“Everything that can be digital will be digital,” said Benny Landa, founder of Israel-based Indigo, when rolling out the company’s first digital press in 1993, the latest versions of which are now sold by HP. Yet today, some office technology dealers claim managed IT—a very digital undertaking—is not something their market needs.
But maybe it is. Every file a customer creates starts on a computer, phone, or tablet. All are digital devices. Every scan and copy is also digital because modern copiers or scanners make an image of every document that passes over the glass and store it. Managing this growing number of documents is something you can charge for. By Thursday afternoon, a customer may have 136 scanned, faxed, or copied pages and 241 multi-page documents created on 47 devices. All are digital. You may have customers who would like these digital files in one secure place, providing immediate access to anyone in the company. Would there be value in providing that, along with all the devices you have already placed in their offices?
Changing opportunities in office technology
This digital format is worth noting. In mid-April, ChatGPT and Google Gemini both showed managed IT to be the leading extension of an office technology business. To see for yourself, open either platform, then type in this: ‘What additional businesses make sense for an office technology dealer?’ Then ask it to define managed IT for an office technology dealer.
“While there is room for print-only dealers, the opportunity is clearly narrowing,” said Bob Madaio, vice president of marketing at Sharp. Still, if your primary offering is print and copy, “You have to win on scale, with unique service, or super-efficient delivery,” he added. By the way, that mix may not be an indefinite differentiator.
What is managed IT?
Yet more than a few dealers ask, “What is managed IT for us? Diversification and increasing profitability seem like smart moves, but how do we sustain a move into the IT business?” Great questions.
In office technology, managed IT includes managing, maintaining, and securing a customer’s digital infrastructure. It can include coordinating phones, tablets, computers, printers, scanners, along with those hallway cameras and door locks that came from Amazon, plus anything else connected to a customer’s network, like TVs and the break-room refrigerator. This can get a bit involved and is probably not what you signed up for as a dealer. Yet all those documents that customers produce have value in multiple forms.
For instance, Adobe Acrobat and AI can make a presentation out of a few reports or even one-page Microsoft Word documents. Cloud-based software can do the same. In an increasingly connected business world, coordinating and securing all the documents a customer produces is a way of significantly increasing the range—and value—of services your dealership provides. As Madaio noted, “Successful dealers typically don’t wander far from office technology.” Through a dealer, managed IT can keep all a customer’s documents in one place, whether they were created last week or last quarter. You can help do this!
Knowledge and expertise needed
While managed IT offers some common core services, there is no one-size-fits-all version. You need to know how each customer uses the copying, scanning, and printing you provide and how they may need managed IT for their specific needs. Such complexity means not all dealers can handle managed IT without some specialized support. That’s okay because there are three ways to proceed.
Much of managed IT runs in the cloud, so you may not be able to do everything you would like. Unless you or your team already has hands-on familiarity with managed IT, it can still be smart to bring new people on board or even acquire a business with the requisite skills and knowledge. Some office technology dealers have already done the latter, acquiring or partnering with another dealer that has proven success with managed IT services. This approach can increase your core business while bringing necessary capability in-house. A similar option may be to partner or acquire a local computer/IT business and have managed IT become their responsibility. Tread carefully, because either can work well or fail spectacularly.
If either is too much for your dealership, a practical and efficient approach could be to engage a company such as ConnectWise to provide the range of managed IT support required, including cloud-based software that can be fine-tuned to a company’s size and user needs. This helps dealers deliver high-quality support, including help desks, cybersecurity, data backup, and more, at a predictable cost for customers. All simplify customers’ daily operations while growing a dealer’s recurring revenue. Some capabilities can be extended to the larger step of managed print. For some customers, not having to worry about directly managing IT or print can be a compelling value proposition while driving up the value you offer.
Business 101
No matter your approach, there are three areas to address. These are interrelated and each has subset considerations which we won’t get into here. Still, you must think about these steps as you create a solution for each customer.
Have a plan. In addition to operational factors, your plan must include a USP, aka a unique selling proposition. This should show value while giving customers a reason to add managed IT to their monthly bill from your dealership.
Know your customers’ needs. For instance, a local school system probably has different needs than a medical center. Likewise, a law firm is quite different from either or both of them. Other customers are equally unique. Understand their needs and build a managed IT solution that meets them.
Achieve balance. The managed IT solution and its requirements for attention, time, and money must be balanced with your business’s current needs. “This helps ensure new ventures are additive to a business and not distractions,” said Madaio. Remember, any new endeavor can drag down your dealership if it is too much of a financial or operational distraction. Worse, if customers think your managed IT offering is weak or poorly planned, word gets out and can impact your entire business. Never give customers a reason to doubt what you do, especially when broadening your offerings.
Size may not matter
One of the things we hear is that managed IT can be a struggle for smaller dealers, who may have decided it won’t work for them. Sometimes we hear that offering managed IT is only for larger dealers. We disagree, as does Madaio. “Dealer size isn’t necessarily a determinant in the type of diversification,” he said. “Smaller dealers can often move more quickly and need to discern which solutions require a manageable upfront investment for them.”
Discerning those solutions—based on customer need—is essential. Look at the managed IT options available, talk with your customers to find out what they need, what is important to them, and how a managed IT offering from you could make their world a better place. Then deliver.
