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

[Irisvh]

Udocx - Smart Scanning Made Easy

[ZOOTECH]

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

Udocx - Smart Scanning Made Easy

What a clever way of disguising an advertisement.

[CompyTech]

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

And here I was preparing for a genuine discussion on DMS software... Oh well, cute advert tho.

[Irisvh]

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

Haha, thank you guys. The question I pose is a real one though. I've been following the forums for a while now and it's almost always focused on printing. Is that really where the money is for you now and in the future?

[ZOOTECH]

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

Haha, thank you guys. The question I pose is a real one though. I've been following the forums for a while now and it's almost always focused on printing. Is that really where the money is for you now and in the future?

Agreed, the validity of the question is real and should provoke a great discourse of the pros/cons of doc storage. My original post just highlighted the fact that while an interesting subject, all your post, so far, have always included a link to what you're advertising. The folks that are paying for advertising here are probably a little peeved by your 'free' advertising.
The money, up until recently, has been with 'clicks' (copy-prints), and until we start charging for scans or the software for those scans to document storage, the money will still be for pages passed through the machine.

[Irisvh]

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

(...) all your post, so far, have always included a link to what you're advertising.

That's not true. See: http://www.copytechnet.com/forums/ra...n-i-log-3.html

The money, up until recently, has been with 'clicks' (copy-prints), and until we start charging for scans or the software for those scans to document storage, the money will still be for pages passed through the machine.

Do you like the idea of charging per page? Personally, I don't. Scanning doesn't use any paper or toner, and I already pay for the electricity etc. Besides, charging per scan if your competitors won't isn't going to leave you with many customers.

Alternatively, you can charge for the installation and support of scanning. That's tangible services, and you're probably already providing them free of charge for trouble with 'scan to email' or 'scan to folder' functionalities. Why not charge for that explicitly? Or even offer more advanced solutions?

[ZOOTECH]

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

That's not true. See: http://www.copytechnet.com/forums/ra...n-i-log-3.html

OK, you caught me in my dreaded use of an 'absolute' (all and always), I try to avoid absolutes for the very reason you pointed out. The point I was trying to make is that 'most' of your posts have a link to your business, and I'm assuming you're not paying for advertisements.
P.S. - thanks for your contributing (not) posts.

[Hansoon]

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

Just on a side note: The link you sneaked in is not working.

Personally I would be interested in an easy to operate (and set up ofcourse) scanning software.

What is mainly needed? Putting a document on the ADF, hitting one or two buttons on the MFP, finding a SEARCHABLE scan on the workstation preferably in a folder specified by the user.

It's as simple as that. "Kat in't Bakkie"

Hans

[cccjjn]

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

From my experience there is little to no demand for document management software. I've sold DocStar, DigiDocFlow, NSI and eCopy over the years. Especially in this economy. Nobody wants to spend the money anymore for real document management software. They are content with the scanning capabilities at the machine. They don't want extra steps while standing at the machine. They want to select a destination and get it back to their desktop and that's about it. Also, many business software systems I run into in the field have a document management feature built in and I find myself configuring my machines to play nice with their existing system.

[Judd]

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

That's not true. See: http://www.copytechnet.com/forums/ra...n-i-log-3.html



Do you like the idea of charging per page? Personally, I don't. Scanning doesn't use any paper or toner, and I already pay for the electricity etc. Besides, charging per scan if your competitors won't isn't going to leave you with many customers.

Alternatively, you can charge for the installation and support of scanning. That's tangible services, and you're probably already providing them free of charge for trouble with 'scan to email' or 'scan to folder' functionalities. Why not charge for that explicitly? Or even offer more advanced solutions?

Well scanners have moving mechanical parts so eventually something is going to break. That has to be covered somehow

[nmfaxman]

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

A $100.00 to $200.00 basic computer class will solve the document management problem.

It is just substituting paper for an image.

If you set up your file system right, you don't need management software.
Training the basics solves the problem and saves money.

Take your sales pitch somewhere else you can BS your memory hungry, expensive and useless software.

A lot of us are IT trained too, and have probably forgotten more about workstations and networks than you know now.

[Rayelias]

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

I'm mainly in sales and there is no demand for a Scanning software. Haven't sold one in 5 years and no one has asked me for one. The only thing we are asked, if ever, is department ID management. Also, none of my competitors charge for scanning and doing so will price us out. Not to mention, apart from the ADF [which rarely needs attention] the client isn't really using anything else.

[Milk]

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

Personally I would be interested in an easy to operate (and set up ofcourse) scanning software.

What is mainly needed? Putting a document on the ADF, hitting one or two buttons on the MFP, finding a SEARCHABLE scan on the workstation preferably in a folder specified by the user.

It's as simple as that. "Kat in't Bakkie"

Hans

That would be a dream

What's interesting is that everyone wants to be a copier that scans. But no one wants to buy document management software.

And with cloud services like dropbox and box.net I think integration with the MFP or IT mapping it as a network drive, document management software will look even more archaic.

The customer's needs and wants are creating a gap document management software may not be able to fill. This is probably why they don't want it.

[wseyller]

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

We have had good success with selling and supporting DocRecord from Prism. It does things that you just can't do compared to storing documents in a windows file/folder structure. The power with DocRecord is when the automation server option is added. We have sold this to many customers that have a mountain of boxes of documents sitting on shelves that need to convert these to digital documents but need to be able to search upon them in many different ways. It's great for documents that are similiar types and you can use templates to ocr information in the document and index that information and automatically route the documents to the correct location. The ability to just stick in a random stack of documents in the adf and the automation server detects what kind of document it is from triggers on the documents and then apply the indexing template has saved our customers on unimaginable amounts of labor. That is one way we sell it. Then we charge hourly rates on future service calls when the customer has issues or the need new templates or processes create for new projects. It has done very well for us anyway. We have also done ecopy and other stuff like that in the past but that hasn't really caught on for us. I am just a tech. I was sent off to certify on DocRecord in a week long class.

[blackcat4866]

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. =^..^=