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From Managed Print Services to Managed Document Services

11 958 2012

We would like to know how many of our subscribers have moved on from offering a simple MPS contract to a complete Managed Document Service. 
If you sell to large accounts, you probably already offer MDS - but how many have a deal designed for SMEs?

An MDS contract might just be MPS + per-image billing on the scanner.  But you might open some more doors if you can offer your customers some document management software. 

Billing can be based on per doc, size and/or usage, etc. etc.  You’ll also charge management fees – but you can easily show ROI on them – and your customer’s capex for an MDS is as delightfully low as it was on the MPS you sold him last year.  And all your up-front install costs will be covered by your setup and user training bills.

If you’re not running MDS yet, you might be missing a trick.  Not least because document capture and workflow automation are reducing print levels.  We’re not looking at a paper-free office yet (or is that “again”?), but you know that the very spiels you have in your print accounting app marketing are going to hit your consumables and MPS revenue.  MDS might just mitigate this.

Ricoh’s acquisitions are proof of their interest in this approach.  Kyocera even changed their name.  Some but not all of the other manufacturers have seen the light too.  But the apps to enhance your MDS offer are much less reliant on machine compatibility.  Check out the different Cloud-based DMS on DMO Solutions.  Get in touch with us if you need contacts with the developers’ marketing people.  You might be banging out an MDS within a couple of weeks!

Please drop us a line about how you’re finding MDS is going down in your area – or if you’d like to know more about it.