What is the biggest obstacle in selling Document Capture as part of an MFP Sale?

[MFPTech]

Re: What is the biggest obstacle in selling Document Capture as part of an MFP Sale?

I've had only a very brief acquaintance with Kyocera's Hypas and Kyocapture. But based on that very brief acquaintance I have a couple of opinions. Based on the literature I recommended a specific dedicated server, which turned out to be underpowered in the extreme. Our office people wanted to scan in let's say 100 pages, OCR them, and store them to specific locations. We soon discovered that 100 pages could take a week of processing before they were ready for the manual selection of destination. And the OCR was not that terribly accurate. So we can use barcodes to designate destination, yes? Well, if it actually reads the barcode, that is.

From a technician's point of view, here I am, an above average mechanic with some IT skills, completely thrown under the bus with the software. If this was something that happened a couple times a month then I might actually become proficient. But once every three years ...? And the software will have changed 10 times, and be completely unrecognizable by the time I see it again.

I guess it's not just something to dabble in. Sell it or don't. =^..^=

You are Absolutely right. There has to be a dedicated Software Engineer dealing with software solutions, and not a tech on the clock doing everything. I did that job for a couple of years and had the luxury of testing the solutions in the demo room before going onsite and had access to Tier III resources, and contact with Software Developers and support from Japanese Engineers. Every customer/environment is unique so screw marketing and sales people with their expectations.

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[GAtech]

Re: What is the biggest obstacle in selling Document Capture as part of an MFP Sale?

I think an important question is, what is the average size of your clients? Are you talking to the right people in that organization?

I am involved with another company (not office equipment) and we process a fair amount of documents, contracts, lien releases etc. It would be nice to have a more automated solution when scanning.

With this company, what I realized is that nobody understands processes, and how automation can save time.

So it may be that nobody is asking, but it may be because they do not know there is a better solution.....

[KenB]

Re: What is the biggest obstacle in selling Document Capture as part of an MFP Sale?

Document management solutions and MFP sales are all but totally unrelated.

While an MFP sale may generate a lead for a dealership who also sells doc management, there is no way it can be considered an add-on. Dealerships who do carry both do this under totally separate departments.

Designing, implementing, and maintaining true doc management requires a totally different skill set than does maintaining MFPs. Neither is "smarter" than the other; they're just different.

It's apples and oranges. Both may be fruits, but that's about where it ends.

BTW... Scanning massive numbers of pages on any doc feeder takes its toll. We had an eCopy customer about 2 years ago who buzzed through ADFs on a 50 PPM Ricoh machine because they were scanning so much, not to mention the machine was always tied up for scanning. They ultimately purchased a desktop scanner (I think a Fujitsu), and everyone was much happier.

[qbert69]

Re: What is the biggest obstacle in selling Document Capture as part of an MFP Sale?

I've had only a very brief acquaintance with Kyocera's Hypas and Kyocapture. But based on that very brief acquaintance I have a couple of opinions. Based on the literature I recommended a specific dedicated server, which turned out to be underpowered in the extreme. Our office people wanted to scan in let's say 100 pages, OCR them, and store them to specific locations. We soon discovered that 100 pages could take a week of processing before they were ready for the manual selection of destination. And the OCR was not that terribly accurate. So we can use barcodes to designate destination, yes? Well, if it actually reads the barcode, that is.

From a technician's point of view, here I am, an above average mechanic with some IT skills, completely thrown under the bus with the software. If this was something that happened a couple times a month then I might actually become proficient. But once every three years ...? And the software will have changed 10 times, and be completely unrecognizable by the time I see it again.

I guess it's not just something to dabble in. Sell it or don't. =^..^=

I totally AGREE with blackcat!

I have experience with Kyocera, mostly DMS Link. It is good for what it does. The capability to bar code separate scanned files, make new folders based on the bar codes, convert to searchable PDF, etc. But it Absolutely DOES require a dedicated server for this process!

As an added note, sales is the big crapshoot regarding DMS...they don't know enough and don't know which questions to ask to qualify the customer for the correct product to fit their needs!

...and as blackcat stated, these systems don't get installed enough to remember how to do it!....Had a situation where I had to re-install and re-configure DMS Link on a server!.....I had to re-RTFM!!!...some Microsoft update probably borked the install! I had a situation where AVG anti-virus borked an install of HyPas PinPoint Scan!

So a final wise word...."Know What You Sell, Sell What You Know!"

Ask questions of the customer, customers like simplicity and ease of use....don't oversell, it will come back to bite you in the arse!



PS--Kyocera HyPas PinPoint scan should be an AUTOMATIC add-on sale!...simple to set-up, simple to use and configure!

[MFPTech]

Re: What is the biggest obstacle in selling Document Capture as part of an MFP Sale?

I totally AGREE with blackcat!

I have experience with Kyocera, mostly DMS Link. It is good for what it does. The capability to bar code separate scanned files, make new folders based on the bar codes, convert to searchable PDF, etc. But it Absolutely DOES require a dedicated server for this process!

As an added note, sales is the big crapshoot regarding DMS...they don't know enough and don't know which questions to ask to qualify the customer for the correct product to fit their needs!

...and as blackcat stated, these systems don't get installed enough to remember how to do it!....Had a situation where I had to re-install and re-configure DMS Link on a server!.....I had to re-RTFM!!!...some Microsoft update probably borked the install! I had a situation where AVG anti-virus borked an install of HyPas PinPoint Scan!

So a final wise word...."Know What You Sell, Sell What You Know!"

Ask questions of the customer, customers like simplicity and ease of use....don't oversell, it will come back to bite you in the arse!



PS--Kyocera HyPas PinPoint scan should be an AUTOMATIC add-on sale!...simple to set-up, simple to use and configure!

Sorry to disagree with you but PinPoint Scan has many limitations in regards to scanning to email and applications and i find it useless, and waste of time and resources. Out of the box scanning is good enough, unless customer is looking for advanced solutions.

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[Iowatech]

Re: What is the biggest obstacle in selling Document Capture as part of an MFP Sale?

Back in the day, I bought a keyboard with an embedded page scanner. It came with Paperport software. Paperport had a lot of features that I liked a lot then, and and I used it for years. If it still exists and has the features I liked when I was using it, I might heartily endorse it.
The problem that kills this though is after I ran out of money to update my Paperport license (and my trusty old XP machine expired), I lost the ability to access those scans. D'oh. Paperport used a proprietary file structure for the scans I made with it during that time, and the older versions of Paperport don't work with the newer versions of Windows. As such, I've flushed the entire lot of that out the exhaust port and have no interest in it anymore.
So the lesson learned is: No matter how wonderful this sort of software is, proprietary is something to avoid unless you will support the license for the software for all of eternity.