Realities of the SMB Market
Written by: Miles Prescott and Robert Eastman, Co-Founders and Managing Director, SMB Research, LLC.
Managed print services has an undeniable – almost irresistible – value proposition. There comes a time in the lifecycle of many companies when managing your printer fleet becomes more of a burden than a company cares to deal with. If one of the value props, like cost control, does not grab you, then another (like rationalizing your toner and supply inventory) is likely to. Small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) represent a very real opportunity for managed print services. But it is not as simple as “rock solid value proposition + growing class of SMBs = pot of gold.”
The seeming irrefutability of the value proposition alone (printing budget predictability; single supplier; optimized uptime; reduced supplies cost; simplified device management) makes managed print services (MPS) an interesting strategy. And companies either get it, or they don’t, with most being in the first camp. The simultaneous rise of managed print services at about the same time as SMBs are in the ascendancy complicates the conversation somewhat.
Mention “SMB” and often the first thing you hear is “the engine of the economy”, “where the job growth will be”, or something else along these lines. Without trying to validate or dispel any truths or myths here, what is undeniable is that (1) more than three-quarters of all businesses have no employees whatsoever (most often, these are self-employed people operating unincorporated businesses), and (2) among the remaining one-quarter or so of companies, there is considerable conflicting discussion about how fast these companies are growing as a segment. We are an interesting intersection, to be talking about the outlook for managed print services – the focus of some divergent opinions about current and future states – in the small-to-medium business sector, whose contribution to overall economic growth is also the subject of considerable discussion.
This is an excerpt from the MPS Insights Journal (Volume 4, Issue 2), Market Rising: MPS in the SMB. To read the full article, which includes customer examples and extended information on the SMB market you must be a member of MPS Insights PRO.
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