Cloud native MFPs

[rthonpm]

Re: Cloud native MFPs

While it's good to have specialists for each side of the house, it's certainly a lot cheaper to recruit from within.

I don't have a huge staff, but when I've had interns or other newbies whether they're for the print or IT side of the house they all start with basic troubleshooting of a printer and copier and the theory of a laser printer. It's a good introduction to embedded systems and also gets them thinking about hardware.

A few years back, the nephew of a friend of mine wanted to get some experience in IT so I took him on for a summer before he started college. He'd never had to troubleshoot hardware before, so we started with a few old printers and went through all of the things to look at: feed rollers, media, fusing, imaging. He got pretty good at knowing what to do and also got up to speed with computer issues beyond just how to install Windows. When he got a job while in school he moved up pretty quickly since he actually knew how to troubleshoot. All of those things a copier tech takes for granted like reading a service log, looking at sensor output, or even putting a machine into a free run are all the things his coworkers didn't do.

It took him a few weeks with me to see that the process to diagnose an issue is the same no matter what it is, and while those first few weeks of printers bored him some, he later told me it showed him how to think about an issue and what could cause it.

Last I knew he was the IT manager for a company out in Nevada.

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[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Cloud native MFPs

While it's good to have specialists for each side of the house, it's certainly a lot cheaper to recruit from within.

I don't have a huge staff, but when I've had interns or other newbies whether they're for the print or IT side of the house they all start with basic troubleshooting of a printer and copier and the theory of a laser printer. It's a good introduction to embedded systems and also gets them thinking about hardware.

A few years back, the nephew of a friend of mine wanted to get some experience in IT so I took him on for a summer before he started college. He'd never had to troubleshoot hardware before, so we started with a few old printers and went through all of the things to look at: feed rollers, media, fusing, imaging. He got pretty good at knowing what to do and also got up to speed with computer issues beyond just how to install Windows. When he got a job while in school he moved up pretty quickly since he actually knew how to troubleshoot. All of those things a copier tech takes for granted like reading a service log, looking at sensor output, or even putting a machine into a free run are all the things his coworkers didn't do.

It took him a few weeks with me to see that the process to diagnose an issue is the same no matter what it is, and while those first few weeks of printers bored him some, he later told me it showed him how to think about an issue and what could cause it.

Last I knew he was the IT manager for a company out in Nevada.

Sent from my BlackBerry using Tapatalk

I guess my question isn't so much about promoting within the organization but how far into the world of IT does a copier tech need to go and do all the techs receive this training?

At the end of the day, someone needs to be turning a screwdriver and if everyone is an IT expert, does it make sense? Sure, it would be great if every tech was an IT pro but I don't if that is feasible.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Cloud native MFPs

For most of the businesses I support, the purpose of an MFP has completely flipped. Instead of being a device to replicate paper, it's being used to convert paper and deliver electronic files. It's now a factor of what the device is connected to as opposed to how fast it spits out paper.

Most printing is from the Document Server function for forms and checklists that rarely change and are only needed for a short time. Printing is more of a convenience than a necessity, while scanning is the more urgent need.

Anyone still stuck in the idea of seeing an MFP primarily as a paper output device is already about a decade back in thinking. Now there are exceptions, but for many customers now a hard copy is just something to get lost or thrown out: it's not a primary part of their operations. It's their data on their servers and storage systems that are of crucial operations to their business. To paraphrase one of my customers: if it isn't in SharePoint, it doesn't exist.



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... I think you are more than a little overboard on pronouncing the death of print. I have lots of customers printing month after month 4k black and 1k colour. They upgrade their copiers every 60 months to have the peace of mind that they do not have to worry about an unreliable copier and are use to paying $125.00 month lease plus cpc .

I have some customers printing 600k a year and making folded stapled booklets.

The need for reliable print devices is not going away anytime soon.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Cloud native MFPs

I salute you for the summary but these are the same questions we were asking 20 years ago, only the details have changed.

What you see now is that full separation of the 'Haves' and the 'Have Nots' from the revenue stream of Professional/Managed Network Services.

Haves: Began a program of funding Network Trained personnel and Sales Training for migrating their Dealership into one capable of meeting advanced connectivity needs. They have realized the profitability, won more deals, and grown with technology.

Have Nots: Gave away their (lowly trained and limited) connectivity services to win a deal, failing to establish a revenue stream and increasing the 'race-to-the-bottom' of service pricing. They lose opportunity in every deal to another company doing their customer's IT work.

Due to this downward spiral, the average screw-turner salary does not attract an Associates level education in electronics (as it once was) and the candidate likely to take said salary is not very apt to engage in advanced network study. The 'Have Nots' will NEVER break out of this cycle, and only survive in the remotest of locations with no competition, never realizing the profit level of the 'Haves'.

What you are pointing out is that both the Cloud Providers and the Manufacturers have found a way around this weak link in the middle. Networks still need administration, but the machine specific knowledge of a break fix tech in connecting a device is something neither of them can count on anymore.

For the last 10 years I have watched the 'Haves' buy-out the 'Have-Nots'.

The "have-nots" as you call them now have the opportunity to partner with their OEM for remote Professional services. NextGen MFPS are designed with remote service and diagnostics in mind. The one thing COVID taught the industry is that while we still very much need technicians who can drive up onsite, a technicians does not have to be onsite for every little service call.

Just last week I completely installed a MFP 800 km away from my home office including scan to folder at a busy medical clinic. The local tech had to be onsite but I performed 95% of the work.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Cloud native MFPs

I know Cloud Native MFPs begin shipping next month.

The 1st Generation was the arrival of copiers with LCD panels similar to a smartphone.

The next generation enabled these "smartphone" like copiers to install lots of apps.

This latest new generation of copiers are designed from the motherboard up to be Cloud enabled not just in the sense that you can simply add an app. Cloud, Security and remote assistance are top of design philosophy.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Cloud native MFPs

At the end of the day, a company had better know the market they're in and know their place. There's a rule in business that says if you're a new company and you're going up against a well established national company, in order to compete your service/product needs to be a lot better or the customer will always go with the trusted company. It can't be a little better, it has to be a lot better or they'll go with the trusted company.

Or perhaps a company would be better off finding their niche in their market. There is no one size fits all business strategy.


As far as the IT world, training will be dependent on what services you plan to offer. Are you gonna be setting up servers and networks? Food for thought.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Cloud native MFPs

Many dealers are often stretched out of their comfort zones if they accept National account installs sold by their OEM sales teams or dealers in other territories demanding the latest in technology and features.

Besides the obvious benefit of new revenue that they did not have to find themselves these dealers often get the used copier coming out at little to no cost in exchange for their labour.

Certainly not every install is going to require every feature available and certainly many national accounts will have their own IT teams to complete the install.

[mloudy]

Re: Cloud native MFPs

All of our largest accounts have their own staffed IT departments.

We have done several ship-in installs for an OEM and those accounts all have IT support by a remote company with zero local support.

We are a mom & pop have-not I would guess. I have heard lots of doom and gloom over the last 37 years of what was going to put us out of business. The last two warnings were that the new HP inkjets were going to kill our business. These warnings came from two people who have been in the industry for decades. Small city (13,000) and we are the county seat. I have seen three OEM dealerships come and go from our little city along with three indepentants. A dealer that offers full IT services started hitting this area hard 5+ years ago and took a handfull of our customers. Last week we got back the last of them that left us for this amazing non-mom & pop company that offers everything from security solutions and managed IT to copiers/printers.

20+ years ago we hired someone and sent them through training to get their MCSE. He still loves to learn and stay educated. I know enough to cover for him when he is not here. We do not offer any IT support or services that do not directly involve our equipment and currently have no plans to start offering managed IT. I could be wrong but I think we will be just fine for a little while longer.

[rthonpm]

Re: Cloud native MFPs

All of our largest accounts have their own staffed IT departments.

We have done several ship-in installs for an OEM and those accounts all have IT support by a remote company with zero local support.

We are a mom & pop have-not I would guess. I have heard lots of doom and gloom over the last 37 years of what was going to put us out of business. The last two warnings were that the new HP inkjets were going to kill our business. These warnings came from two people who have been in the industry for decades. Small city (13,000) and we are the county seat. I have seen three OEM dealerships come and go from our little city along with three indepentants. A dealer that offers full IT services started hitting this area hard 5+ years ago and took a handfull of our customers. Last week we got back the last of them that left us for this amazing non-mom & pop company that offers everything from security solutions and managed IT to copiers/printers.

20+ years ago we hired someone and sent them through training to get their MCSE. He still loves to learn and stay educated. I know enough to cover for him when he is not here. We do not offer any IT support or services that do not directly involve our equipment and currently have no plans to start offering managed IT. I could be wrong but I think we will be just fine for a little while longer.

It all depends on what your customers expect. Most of mine are small businesses that deal with much larger ones or poached management from larger ones so their expectations are a little different. Covid also made a lot of them shift from everyone onsite all the time to working from wherever they happen to be.

The guys out in a machine shop who print checklists for builds are going to need very different things than a laboratory environment where everything has to be electronic or saved as such. One of my earlier posts may have led some to think that I'm in the paper is dead camp: I'm not there yet because it still has a very strong use case, I just don't see it as much as I did with some of my customers, and when I do it's usually as an intermediate step.

What really drives business at the end of the day is people skills: technical ability can be trained, but the soft skills are what is not only going to make a sale, but also keep it even if there are limitations to what you can provide.

[mloudy]

Re: Cloud native MFPs

I will say that almost every sale now requires assistance from either our IT Tech or me. I am sure there are sales reps that can answer many of these questions that come up but some of them require real world in-house testing. Still most installs are simple and straight forward.

Our largest customer accounts for 10% of our revenue and their workflow requires a tremdous amount of printing throughout their manufacturing process. They told us about a year ago we would see a drop in pages printed because they were changing their process. They also wanted to add Papercut a year ago. Their page output is still increasing month over month and they have put Papercut on the back burner.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Cloud native MFPs

What really drives business at the end of the day is people skills: technical ability can be trained, but the soft skills are what is not only going to make a sale, but also keep it even if there are limitations to what you can provide.

A good sales person/staff are the ones who drive growth, no doubt. But it's the support/tech staff that keeps the business.

Both technical ability and sales skills can be learned. There's no such thing as a born salesman. There are salesman that wing it, and then there are professional sales people that have been trained. Big difference.

[Rewind!]

Re: Cloud native MFPs

Most of the "cloud" based units/systems/appliances suck... the user interfaces are slow, and consume way more time/steps to get the job done. the closest native units Ive seen are the HP models. That being said, those suck as well. Currently the best/fastest setup with cloud integration is something you can have on your local network that in turn interfaces with cloud based services. Just my 2 cents.

JC

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Cloud native MFPs

Most of the "cloud" based units/systems/appliances suck... the user interfaces are slow, and consume way more time/steps to get the job done. the closest native units Ive seen are the HP models. That being said, those suck as well. Currently the best/fastest setup with cloud integration is something you can have on your local network that in turn interfaces with cloud based services. Just my 2 cents.

JC

... your two cents are out of date. All of the Toshiba Cloud apps that I have worked with, especially related to MS365, are fast to respond and require few keystrokes when paired with a current model MFP.

Otherwise customers would never order them.