It's difficult to increase the price on the printer or the toner. Let's face it, pricing is transparent and buyers today have access to pricing.
In the "Channel trends for 2019" released by Forrester Jay Mcbain, Principal Analyst gave his ideas about what would happen for 2019.
Even though we are entering the end of 2019, the trends are still clear and relevant more than ever.
We have seen more disruption in the channel in the past 18 months than we saw in the past 37 years combined. As a review, here were the 2018 predictions.
Private equity will continue its sweep of the channel software space, creating some unicorns along the way.
It’s do-or-die time for smaller businesses and value-added resellers.
Vendors put formal shadow-channel programs in motion.
Long-tail strategies finally get chucked out the window.
We reach 100,000 software companies; next stop is 1 million.
Hardware margins continue their slide to the bottom; SaaS downstream revenue is a savior.
A resurgence of channel partner communities occurs.
Distributor disruption continues.
As We Turn Our Attention To 2019 And Beyond, Here Are Six Channel Trends To Watch.
Partners find ways to make money in emerging technology.
Marketplaces accelerate the decline of reselling.
Ecosystems replace traditional channel programs.
Partnering with partners is the new paradigm.
We enter the third stage of sales and marketing.
Geopolitical uncertainty takes center stage.
Become agile and stay agile
In a world where business trends and technology is moving faster than ever, it's needed to be adaptive and flexible.
Buyers are much more aware of needs and things that required hours of analytics or help from consultants. Those are now just a few swipes or clicks away.
If you don't embrace technology how will you keep up? We should see our selves as a bike, not a big truck.
What if a company decided not to change to email because they liked the fax?
The result would be clear.
The company would simply not be able to keep up the speed of communication and lose clients that decided to work with emails. Well, we know the story here, but its still a great comparison because this is what is happening today, just faster and on a much wider range of products.
How to deliver faster and better?
In the office printing business, things are moving fast too and technology is taking over.
The initial demand for spitting paper out with ink is the least of the worries when talking document management today.
Luckily technology can help save tons of time by using intelligent features which can assist with printer audits, automate reporting and help users focus on where it makes sense.
This will not only help resellers getting things done faster, but also helping their clients optimizing their printer fleet faster and keeping it healthy.
5 tips to get started
Point out an ambassador within your team
Get an overview of your existing software used. Can they provide the needed data and workflows?
Map your current workflows. How do you do audits, status meetings or follow-ups
Are there any integrations you can use to boost productivity like "if this then do this" way of thinking
Start with small projects. For example "how can we optimize the way we prepare status meetings"
Have questions or would like to know more about how 3manager can help optimizing productivity when it comes to the management of printers including procurement and cost tracking, feel free to contact us.
Thanks for reading.
Henrik Lundsholm
CEO, 3manager