Based out of Miami Lakes FL, ecoprintQ, is a key PaperCut print management distributor with a new plan; they’re going to bring managed print services (MPS) to managed services providers (MSP).

Dominick Bracero and Joe Rubino of ecoprintQ chatted with Andy Slawetsky in this episode of What’s Happenin’ to explain how they plan to roll out this exciting new initiative.

SOURCE Industry Analysts Inc.

Full Transcript

what’s happening Andy here I am joined

today by two guys from Eco printq based

down in Florida how are you Dominic how

are you Joe

doing well how are you Andy hey Andy

nice to see you again great to see you

guys I am awesome so Dominic you are

down in in Florida I believe Tampa is

where you hail from uh home of the

former Champion world champion Tampa Bay

Buccaneers uh Joe you are in Chicago and

so we’ll start with you Dominic let’s

talk about who is eco-friend q and what

do you guys do

yep absolutely Andy and uh yep I’m in

Tampa Florida formerly known as Champa

Bay Area but

um we’ve had some good success and a

good run in the last few years

um so Eco print you we are uh Florida

um headquartered right uh down in uh

Miami area we are an authorized Solution

Center that uh pretty much serves the

print management space

focused on all channels within that that

that that area

um our products that we have on our

portfolio our paper cut you mango and

intuitive

um we have all the products like load

balancer and additional Hardware to

serve the print management space but

that you know that’s pretty much what we

do we do handle pre-sales post sales

implementation you know all the way from

the A to Z to offer a white glove

service and so your customers they’re

your traditional copier office Equipment

Technology resellers

yeah yeah our our customers are are

oems resellers

private resellers mostly focused within

the copier space

um and and primarily you know as we

segue into you know me introducing Joe

um it’s another another piece of

business that we’re actually investing

into right now which is the managed

service providers in the I.T space okay

perfect so

um well I know you from you know your

your big pay-per-cut reseller you’re one

of the two biggest in this country and

probably North America and probably

beyond that I don’t know I know in North

America you guys are are one of the two

um and moving over to your new your new

employee not so new employee has been

there a couple months now Joe Rubino who

uh who I know very well from his days at

pay-per-cut welcome to uh ecobrink you

Joe

thanks Andy

um yeah it’s been um it’s been an

interesting uh uh I guess partnership

with ecoprint queue

um I joined them

um a while back but since joining

um I focused on enabling the traditional

I.T Channel

um this and Dominic just mentioned it

but that includes you know historical or

traditional managed service providers

and distribution Partners

um this isn’t new to Eco print you uh

you know in my past role with paper cut

um Eco print you had been reactively

um working with this channel already

uh and saw some success but as I joined

Eco print queue recently

um our primary goal and my primary goal

is to provide our print Management

Solutions from ecoprincu and our

services to this Channel and to The

Wider customer base while delivering

um you know what we feel as and I think

the industry understands leading

customer support okay so that’s how

we’re leading it and our approach

is to expand to this wider customer base

and building a long-term relationship

with these Partners as a trusted for

management as their trusted print

management partner uh similar to what

we’re already doing

so first of all I have to say awesome

hat that’s a relic that is a classic

2018 Jillian ride hat that’s uh we were

interesting earlier that was when I I

think we first started talking and paper

cup was a big supporter of that uh that

early early ride

um I wanna I wanna go back to a little

bit uh

Dominic tell me tell me about the

investment that you guys are making in

your strategy going forward because

obviously you’re you know you bring

someone like Joe on and and Joe put your

earmuffs on I’m gonna give him a nice

little compliment but you know Joe’s

Joe’s a veteran of this industry with

great experience

um Xerox background paper cut background

obviously he didn’t come cheap you’ve

got uh you know a great staff down there

and is it Miami Lakes is it I’ve been

there a few times might I remember it

right I remember was outside of Miami

that’s my enemy licks with alfredo and

Evan Deanna and all them down there the

great crew down there

um but you know the investment’s been

ongoing right you when I started working

with you you just moved into this new

facility which is absolutely beautiful

down there uh and and you already we’re

quickly outgrowing it so what’s what’s

the investment like going forward what

are you guys spending your money on and

where are you going yeah I mean it’s a

good point Andy and and uh I’ll stay

focused on the the MSP and it channel on

what we’re doing with the and investing

into that piece right there so we’ve

always as Joe mentioned we’ve always

supported this channel right but we’ve

decided that we see how the market is

Shifting to manage service providers and

it providers and at the end of the day

the more more people talking print

management the better it is for

everybody

so we’ve decided to go ahead and invest

into that space invest into people and

resources to be able to support that

channel we took that segment of business

and we moved it into its own units

and therefore we had hired Joe Rabino to

step in and to help drive that business

with us

so so Joe Your Role is going to be

basically you’re not going to be are you

going to work with dealers are you

working with this this other group these

managed service providers or however has

your approach going to be in this area

yeah so my role is the business

development manager

um my focus is exclusively on the

managed service providers and and

potentially distribution Partners

um this is about expanding are the the

the the print management market and

getting that information and the

solution to new customers there’s a why

there’s a wide customer base that we’re

not even talking to today and

um that’s what the channel brings

well I mean if you’ve been to any of

these meetings like I think back to a

connect wise event I went to last year

right and you know your head explodes

when you go to these things because it’s

5 000 plus people at these events not

not a couple hundred people right which

at one of our events a few hundred

people is a good event

which and there’s nothing wrong with

that even a big dealer event is maybe a

thousand people but when you go to these

events and you see 5 000 people and

first of all the

you know you realize very quickly how we

we’re we’re right now we’re some of the

youngest guys in our industry but in

that industry we are the oldest people

because you go to those things and you

know first of all you feel like you need

a beard down to your belly you uh you

definitely need a pair of like Converse

and some color other than white

um you know skinny jeans are pretty hip

at those events I know this so uh but

but you know the the scale of it right I

mean just you look at our industry with

you know let’s just let’s just make them

a number and say there’s a about a

thousand dealers out there that are

still around

um you look at that industry and there’s

5 000 people that are at that event and

that you know and those are

I mean man that just the the number of

opportunity the opportunity that you

have to talk to a group that large

um it’s staggering so is this so is the

idea to bring print management to some

of these MSP uh companies is it is it

kind of opening their eyes to uh you

know the recurring revenue or are you

looking for certain kinds of managed

service providers tell me about the the

plan for this

how about you yeah Joe I’ll touch on

that and then I’ll hand it over to you

to answer some additional uh sure

yeah so um Andy

we’ve we’ve

done business consistently with that

market

um

but as as as the days continue to evolve

and kovit changed a lot in the last four

years

um that area in that specific space has

has been increasingly needing the need

for print management so as you mentioned

earlier

um large group of people right

um they focus on many different pieces

of business not just print management

print management is a really small piece

of the business so we don’t expect them

to be experts our goal is to enable

those groups to be able to at the very

minimum be able to intelligently speak

about print management

and know that there’s paths that they

can offer their current user base

net new business that currently do not

have a form of print management

and then

the uh the biggest part of that is is

you know it it for us it’s important to

have everybody talk and print management

so for every channel whether it’s OEM

it’s reseller cop your MSP it if one

person’s talking print management the

benefits on solving a problem leveraging

products like paper cut you mango or

intuitive

then everybody benefits from it and

that’s what that’s that’s our goal is to

enable and educate this channel for them

to be able to intelligently communicate

and offer products to their existing

base for net new customers yeah well the

potential the number of potential that

new customers out there is is just it’s

amazing right so obviously

um man if I was going to move in a

certain direction that would be that

would be one of them I would happily

consider so Joe anything to add to that

you

yes I have I have quite a bit to add

um you know sound simple in concept

right

um these partners are slightly I’m not

more than slightly they’re definitely

they have different infrastructures

um that we need to be able to enable uh

in order to move that message forward to

that where it gets to the customer

um you know I’ve been asked why now why

why why do it now well I don’t have to

remind everybody about what’s happening

um economically in the United States in

all of the Americas and globally and

customers are researching options

constantly to minimize their cost of

their I.T infrastructure well print is

part of their I.T infrastructure right

so you know these Partners they’ve

evolved from

primarily a very efficient source of uh

to procure Hardware software and

peripherals well today they’re leading

with a variety of Technologies and

value-added services they’re they’re

delivering complete Solutions and you

know whether it be on the desktop mobile

networking data center cloud services

Wireless infrastructure and yes they’re

delivering print in fact today

um this channel delivers the majority

of A4 single and multi-function devices

to thousands of customers right so why

wouldn’t we want to enable this channel

um that’s really the driving force of

this

um you know as far as

the differences in their infrastructure

and how uh their organizations are built

you you know engaging going engaging

with them is multi-platform they have

well-developed product management teams

they have they have well-developed

marketing teams they have you know again

well-developed sales and services teams

and to be proactive with them we need to

be engaged across the board so the

investment that equal print use made in

our own infrastructure to support these

the this type of Engagement uh was

required in order for us to be

successful

we’re moving forward

um very very uh very quickly in this

Marketplace

um and engaging across all levels the

ultimate goal again is

by enabling this channel we’re going to

expand the customer reach we’re going to

hopefully create demand and educate

customers and once that happens we’re

extremely confident that the results

will bring print management to a wider

audience and we’re we’re right there as

their partner to deliver

well I mean it’s it’s a huge huge group

of B2B resellers right and I mean some

will obviously not be capable of a break

fix or even

participating in this but there’s so

many companies in that space

um that even if you just pick off you

know a few five ten percent

which would be ambitious but even that

that number is probably hundreds and

hundreds and hundreds of resellers right

and you know and these guys are in there

they’re working with I.T they’re making

recommendations when you know maybe

maybe when an office technology reseller

is not in there and and it’s just it’s

just another way to come at the customer

and and I think it’s I think it makes a

lot of sense um

so so Dominic

looking looking at 2023 this year and

Beyond where where are we going

um how are you going to do this and so

Joe’s brought on to do this there’s

going to be shows you’re going to need

to start attending uh are you going to

be taking booths there are you going to

just be sending teams there to kind of

scout it out like what what’s the

landscape look like for this year and

next year for moving into this new

Direction yeah and that’s a that’s a

fair and good question so and and

thankfully so we’ve we’ve pretty much

just finished our 2023 marketing

budgeting plan to be able to accommodate

for these activities and shows so to

answer your question yes

um we recently were part of was part of

a show already

um I want to say in January which was

pretty pretty successful we learned a

lot from it

um and then moving forward throughout

the year we have several shows that

we’re going to be attending sponsoring

and supporting

um we’ve not only invested resources

into our business Dev area which is you

know Joe Rubino but we’ve also invested

resources in our other pieces or other

units of the company to be able to

support this channel

from our post sales support team

to our pre-sale support team to our

Insight sales team

also Joe has

end this unit has the ability to

successfully enable this new line of

business that we’re taking

that is just awesome you guys are going

to have a very busy Year Joe

um you know we talked earlier about how

uh you know as we age it’s the traveling

gets a little more tiring it sounds like

you better start getting your sleep in

now because uh I’ve been feeling 2023 is

going to be pretty busy for you

um what’s On Your Horizon do you have

any shows lined up do you have any

things coming up that you’re going to be

at

we’re not we’re not at Liberty to uh

discuss that right now that’s all in

negotiation and discussion

I do want to mention though right

um while

I’m focusing on to your earlier comment

about who who what where when because

this channel is so large

um

we’re focusing on the select group right

now and it’s based on my previous

um

my previous uh

relationships that I had uh over my

career and

um you know we’re we’re working with the

partners that want to work with us we’re

not doing a shotgun approach here right

um so we’re going to be very strategic

and methodic

um in terms of how and where and who we

engage

um and then I will also man I I have to

go back to our resources okay uh you

know in my previous role with paper cut

we talked a lot about this with Eco

printq about the expansion but this is

about

um true enablement yes there’s work that

I have to do and I have to deliver on

but day to day

we’re not recreating the wheel we’re

just expanding the resources that we

have to be able to support this channel

it’s just that simple

um because everybody across eco eco

print use organization

um will be touched by engagement with

this channel it’s just that simple

whether it be our Channel managers

whether it be our Professional Services

team certainly our support team and our

operations team so we’re all in lockstep

on this uh we’re all aligned and

um again we’re very confident that by

engaging with this channel it’s going to

bring us

um to a wider audience that we don’t

have today

well it’s a huge audience right so um

well best of luck to you guys in this

this is a I think a just it makes a lot

of sense to go in this direction there

is just if you look at who who else is

out there that could sell print

management to you know to our customers

to the to the end users right

um not many companies can just jump in

there’s not many uh types of companies

but the ones they can are are those I.T

bars those you know resellers and

managed service companies

um again not all of them but certainly

many of them are already dealing with

print devices and and you know maybe a

little Enlightenment on the opportunity

for recurring Revenue

um great monthly money on that and and

and a lot less uh

I would maybe you know the emergency

brake and fix for those guys that it’s

just different in our world right I mean

um a printer being down our guys get out

there in two hours three hours but it’s

not you know doesn’t shut your business

down the way managed services so this

might even be seen by them as as easier

although I don’t know the the

competitive turnaround times that we

have are pretty strong we have a we have

a lot of strength in our Channel it’ll

be interesting to watch it going forward

and and where you guys start picking up

new resellers

um but good luck and thank you guys both

for coming on any last shout outs

Dominic will start with you and then Joe

you wrap up

shout outs yeah absolutely I appreciate

it um so yeah I would like to thank our

our supporting vendors and sponsors

um

so uh paper cut amazing you mango

intuitive and I would also like to have

uh to let everybody know please if you

have any questions comments or would

like to reach out and engage with Eco

printq uh reach out to myself Joe Rubino

or anyone on my team uh for the channel

management team uh we would welcome the

conversation and love to hear from you

Joe

yeah it’s gonna be fun I’ve been having

fun uh enabling this channel there’s a

lot of work to to to to do

um but I again I’m looking at this as a

real positive to um bring on new

customers and share our solution across

a new channel

well I I can’t think of a better channel

for you guys to move into so best of

luck with that uh say hello to everybody

down there in Miami Lakes and uh we will

catch up with you guys real soon it was

it was great talking to you thanks for

being on today take care