The following article is posted on louellafernandes.com and discusses SMBs and opportunities for MPS with smaller customers.

By Louella Fernandes – MPS is proving a hard nut to crack in the SMB market. Not only do most vendors have an array of offerings targeted at this diverse market, Quocirca research shows that SMBs are yet to embrace a contractual approach to purchasing print. However, the opportunity to transition SMBs to an MPS model is stronger than ever before, because SMBs are now embracing subscription to cloud services as a way of procuring IT infrastructure and applications. So how can vendors encourage SMBs to change their mind set about printing and purchase it in the same way?

From transactional to contractual purchasing

Printers are traditionally purchased on a transactional basis, with consumables typically purchased separately on an ad-hoc basis. For SMBs who are already time constrained with limited resources, this is costly and inefficient. In Quocirca’s research, cost is consistently the top challenge when it comes to managing print – particularly on-going consumables costs.  As in-house colour printing becomes more commonplace with SMBs, these costs will continue to escalate without controls.

So can a contractual model for printing help address these challenges? And are vendors positioning the benefits of MPS correctly for SMBs? Quocirca’s research shows a significant gap in how well SMBs that have already committed to MPS believe it is delivering cost savings– but there is a correlation with the type of MPS used. Those further along their MPS journey are most likely to be achieving on cost savings expectations. Nevertheless, SMBs remain confused about the relative benefits of the growing array of offerings on the market.

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