MPS Heavyweight Contender: Lexmark
Dwarfed by larger competitors like HP and Xerox, Lexmark often gets overlooked as a competitive threat in the managed print services (MPS) landscape. This $4.2 billion company is an up-and-coming MPS provider that should be watched closely. Changing their infrastructure to handle MPS contracts, Lexmark has made a significant investment in the people, knowledge, processes and technology required to become a leader in this market.
Lexmark MPS Support Structure
One of the first firms to develop a device management platform, they have the ability to manage third-party devices. They were also one of the first to integrate MPS processes into their hardware.
Perhaps the most aggressive firm to develop a page-reduction strategy, Lexmark has focused on reduction rather than device consolidation. They were one of the first companies to take this approach and it has been a very unique proposition for their customers, who are often calloused as other providers sold them contract based on optimizing their environment, but only consolidated devices to increase their share of equipment and capture more pages.
A highly vertically focused organization, Lexmark is targeting customers in specialized fields, gaining more and more multi-national customers. Lexmark’s vertical strategy is unique as well as the depth it has in the markets. Many other firms are attempting to replicate their model. They have monopolized the pharmaceutical-retail vertical and are doing very well in manufacturing, healthcare, education, government and other retail industries.
Traditionally, Lexmark has had a love-hate relationship with the channel—attempting to supply the market completely direct. They are working to recruit more channel partners and develop more robust channel programs. This may increase much of their awareness and market share.
For years Lexmark did not make any acquisitions and as chatter around Lexmark itself being acquired started to rise, they made a $280 M acquisition of Perceptive Software and the acquisition of 366 Software just a month prior. The acquisition was meant to build workflow solutions and indicates they are moving in a business process optimization direction.
Lexmark has been extremely successful as the market has transitioned to a services-lead model. Photizo Group, Inc. recently released the 2011 Lexmark Competitive Profile Report, which gives an in-depth look into Lexmark’s managed print services offering, examining their strategy, methodology, path to market, organization, sales structure, value proposition, brand profile and more. This report will help firms better understand the secrets to Lexmark’s success. Learn more about the report here.
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