One of the best things about offering managed IT services is that you don’t have to jump into it in a way that destabilizes your business. Instead, some aspects of managed IT can be services from others that add value to your dealership. Start with selected partnerships, which we’ll get to in a moment. This way, you can move forward with less risk and gain familiarity with forms of managed IT that match customer needs while positioning your dealership to add capabilities and services based on need and demand. With this approach, you’re not burning money trying to do things not directly connected to providing printing, scanning, and copying equipment.
“Successful dealers typically don’t wander far from office technology, but IT services is one direction, that, when done with a strategic plan, can be very impactful,” said Bob Madaio, vice president of marketing at Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America. This means you can hold fast to the A3 and A4 devices that may be the core of your business and add managed IT services with partners, based on customer needs. Such additions can better differentiate your dealership from a competing dealer. A scalable version of managed IT is far better than trying to keep up with competitors. Lead, don’t follow.
Sharp’s Marketing VP Bob Madaio believes that managed IT services can be an impactful addition for office technology dealerships.
What’s important for your customers?
The 40th Annual Dealer Survey from The Cannata Report reported that 47% of participating office technology dealers offer managed IT services, yet fewer than 8% pull in revenue from it. This provokes at least one key question: Has managed IT gotten sufficiently complex that it becomes too demanding, complicated, and expensive? Any of these can make it too much of a time- and cash-sink for smaller and average-size dealers. This is difficult to know at the individual dealer level, so we talked with dealers who have tried some flavors of managed IT services. We agreed not to identify them.
One noted that managed IT might be characterized as crowded with vendors and risky in terms of compliance and cybersecurity. Another agreed, noting that with virtually all files being created and printed digitally, there are a host of ways in which managed IT services can be defined. These make it a broad topic requiring specialized skills and multiple levels of knowledge. For example, an expert on database structures and managed print may have only a nodding familiarity with cybersecurity. Meanwhile, a cybersecurity expert may be unfamiliar with color printing or databases. Such segmented expertise is common in many fields. Consider this as an office technology dealer: How good would your best sales rep be at diagnosing a problem and servicing the machines she or he sells? Likewise, the various parts of managed IT require different skills and expertise.
Rent managed IT knowledge
These differences can be expensive because you may need experienced people in each area of managed IT. So rent knowledge by partnering with selected companies that have the required expertise. For example, if a customer needs a new database structure for 1,427 documents, they need a company that does that. Your dealership can be in the loop, as needed, but does not have to be on the hook to make it happen. A customer’s network evaluation or cybersecurity intrusion can also be handled with appropriate rented knowledge. Your dealership can be included with respect to what it needs to do. Depending on the partner, you may include a bill for the relationship or the partner may bill your customer separately. The upshot is that you increase the services you offer without increasing head count.
This also adds value while keeping you in the loop. Partners should be recommended by your dealership and personally introduced to the appropriate people within the customer organization who make the decisions. Your dealership becomes part of the relationship, expanding how your business is perceived as more than a basic office-tech dealer. It is perfectly okay to tell a customer something to the effect of, “We don’t handle databases but have a partnership with a company that is a database expert. Let’s all meet so you can explain your specific needs. They’ll know the best way to proceed, and we can coordinate how our devices will work with what they recommend.”
In doing so, you have just expanded into one type of managed IT. You can do the same with other specialized areas while retaining your brand as a provider of A3/A4 copying, printing, and scanning. Your dealership’s relationship with the other firm helps it remain part of the solution. This way you also have the partnering company as a resource, yet your customer can call them directly.
Understand your base
Your customer base is distinct from your market. Your average customer may not need most managed IT services. So which ones do? For which services? These are not idle questions and can help define how you can move forward. This is not a race with other dealers but can be a business differentiator.
An outsourced version of any managed IT function can give you an extra edge and make your dealership more valuable. For example, suppose a sales rep learns that cybersecurity is a hot button for a prospective customer. She or he can tout a partnership with an IT firm that can provide cybersecurity as part of the services offered by your dealership. Yes, you set the price for those added services with the bonus of not having to hire costly people to meet the needs of a few customers.
No matter how you do it, managed IT services can be a serious matter for a dealer and a customer. The challenge is probably not going to be a bad copy or print; it is more likely to be a file the customer needs or one that is missing, damaged, or locked up. With the right partner, you can address an issue and be part of the solution without losing focus on the devices that bring in most of your business.
