Ricoh Joins Printer Vendors Offering Pro Services
December 14th, 2012 | Author: Larry Walsh
Add Ricoh Corp. to the list of printer vendors offering professional IT services to and through the channel. Ricoh this month launched its “ChaMPS” program, in which it’s enabling solution providers to sell its IT, mobile management, security, networking and print services to end user clients.
Ricoh has offered these services direct to its enterprise customers for some time. Extending services to the channel will give solution providers more product to offer customers and the potential to capture more profit with a low-impact offering.
“We want our dealers to leverage whatever resource we have as a company and move toward a services-led model,” said Jim Coriddi, vice president of the deal division at Ricoh America.
ChaMPS is not a referral program, even though the service is provided by Ricoh’s internal teams. Partners are buying the services on behalf of their customers as they would in ordering a multifunction or desktop printer. Coriddi says the extension of professional services to Ricoh channel partners will give them more options for fulfilling customer needs rather than surrendering business – and revenue – to other providers.
Ricoh already takes in a number of professional services referrals from its solution provider partners. It currently has more than 200 potential jobs in the sales pipeline that originated with partners. The ChaMPS program does more than formalize the program; it gives priority for job fulfillment to partners who have completed training and attained certification. So far, 14 partners have entered ChaMPS, and Ricoh hopes to add dozens more in 2013.
“We feel very good about our approach because it comes with our expertise; this is what we do every day,” Coriddi told Channelnomics.
Ricoh is a relative newcomer to the ranks of printer vendors pushing professional services through the channel. Xerox, Konica Minolta and Hewlett-Packard have been offering professional services through and with channel partners for some time. And most printer vendors, including Ricoh, already offer managed print services, which is the remote monitoring of customer printer fleets and automated fulfillment of consumables such as paper and toner.
In a recent interview with Channelnomics, Tom Gall, value channel marketing direct at Xerox, outlined a vision in which managed print and professional services will act as a catalyst for solution providers offering more cloud services hosted by or developed with Xerox. Over the past several years, Xerox has invested heavily in acquiring professional services capacity; it now represents nearly 60 percent of Xerox’s revenue.
While printing remains lucrative, the printer market has seen better days. Analysts are marking a steady decline in printing as tablets, smartphones and digital readers replace the printed page. The decline is so precipitous that some analysts worry that HP will have a more difficult time recovering from its mismanagement because its printing and imaging products won’t be able to contribute enough revenue.
Ricoh’s vision is sound, although there is room for caution. The model isn’t about enablement, but rather representation in which solution providers are trained to uncover opportunities and not perform services. Ricoh defends this point, saying that ChaMPS offers a low-cost, high-impact means for solution providers to offer professional services they don’t have. Because Ricoh services are sold as a product, partners are responsible for the costs even if their customers default on bill.
The Ricoh ChaMPS and similar printer vendor programs are milestones in the evolution of the printer business. No one is ready to say the mythical “paperless office” is here; but there is certainly a lot less paper lying around. In time, Ricoh and its ilk will look a lot less like printer vendors and more like IT services organizations.
http://channelnomics.com/2012/...fering-pro-services/
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