited to our products, but also in our services. We have two industry leading tools for assessment – that help our clients uncover the hidden aspects of their printing environment. This not only includes the infrastructure, but also processes, user requirements, security posture etc. Additionally, our unique offerings in sustainability (print awareness tool), analytics (user analytics, document analytics etc.) and other domains add to our value proposition Overall, our objective is not limited to take care of our client’s print environment – but to become a partner, helping them achieve their business objectives.
How does your MPS offering help customers achieve a cost-effective and productive imaging and printing environment?
Within Xerox’s Next Generation MPS offerings, we help the client optimize their total cost of ownership, by consolidating their ad-hoc environment and deploying business aligned print policies (including AAA solutions). This is where we help them “print for less”.
We do not stop here, we further take them on a path where we enable “print less” by removing the unwanted paper (or bad-paper as we call it) using our workflow offerings built on the MPS platform.
Do you also run a channel program targeted at MPS? If yes, please highlight the uniqueness of the program and how are your partners benefiting out of it?
We have an elaborate Channel MPS program in India, and are observing a massive growth in this segment. Xerox has designed this program in such a way, that both end clients and our valued partners realize the benefits from the offerings. Our partners have a greater control on their MPS operations – leading to a predictable revenue growth. This helps our partners develop capabilities to independently offer such services as well.
What all efforts being put to build capabilities and competencies of your MPS partners so that they are well-prepared to address the customers’ requirements?
Xerox provides all the necessary support at all stages – pre-sales, sales and post-sales. Channel MPS is offered only through Xerox Corporation accredited partners. This accreditation process is very elaborate and has various tollgates to ensure our partners have developed necessary skills, infrastructure and processes before they begin offering the services to end clients. We support our partners by providing access to Xerox’s core MPS tool set, assessment methodology and people – including analysts, sales coaches, service delivery professionals etc. ensuring their success.
Future road-map to further grow this business
If you look at enterprises today, each year improper document management costs organizations millions of dollars in liability, reduced efficiency and lost productivity. These costs only increase in future with expansion in business operations, and ever increasing regulatory and compliance related requirements. Maintaining proper document management infrastructure/program to ensure data privacy and security, regulatory, compliance, control and access to information and cost control associated with information processing is only getting more critical by the day.
The incumbent need is to outsource these services to a service provider that specializes in the domain and is capable of providing the desired turn-around times and Service Levels backed by tangible and measurable Key Performance Indicators, continuous monitoring and proactive support for the print environment. This trend has already begun and in future we see more and more enterprises and corporates outsourcing their document management needs to leading global players like us for whom it is a core business.
At Xerox, we are constantly evolving our offerings to make them more meaningful for clients and partners in the ever-changing business environment. We are also increasing our market coverage to make MPS available to organizations so that they can realize business benefits from the offerings.
