Channels to MPS in Europe · 2011-01-28 · ©Quocirca 2010 Page 1 Louella Fernandes Quocirca Ltd...

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©Quocirca 2010 Page 1 Louella Fernandes Quocirca Ltd Tel +44 1753 754838 [email protected] Clive Longbottom Quocirca Ltd Tel +44 1189 483360 [email protected] Channels to Managed Print Services in Europe A review of Managed Print Services (MPS) programmes for SMBs and midmarket organisations August 2010 REPORT NOTE: This report has been written independently by Quocirca Ltd. During the preparation of this report, Quocirca spoke to a number of suppliers involved in the areas covered. These include HP, Kyocera, Konica Minolta, OKI, Ricoh, Xerox and a range of resellers. We are grateful for their time and insights. Although Quocirca has taken what steps it can to ensure that the information provided in this report is true and reflects real market conditions, Quocirca cannot take any responsibility for the ultimate reliability of the details presented. Therefore, Quocirca expressly disclaims all warranties and claims as to the validity of the data presented here, including any and all consequential losses incurred by any organisation or individual taking any action based on such data.

Transcript of Channels to MPS in Europe · 2011-01-28 · ©Quocirca 2010 Page 1 Louella Fernandes Quocirca Ltd...

Page 1: Channels to MPS in Europe · 2011-01-28 · ©Quocirca 2010 Page 1 Louella Fernandes Quocirca Ltd Tel +44 1753 754838 louella.fernandes@quocirca.com Clive Longbottom Quocirca Ltd

©Quocirca 2010 Page 1

Louella Fernandes Quocirca Ltd Tel +44 1753 754838 [email protected]

Clive Longbottom Quocirca Ltd Tel +44 1189 483360 [email protected]

Channels to Managed Print Services in Europe

A review of Managed Print Services (MPS) programmes for SMBs and midmarket organisations

August 2010

REPORT NOTE: This report has been written independently by Quocirca Ltd. During the preparation of this report, Quocirca spoke to a number of suppliers involved in the areas covered. These include HP, Kyocera, Konica Minolta, OKI, Ricoh, Xerox and a range of resellers. We are grateful for their time and insights. Although Quocirca has taken what steps it can to ensure that the information provided in this report is true and reflects real market conditions, Quocirca cannot take any responsibility for the ultimate reliability of the details presented. Therefore, Quocirca expressly disclaims all warranties and claims as to the validity of the data presented here, including any and all consequential losses incurred by any organisation or individual taking any action based on such data.

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Channels to MPS in Europe

European vendor analysis 2010

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Quocirca believes that the use of managed print services (MPS) in the midmarket will increase significantly as more printer and copier manufacturers launch packaged services for channel partners that enable them to capture on-going revenue opportunities. Midmarket businesses are just as likely as their larger counterparts to struggle with escalating print costs, along with loss of productivity as a result of time spent on dealing with printer downtime and manual ordering processes for supplies. Fortunately, there are a wide range of simple and flexible managed print services offerings that midmarket businesses can take advantage of, depending on the scope of their printing needs.

Midmarket organisations must take a fresh look at their print environment Unmanaged print environments represent a huge cost and productivity drain to an organisation, particularly when a mix of old and new technology is used that often requires different service contracts and consumables. This can be an administration headache for any business, with time often being spent dealing with printer problems and ad-hoc, inefficient supplies ordering.

The availability of channel-led MPS offerings continues to evolve from established enterprise MPS vendors The MPS concept has emerged as a way of replicating the copier service delivery model, which is based on per-page pricing provided with service and support. Many vendors, including HP, Lexmark, Oki, Ricoh and Xerox, have developed similar services to create a recurring revenue stream to augment or replace the transactional approach to buying printer hardware and supplies on an ad-hoc basis.

The benefits of MPS extend beyond simple cost-per-page contracts Like any utility service pricing approach, MPS contracts are based on a cost-per-page, which requires volume commitments. A recurring charge includes consumables and service and the more sophisticated services use remote monitoring to alert providers to device failure or when consumables are running low. Such proactive support can significantly improve device uptime, supplies administration and reduce the pressure on strained IT resources, as the MPS provider takes care of installing, supporting and maintaining printing devices.

Lease-based MPS contracts eliminate the need to purchase new hardware Often the biggest barrier for many companies signing a new service agreement is the need for capital expenditure to purchase new hardware. Lease-based MPS agreements, such as HP QuickPage, overcome this issue by including a lease rental agreement. Therefore, the monthly cost includes the cost of the hardware, meaning capital expenditure is eliminated and the new hardware doesn’t appear as a depreciating asset on company accounts.

Xerox currently offers the most established set of MPS offerings for channel partners Xerox has a broad channel MPS portfolio, from basic maintenance and supplies contracts, such as PagePack, to its multivendor services for the channel, Xerox Partner Print Services (XPPS). In March 2010 Xerox extended its XPPS service and support to offer click-based, cost-per-page contracts on non-Xerox devices. XPPS now has 22 new partners, spread across 13 countries, including six accredited partners in the UK. XPPS has been well received by multi-brand resellers due to the comprehensive set of tools and infrastructure that Xerox hosts.

HP's QuickPage fills a gap in its current range of services by providing a simple packaged service for resellers with limited or no experience of MPS HP QuickPage is designed to help SMBs with a contractual agreement that covers hardware, installation, supplies and support of HP devices. The InCommand portal enables both resellers and customers to track usage and manage contracts. As yet, third party devices are not supported, but this is expected to be the next stage in the development of HP's QuickPage offerings. HP hopes that QuickPage will be particularly attractive to IT resellers who have limited skills and infrastructure to manage MPS contracts.

The success of MPS in the SMB market relies on the strength of channel services Undoubtedly, the SMB market represents a huge opportunity for manufacturers and resellers alike to capture incremental revenue opportunities. In the face of continued hardware commoditisation and shrinking margins, resellers must make the transition from transactional to services-led approaches. While resellers require simple and flexible tools that limit the infrastructure investment, they must invest in the human resources necessary to take their MPS business forward.

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Contents 1 Introduction: Are midmarket printing needs being met? ......................................................................... 4

1.1 Defining MPS in the midmarket ................................................................................................................ 4

2 Drivers for MPS in the midmarket ............................................................................................................ 5

3 The competitive landscape....................................................................................................................... 8

4 Market summary...................................................................................................................................... 9

4.1 Xerox leads the market .............................................................................................................................. 9

4.2 HP ramps up channel initatives ................................................................................................................. 9

4.3 Kyocera expands hosted approach for partners ..................................................................................... 10

4.4 Ricoh offers localised channel services ................................................................................................... 10

4.5 Other vendors: Brother, Konica Minolta, OKI, Samsung ......................................................................... 10

5 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................. 10

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1 Introduction: Are midmarket printing needs being met?

With the growth of enterprise managed print services (MPS) and especially with the more recent expansion of services and solutions that target midmarket companies, the questions still remain: are these new services actually meeting the needs of small and mid-sized organisations? Do stripped down enterprise MPS services provide the necessary capabilities for smaller organisations? Do these organisations actually understand what is available and why they should consider an alternative way of purchasing and maintaining their print environment? The market is now awash with diverse service offerings from manufacturers and independent providers giving organisations more choice, but is this adding to the confusion of an already nebulous marketplace?

MPS can bring a range of benefits to midmarket businesses that typically lack budget and IT resources. Many businesses operate disparate processes for purchasing hardware, maintenance, support and supplies. Staff time is spent on ordering toner, ink or managing daily printer problems. Printing remains a critical part of many businesses, yet few businesses have a true understanding of print costs. MPS offers a way of not only reducing cost through more efficient printing practices, but also provides transparency of costs to enable businesses to monitor print usage on an on-going basis.

Most printer and copier vendors offer some form of managed service which integrates service, supplies and support based on a cost-per-page contract. However, for the most part, SMBs are simply not aware of the service offerings available. Established copier-centric companies, such as Xerox and Ricoh, have long been offering contractual cost-per-page contracts, while printer companies such as HP have been later to the fold. Yet most of these basic services are centric, applying only to a specific vendor's device. For businesses operating multiple brands, this can complicate the use of MPS, as print volumes are not consolidated across brands with such packages. The exceptions to this are multivendor services offered through Xerox and independent MPS providers.

The diversity of the midmarket, in terms of organisation size and print usage, means that vendors need to offer scalable services dependent on the number and type of printers managed, existing IT capabilities and the volume of printed output. Despite the raft of channel initiatives in the MPS arena, awareness of MPS remains low and vendors need to better communicate how a managed print environment can reduce both capital and operating costs, as well as improving business productivity.

1.1 Defining MPS in the midmarket

MPS is effectively the new killer app of a commoditised printer market, characterised by falling prices and shrinking margins. Selling services is the key to capturing new revenue for both manufacturers and resellers. Resellers can benefit from longer term customer relationships and on-going revenue opportunities while customers can reduce capital investment and lower the on-going costs associated with inefficient printing practices. With service, support and consumables replenishment all taken care of by the managed service provider, SMBs are free to concentrate on core business activities rather than time consuming print management tasks. What does MPS include? Channel packaged MPS offerings in the midmarket vary in depth and scale. Unlike enterprise MPS, they do not require an initial print audit assessment. An entry level MPS offers a way to purchase printers combined with supplies, maintenance and support through an all-inclusive contract.

Purchasing: Payment schemes vary as customers may either purchase devices outright, or lease them from a financing company. Leasing enables organisations to shift capital to operational expenditure. Businesses then pay a monthly fee based on predicted monthly print volume, which covers the cost of the equipment, any leasing costs, supplies, service and support.

Print volume commitment: Some contracts require a monthly or annual print volume commitment, where unused pages are still paid for. Where minimum volumes are required, an overage charge is generally applied, which is a cost for each page beyond the minimum page volume. Alternative approaches are contracts that do not impose minimum volumes, where users only pay for what they print. These contracts may still require a commitment to a service contract for a minimum period.

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Additional services. These are dependent on the reseller capability and may include assessment services, device consolidation consultancy or document workflow solutions.

The following table describes the key differences between a basic MPS and value MPS approach. Services that offer flexible levels of service enables MPS to easily scale to support business growth, something that can be challenging for midsize businesses.

Target market Category Description Channel requirements

SMB Basic: Maintenance, supplies and support

Hardware, supplies, service, support, finance based on cost per page

Minimal investment: Simple and quick to operate: No software, no audits, no complexity

SMB & Enterprise

Value: Assessment, optimisation and management

Assessment of print volumes, environment, workflows and cost

Some investment: Print audit tools, multi-vendor support, remote monitoring

Quocirca believes that the following capabilities offer midmarket businesses the strongest opportunities for cost saving and productivity improvements.

Features Benefits

Automatic meter/counter reading

Reduced time associated with manual meter reads

Greater billing accuracy

Automatic invoicing Automatic error notification Predict equipment failure, improve uptime

Less user intervention Automatic toner/ink management capabilities/supplies ordering

Proactive maintenance and replenishment

Improved inventory management Usage reports Optimise hardware usage through more efficient data collection and

analysis

Better device utilisation and management

Warn of device reaching end of life Customer portal/web interface (for customer and service provider)

Improved customer experience, ease of use, fast and efficient way to view device usage

Service provider can analyse customer reports on demand to improve service levels

Remote management e.g. automatic software upgrades, remote configuration

Improved customer response time

Maximise service engineer utilisation

Figure 1: Recommended MPS capabilities

2 Drivers for MPS in the midmarket The MPS approach is typically driven by a wider desire not only to reduce costs, but also to improve the availability, performance, resilience and security of an organisation´s print environment without the need for additional in-house skills and resources. While an end-to-end MPS is relatively prohibitive in terms of cost and scale to all but the very large corporate organisations, a pared down version of the MPS model makes it ideally suited to meet the needs of the midmarket organisation. MPS is therefore appealing to those businesses where pressure to deliver on-demand, 24 x 7 IT systems is high, but in-house resources and specialist skills are typically spread thinly.

While many large corporate organisations are focused firmly on reducing costs, midmarket organisations have a wider agenda to address. For them, the challenge of keeping costs to a minimum is coupled with a relatively small in-house IT team, which brings with it additional problems surrounding the shortage of specialist IT skills; the cost of IT training; and the impact of holidays, illness and staff changes on business continuity and competitive advantage. In addition there is the challenge of how to balance the day-to-day IT systems administration, necessary to keep the business functioning, with the more strategic IT development that will help drive forward the business for the future. Quocirca research found that, amongst 50 SMBs using MPS, the top driver for using MPS was allowing IT to focus on more strategic activities (Figure 2).

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Figure 2. What issues influenced the decision to use or consider MPS?

For the midmarket organisation, a managed service can help address many of the above issues by enabling the relatively mundane, yet sometimes business-critical, print management tasks to be taken care of by a third party, thereby freeing up in-house staff to focus on strategic developments that will add real benefits to the business. For the medium-sized organisation, therefore, cost is just one of many compelling reasons to adopt MPS. The fact that the print environment has become increasingly complex, regardless of company size, gives rise to another midmarket argument in favour of the managed services approach, particularly those organisations at the upper end of the scale. The tools needed to manage the range of printing devices and ensure the high levels of performance, resilience and security required for today´s on demand business often requires specialist IT skills. For large corporate organisations, this is not generally a major issue and most will invest in-house in software and the staff to deploy and run this software successfully. This is something which is not typically a viable option for the midmarket organisation. However the managed services approach means that the service provider invests in the software and skills and simply spreads the cost among all of their managed customers. As a result, the midmarket organisation can take advantage of all the benefits of these tools, without the associated costs. Coupled with increasing IT complexity is the fact that today´s organisation is now more reliant than ever on its IT systems. Printing continues to be a critical element of most business processes today, and device downtime can have a significant effect on those businesses which are heavy print users. For medium-sized organisations, the threat of downtime can, arguably, be more severe for them than for the larger organisations, as they frequently do not have the spare capacity to cope with problems, or indeed the time and skills to pre-empt them. By using an MPS provider to monitor and manage systems, the midmarket organisation can mitigate the risk of downtime and pre-empt potential problems, rather than trying to fire fight when they have already happened. So why, in light of all of these apparent benefits for the midmarket, is it that, on the whole, only large corporate organisations are currently utilising MPS and not those that could realise maximum benefits from this approach? The answer is simple—a lack of understanding about what managed print services are, how they are delivered and what the costs are. The perception is that managed print services is not an approach that is suited to midmarket needs, when in fact the opposite is true and, as a result, midmarket organisations simply do not have managed services on the agenda (Figure 2). Quocirca research, conducted in 2008 amongst SMBs in Europe, indicated that the top barrier to MPS adoption is the perception that it is more expensive than managing printing internally (Figure 3). Clearly there is also a strong lack of awareness of the benefits of using MPS.

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Figure 3. Why are SMBs not using/considering MPS? (234 organisations)

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3 The competitive landscape The overall MPS landscape is characterised by printer/copier manufacturers, systems integrators, software infrastructure vendors and consulting/audit firms.

Printer/copier manufacturers: These programmes are tied to vendor product offerings and include assessment, design, implementation and support services. Vendors may also offer channel MPS programmes through reseller partners where capabilities exist. Vendors in this category include Canon, HP, Konica Minolta, Ricoh and Xerox.

Systems integrators/resellers: These are often a channel to market for printer and copier vendors, and may offer MPS as part of a wider desktop service offering or green IT service strategy. Vendors in this category include Atos Origin, Cap Gemini, CSC and IBM.

Software infrastructure vendors: These provide software tools for assessment and optimisation of the print environment. Examples include NewField IT’s Asset DB, Levi Ray and Shoup’s (LRS) enterprise output management toolset and products from PrintAudit and PrintFleet.

Consultants: These independent firms offer a vendor-neutral approach and may also focus on a specific geography, technology or market niche. As independent consultants do not sell hardware, their assessment and design services provide recommendations that are not tied to a particular manufacturer. NewField IT and Perform IT offer such independent assessment services.

The maturity of services in the above categories varies significantly and it can sometimes be confusing as to what is exactly covered by different vendor offerings. MPS programmes targeted at the office environment include the following:

Figure 4: The MPS Ecosystem Please note that the above list of MPS providers is not intended to be exhaustive, but highlights some of the key players in the market.

Hardware, maintenance and

supplies

•Brother PrintSmart

•HP QuickPage

•Kyocera KYOprint Pack

•Ricoh Click

•Xerox PagePack

Value channel services

•HP Smart Printing Services

•Xerox Partner Print Services

Independent reseller MPS

•Ingram Micro

•Computacenter (UK)

•Pitney Bowes

•Steria

•SCC

Direct vendor programmes

•Canon

•HP

•Konica Minolta

•Lexmark

•Ricoh

•Toshiba

•Xerox

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4 Market summary

This section provides an overview of the main service offerings from printer and copier vendors. Adoption of MPS in the midmarket clearly relies on successful execution by the channel. However, the channel is fragmented between copier dealers and IT resellers, both of which have very different sets of skills and expertise. While copier dealers have long been offering cost-per-page or click contracts and have the infrastructure and billing capabilities, IT resellers tend not to have the resources, expertise or tools readily available. Given the nature of the established copier service contracts, which include maintenance and supplies, it is unsurprising that the copier-centric vendors currently offer the most established set of contractual services for their channel partners.

4.1 Xerox leads the market

Xerox has a broad MPS portfolio, from basic maintenance and supplies contracts to enterprise print services that include management of office printing, the print room and external print procurement. Its established enterprise MPS portfolio has enabled it to build a robust set of services for the channel. PagePack, Xerox's flagship service offering, was launched in 2003 and includes supplies and service for the duration of the 1, 3, 4 or 5 year contract term. The plan is based on cost-per-page together with a minimum monthly commitment. Xerox's most recent addition to its service portfolio for the SMB market is Xerox Partner Print Services (XPPS). XPPS is a hosted set of tools that provides channel partners the tools to offer a multivendor MPS and, as such, is currently unmatched by any other printer or copier manufacturer. Since its launch last year, Xerox has accredited 36 partners and plans to grow this to 100 across Europe in 2010. With XPPS, Xerox has been able to leverage its enterprise MPS tools and infrastructure to create a compelling and low risk MPS infrastructure for its channel partners. Quocirca's discussions with XPPS resellers indicate a high degree of satisfaction with the XPPS infrastructure, which has made it possible to sell, manage and support MPS customers much more effectively.

4.2 HP ramps up channel initatives

HP is actively developing its channel service strategy to support targeted growth in contractual sales. Up to now, Smart Printing Services (SPS) has been HP's main channel MPS offering. SPS is targeted at copier and IT resellers, with different contract responsibilities depending on the reseller's capabilities. SPS is available across Europe but the level of participation varies widely in each country. In Germany, the majority of IT resellers proactively sell SPS, while those resellers with experience of selling cost-per-page contracts participate only in HP's channel-led programme, selling their own versions of SPS. The recent launch of HP QuickPage promises to fill the gap in HP's channel services portfolio and provide it with a much-needed route to shifting reseller sales from a transactional to contractual approach. Based on HP's InCommand platform, QuickPage offers SMBs a simple contract that includes hardware, installation, supplies and support. InCommand is a cloud services platform that is provided to HP QuickPage qualified partners. The InCommand platform supports the management of contracts and services and, in its first phase, will enable HP channel partners to quickly configure and deliver QuickPage service contracts by integrating back office operations with financing and supplies logistics partners. Along with consolidated billing and a service portal, QuickPage provides a simple approach for the reseller that requires no infrastructure investment, and also enables QuickPage customers to access, via a web portal, tools to manage supplies ordering and monitor page volumes. QuickPage, as with other cost-per-page contracts, relies on the customer accurately assessing its estimated print volumes. At present, QuickPage's volume commitment can only be changed in the first year, but does allow customers to evaluate their total print usage over a 6 month period and only pay for overage pages that exceed their total page allocation in that period. While the fixed three year term contract could potentially be an area if dissatisfaction amongst QuickPage customers, the advantage of not applying monthly print volume commitments means a user is not penalised for printing variable amounts each month.

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4.3 Kyocera expands hosted approach for partners

Kyocera launched KYOprint Packs in the UK in 2008. The KYOprint Packs are aimed at business users and are inclusive of consumables, maintenance kits and on-site support. Pack sizes vary according to the device and range from 5,000 pages to 1,000,000 pages. To date, Kyocera has engaged 350 UK resellers with its KYOprint Pack offering through its two main distribution partners, Midwich and Ingram Micro. Each distribution partner hosts a KYOprint Pack micro site where resellers can configure orders and create quotations. KYOprint Packs are also available in other European countries. Each time an end user purchases another KYOprint Pack, Kyocera will pay a percentage of that revenue back to the distribution partner who will, in turn, pass a percentage on to the reseller. This is for the life of the 3, 4 or 5 year support guarantee, and Kyocera handles everything directly with the customer. Distribution and the resellers can benefit from on-going revenues for machines they have already sold, and the aim is that, as their machine base increases, so their on-going revenues will compound.

Kyocera has been successful in encouraging resellers to sell MFP devices as well as printers. Kyocera is looking to expand its MPS capabilities in 2010 through its Managed Document Services portfolio, building on its document accounting software KYOcount and KYOanalyser, an auditing tool to improve the design and proposal side for resellers. In addition, Kyocera has added KYOfleetmanager, its web-based fleet management system, which allows services such as remote monitoring of devices, which delivers alerts, such as consumables running low, directly to Kyocera or its channel partners.

4.4 Ricoh offers localised channel services

Ricoh does not currently have an integrated channel MPS strategy, but supports local dealers who may be offering MPS with the relevant tools and training. Ricoh UK launched Ricoh Click in 2009, which is available on Ricoh's full product range. Rather than stipulate print volumes Ricoh Click provides transparent pay-as-you-print billing, a portal-based management system that includes a consumables ordering service and a tiered service and support structure.

4.5 Other vendors: Brother, Konica Minolta, OKI, Samsung

All manufacturers who sell through the channel offer some form of basic managed service. Konica Minolta's Optimised Print Services strategy has been developed to be scalable for enterprises and SMBs while OKI's recent launch of Print Optimiser, a managed print service offering for its resellers, serves to further indicate the continued service push in this market. Although Samsung launched a raft of channel announcements, it has yet to formally introduce a cohesive programme for the channel.

5 Conclusion

Up to now, MPS has largely been the domain of larger enterprises, due to established direct MPS offerings from vendors such as HP, Lexmark, Ricoh and Xerox. However, mid-sized businesses are also waking up to the MPS opportunity with the emergence of more channel-driven MPS packages from vendors such as Xerox and HP. These range from device-centric offerings, which are typically inclusive service contracts encompassing service and supplies, to some packages including the leasing of devices and may also include support, depending on the capability of individual resellers.

In a flat hardware market characterised by falling prices and shrinking margins, printer manufacturers view MPS as key to growth. Achieving this for the SMB market is challenging due to the disparate nature of the printer and copier reseller channel. Experienced copier resellers will be aware of the infrastructure and skills that their company needs to provide to be successful. However, for classic IT resellers, managed print services are new. Whilst copier resellers have the experience of selling contracts based on pages or "clicks", many IT resellers are not used to selling these types of contracts. This is likely to lead to the emergence of hybrid resellers who offer such contracts backed by IT expertise.

With manufacturers simplifying their channel propositions, MPS will certainly become more accessible for resellers who will not need to invest in a costly infrastructure. In effect, instead of building their own service infrastructure, they can resell MPS as a "white-label" service provided by a manufacturer. Whilst services such

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as Xerox Partner Print Services and HP QuickPage are a good start in terms of making MPS more accessible to a wider number of resellers, the challenge remains to train resellers to make the transition from selling hardware to selling services. Resellers need to be able to educate customers on the benefits of transitioning to MPS and demonstrate return on investment.

With cost reduction high on the agenda for most businesses, MPS provides an opportunity for organisations of all sizes to gain the visibility they need into print costs and enables resellers to develop long term and profitable customer relationships. The vendor programmes outlined in this report mean that the barriers to entry for MPS such as cost and complexity, which may have discouraged resellers in the past, are no longer daunting—and there is no better time than now for resellers to add value to their services with MPS.

References:

Quocirca SMB IT Management primary research conducted 2007

Quocirca primary research (unpublished) conducted in 2008 amongst SMBs and MPS resellers across Europe

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About HP HP, the world's largest technology company, simplifies the technology experience for consumers and businesses with a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com/.

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About Quocirca Quocirca is a primary research and analysis company specialising in the business impact of information technology and communications (ITC). With worldwide, native language reach, Quocirca provides in-depth insights into the views of buyers and influencers in large, mid-sized and small organisations. Its analyst team is made up of real-world practitioners with first-hand experience of ITC delivery, who continuously research and track the industry in the following key areas:

Business process evolution and enablement

Enterprise solutions and integration

Business intelligence and reporting

Communications, collaboration and mobility

Infrastructure and IT systems management

Systems security and end-point management

Utility computing and delivery of IT as a service

IT delivery channels and practices

IT investment activity, behaviour and planning

Public sector technology adoption and issues

Integrated print management Through researching perceptions, Quocirca uncovers the real hurdles to technology adoption—the personal and political aspects of an organisation’s environment and the pressures of the need for demonstrable business value in any implementation. This capability to uncover and report back on the end-user perceptions in the market enables Quocirca to advise on the realities of technology adoption, not the promises. Quocirca research is always pragmatic, business-orientated and conducted in the context of the bigger picture. ITC has the ability to transform businesses and the processes that drive them, but often fails to do so. Quocirca’s mission is to help organisations improve their success rate in process enablement through better levels of understanding and the adoption of the correct technologies at the correct time. Quocirca has a proactive primary research programme, regularly surveying users, purchasers and resellers of ITC products and services on emerging, evolving and maturing technologies. Over time, Quocirca has built a picture of long-term investment trends, providing invaluable information for the whole of the ITC community. Quocirca works with global and local providers of ITC products and services to help them deliver on the promise that ITC holds for business. Quocirca’s clients include Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, Dell, T-Mobile, Vodafone, EMC, Symantec and Cisco, along with other large and medium-sized vendors, service-providers and more specialist firms. Sponsorship of specific studies by such organisations allows much of Quocirca’s research to be placed into the public domain at no cost. Quocirca’s reach is great—through a network of media partners, Quocirca publishes its research to a possible audience measured in the millions. Quocirca’s independent culture and the real-world experience of Quocirca’s analysts ensure that our research and analysis is always objective, accurate, actionable and challenging. Quocirca reports are freely available to everyone and may be requested via www.quocirca.com. Contact: Quocirca Ltd Mountbatten House Fairacres Windsor Berkshire SL4 4LE United Kingdom Tel +44 1753 754 838