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The first Nubeprint MPS Compliance Report was published July 2011. For the first time, a company tested printers and copiers to verify to which extent a third party could adequately manage a device’s needs remotely with no onsite dedicated human resources. Indeed, the intent of the report was to ensure the success of this new business category that has grown dramatically since 2007 and to automate tasks that copier dealers have been performing manually for the ages, as well as a way to make the cost per page a global option, accessible to all end-customers and dealers.

The Report is the result of deep testing of printer and copier models installed at customers, and under the assumption that the device has to be managed remotely using a data collection agent (DCA). Because the devices are tested for compliance in a working environment, the test takes place under the same conditions that any service company faces when operating its managed print service contracts.

The primary goal of an MPS contract is to free the user from the hassle of needing to identify the requirements of the printer such as toner, drums, other supplies and even service requests. The reason end-user adopts MPS is the belief that the contractor must be able to do it better such as controlling costs, anticipating the needs and eliminating any waste during the replenishment process. Thus, such economy is then shared by both the end-user company and the service provider under a win-win approach.

The complexity of such task is important. We are not just talking about refilling a tank. We are talking about refilling multiple tanks (4 different toner or ink cartridges, multiple drums, photoconductors, fuser, waste bottle…) making sure that this is done after the old one is fully emptied. As a consequence, the data that the printing device provides is very important, but never enough. The service provider must be constantly vigilant of the level of each one of the cartridges for each one of the devices, and decide when it is the right moment to ship has come. To get an idea of the size of this task, let’s imagine that you are managing 1,000 devices. In average each one has 5 cartridges, meaning that your contract specialist would be verifying 5,000 levels… every 2 hours! Every working hour your team will verify the status of 3,750 cartridges, decide whether to ship of not and remember those shipped previously in order not to duplicate the delivery (nor your costs). This is simply impossible; no matter how good your monitoring tool is.

Therefore, the MPS compliance tests that Nubeprint performs are always under the assumption that the printer or copier would properly facilitate the task of managing them, but a management tool (not just a monitoring tool) must be used by the service provider to accomplish his responsibilities.

Differentiating Monitoring from Managing is therefore critical. Monitoring comes from the word “monitor”, which is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “A device used for observing, checking, or keeping a continuous record of something”. The number of decisions that the service provider must take is such (3,750 per working hour in an installed base of 1,000 devices) that a monitoring tool is never enough. Some endcustomers reading this text may now realize that their MPS dealer is asking them to proactively call when they need something different other than a toner cartridge. Indeed, this is a real problem that is causing large losses and customer’s satisfaction issues. Something I have learned over almost 20 years in MPS is that this business is not suitable for every dealer. It requires the understanding of a complex process management situation, and though most business owners easily get it, in too many cases their team is not prepared. In those cases, some distributors and independent companies have built a platform that they “rent” to all dealers not willing or not being able to implement it with their own resources.

To all of them, this new release of the Nubeprint MPS Compliance Report should be of interest to value how complex it is to manage the install base of printers and copiers. Information about the compliance per individual model is available to Nubeprint customers.

Nubeprint is the only technology in MPS that ensures business process automation which guaranties full control of costs, including measuring and reducing waste, and a precise, accurate control of extended yield cartridge usage resulting in positive profits for each contract signed.

The Nubeprint Report is issued bi-annually (January and July) to facilitate the most updated information and market trends.

You can download it from here.

TURBON, LEADING MANUFACTURER OF LASER PRINTER CARTRIDGES AND NUBEPRINT, TECHNOLOGY LEADER IN TOTAL PRINT SOLUTIONS SOFTWARE HAVE ENTERED INTO A DISTRIBUTION AGREEMENT FOR ASIA

Under the agreement, Turbon will market Nubeprint’s software solution for print fleet management to its customer base in more than 20 Asian countries.

Nubeprint’s cloud-based solution offers unparalleled agnostic data collection, data integrity and back end support and is already successfully marketed in Europe and North America. Recently CIO Review named Nubeprint for the second consecutive time the most promising Business Process Management (BPM) provider from a group of 20 providers of BPM solutions around the world.

The combination of Turbon’s high quality laser printer cartridges and Nubeprint’s print management solution, supported by Turbon Asia’s multilingual business development team will enable Turbon’s Asian reseller partners to manage their customer’s printer fleets with the perfect print management solution in all aspects of functionality, reliability, security and cost.

Kovit Lee, Turbon’s Sales Marketing Director for Asia, commented that the industry leading combination of Turbon’s quality leading laser printer cartridges and Nubeprint’s cloud based software solution creates exceptional value for all Turbon customers in Asia. Turbon’s reseller partners now have the ideal tool needed to fulfill their end-user customers rapidly growing demand for seamless printer fleet management in order to cutting cost and improving services as well as efficiency at the same time.

FREMONT, CA—March 31, 2016- Nubeprint, the leader in Business Process Automation in the Managed Print Services industry, joins an elite number of companies that have earned a spot on 20 Most Promising BPM Solution Providers 2016 by BPM-CIOReview.

In a deliberate session with the honorary industrial experts, a list of 20 Most Promising BPM Solution Providers 2016 has been concluded with. The positioning is based on evaluation of Nubeprint’s specialties in implementing lean management concepts to control and reduce the costs of managing copiers and printers. It has also pioneered and incorporated predictive models to handle the replenishment of cartridges, and has built-in flow of event management that leads to full business process automation (BPA).

“I congratulate Nubeprint on being recognized with the much coveted title and being a recipient of 20 Most Promising BPM Solution Providers 2016”, said Jeevan George, Managing Editor of CIOReview. “We are glad to showcase Nubeprint this year due to its continuing excellence in delivering top-notch technology driven solutions.”

About CIOReview

Published from Fremont, California, CIOReview is a print magazine that explores and understands the plethora of ways adopted by firms to execute the smooth functioning of their businesses. A distinguished panel comprising of CEOs, CIOs, IT VPs including CIOReview editorial board finalized the “20 Most Promising BPM Solution Providers 2016” in the U.S. and shortlisted the best vendors and consultants. For more info: http://www.cioreview.com/

About Nubeprint

Founded in 2010, Nubeprint is a Business Process Management provider and a leader in incorporating Artificial Intelligence to manage output devices. Nubeprint’s adoption of Yield and Lean management methodologies allows MPS players to automate its service in a remote and proactive way, with the highest accuracy level in the MPS Industry. For more info: https://blogs.nubeprint.com/

Miguel Angel Naranjo, Area Manager of Nextel Engineering Outprinting MPS, shares his positive experience with Nubeprint:

“As IT services and systems integration experts, our mission is to help organizations create business value. When customers ask us to manage their printing environment, Nextel must deliver this service at the same excellent level that the customer has experienced in the past from our other services.

This is the reason why, since 2013, we have utilized Nubeprint’s technology to meet and exceed the needs of our customers in managing their printing environments.

The reliability and accuracy of the information Nubeprint provides allowed Nextel to automate critical processes such as: consumables ordering and delivery, billing pages and the opening of technical service tickets. This automation has freed our professionals to apply their energy on advising our customers and time to identify new business opportunities.

Thanks to the high degree of customization of the Nubeprint web Panel, our customers enjoy a single access point which they can quickly edit and easily export data and review at a glance the status of their printers despite the fact they are scattered among different locations. Nubeprint has helped us to achieve the highest level of quality service on pay per use model.

Nubeprint’s continuous management of the devices allows us to proactively service the devices in the system and anticipate support requests. The algorithms that manage consumable alerts “based on how many days remain before the supply runs out” works perfectly and has helped us to reduce the number of units stored at customer sites.

I cannot forget the customer panel portal we provide to them. The Panel is not all about printer management. We utilize the banner board in the customer panel to promote a company’s major events and initiatives. This has created a bond that is perceived as a partnership with them, which creates a loyalty to our company.

Nubeprint’s CO2 savings calculator is a great tool we use to show the customer our commitment to environmental conservation. By measuring and providing real-time CO2 savings and to what level they impacted the CO2 output brings them awareness of how they are utilizing their print media. So far we have avoided the emission of 8 tons of CO2, simply because Nubeprint does what it says it does.”

Nubeprint has met our expectations, it just works!

ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN. — Nubeprint launches the new version of its popular ZERO

Nubeprint, the leader in Business Process Automation in the Managed Print Services industry, launches its new version of Nubeprint ZERO V3. This major release delivers two main advantages: an intuitive and fully customizable Dashboard and an Intelligent DCA. The Dashboard is fully customizable per system user, including the End User, who can control and manage its fleet from any mobile device. The Intelligent DCA is fully compliant with all the security & compliance directives (it does not require to open additional ports other than port 80), it is auditable and fully configurable (at the customer site or at your own office) and it does not require any additional software (Java, .Net, ISS, SQL Server, and Administrator) to run it. The migration of current Nubeprint customers from ZERO V2 to ZERO V3 is executed automatically & remotely, in minutes, without any customer intervention and/or training.

About Nubeprint

Nubeprint, recently recognized by CIOReview as one of the 20^th most promising 2015 Business Process Management provider, is the leader in incorporating Artificial Intelligence to manage output devices. Nubeprint´s adoption of Yield and Lean management methodologies allows MPS players to automate its service in a remote and proactive way, with the highest accuracy level in the MPS Industry. This accuracy leads to having a very tight control of the supplies process of when and what supplies and parts will be needed and for what device. This automation results in an immediate positive impact on the profitability of the MPS provider. The ROI of moving to Nubeprint is achieved as quickly as the deployment is made, boosting the profit of existing MPS businesses. Nubeprint designs its algorithms and BPM minimizing the environmental impact of printers and copiers (www.nubeprint.com)

Long term, the purpose of any business is to maximize profit. MPS is not an exception. Controlling the profitability of each MPS contract is not only recommended: it is indeed a very healthy exercise for your company. So what happens when you find out that the expected durability of the cartridge you ship to your customers is not being reached? In other words, for every page your customers print you lose money.

This situation happens more frequently than what people think. Let’s see the reasons behind and the actions that the MPS service provider can take.

Theoretical vs actual durability.

There are two types of durability: the theoretical durability, also called expected durability, and the actual durability.

The expected durability is determined at an early stage during the proposal phase, but it is only fixed upon the contract signature. The theoretical durability is the first risk that is assumed and taken by the MPS provider. It is also the only risk that he cannot control by himself, but for which he is the one assuming it all.

The yield published by the cartridge manufacturer is the starting point for the calculation of the theoretical durability. Though in most cases the contract validates this yield (97% of signed contracts take the published manufacturer yield as the expected yield for the contract), in some cases, during contract negotiations, the durability is modified in order to address the printing specificity of the customer. In these cases, the customer negotiates a better cost per page with the argument that his average printing document uses less coverage than normal.

Once the contract starts, we start talking about actual durability. This is the average durability of the cartridge in the end customer’s printers. The actual durability is the empiric observation of the average number of pages per cartridge that a printer has been able to print during a specified period of time. Please note how simple this concept is, which is in contrast with the complexity to calculate it in real life.

But the actual durability does not mean anything per se. It needs to be compared with the expected durability. Should the actual durability be higher than theoretical, then the MPS service provider is making an extra margin (operational margin). Should it be lower, then the MPS service provider is losing margin and action is required.

Example:

During the period from June 1^st till September 30^th a printer has printed 23,465 pages and it has used 1.53 cartridges. The actual yield of the cartridge for this printer during the period has then be 15,337pages/cartridge.

As mentioned, the actual yield is just one more piece of data, and it is meaningless unless we compare it. Let’s suppose that the theoretical durability of the cartridge in this contract is 20,000 pages. The lower actual durability implies that the MPS provider is losing margin (or even having a net loss) on each page that his customer prints.

In our example, the dealer has a loss of profit equal to 23.32% of the revenue. Should the dealer have priced the contract with a margin of 30%, his actual margin would decrease to just 6.7%!

Contract vs printer level analysis.

A contract is the sum of all printers managed for this customer. A loss generated by an individual printer in a contract is in most cases compensated by extra profit obtained in other printers of the same contract. The overall result is what matters. If the average durability of the cartridges utilized in a Contract during a specific period of time is overall lower than the expected durability, the MPS provider is then losing money in this contract. If he doesn’t react, he will find himself after 5 years with significant dollars lost with this customer.

Why can the expected durability be higher than actual durability?

There are reasons why a cartridge’s durability is less than its expected yield. One of them is that the cartridge does not really last as long as expected.

Opposite to what many people think, this happens with great frequency. Most of the toner manufacturers and high quality remanufacturers perform tests in their labs to determine the yield of their cartridges. But in a real environment it may differ quite significantly. This is why some complement the lab results with quality controls in a real world production environment using the information that Nubeprint yield management tool provides.

The profitability analysis.

No matter if this is an OEM cartridge or a remanufactured cartridge. The fact is that the durability directly impacts the profit of an MPS contract. The control of the actual durability is therefore part of the profitability analysis of a contract. It is performed for the first time at an early stage in the life of the MPS contract. But the profitability can change over time. The customer may change its printing habits with new documents that have a higher coverage. The manufacturer may also change the specificities of his cartridges without even perceiving the impact during his tests in labs. For these reasons, the MPS provider must regularly do a follow-up and control any new deviation.

Solving a low durability issue.

When the cartridges do not print as many pages as they are expected to, the dealer has to come back to his cartridge supplier and re-open the negotiation. Of course, proving that the actual yield is lower than the published yield is complex unless the dealer has Nubeprint system managing his printers. This is one of the most complex though useful functionalities, and guaranties the permanent control of the profitability of each contract. The negotiation with the supplier is tough, and the success is not guaranteed. For this reason, it is always recommended that the MPS provider has alternatives for the supplies. Using printer models for which there are multiple alternatives in the market (manufacturer and re-manufactured products) is a sane business strategy.

MPS is about managing risks. A good starting point is accepting the fact that the most important risk one must manage in a multiyear contract is the supplies. So, controlling that the toners, drums and other supplies are performing as expected is a fundamental necessity for an MPS provider.

Making profit as a dealer in the printing industry is getting more and more difficult. External and internal elements threaten their status-quo. But not everything is bad news. Quite often these threats are opportunities that, well managed, can be used as a competitive advantage.

Globalization

Most of the small dealers see how their customers are being addressed by companies that are not even located in the neighborhood. In other words: new type of competitors are showing up. Quite often the competition comes from web stores that use an aggressive pricing combined with an outstanding availability of the product and fulfillment facilities.

Fighting against these competitors is not too complex: it is a question of reducing the price and increasing the stock. But the consequence is a radical reduction of the margin, to turn it even negative. This solution is therefore unsustainable over time.

There is another type of competition, also made it possible thanks to “internet”. Opposite to a web store where the customer proactively buys, these are service companies that use Nubeprint’s auto-fulfillment technology to serve all the printing needs of the customer in a proactive way. The shipment is automatically triggered. This is possible because the supplier has direct access to the printers of the customer, and therefore knows in advance when a cartridge will be needed.

The profile of these companies is very wide: from OEMs that go direct to the end-customer, to MSPs or dealers that have moved forward from just shipping cartridges to auto-fulfillment or even managed print services. The geographical distance to the customer is not an issue. Quite often the distributor from where the supplier buys facilitates global delivery.

Fighting this type of competition is harder because most of the auto-fulfillment contracts tight the customer over a period of time. Therefore the only way to fight against is indeed being the first to sign with the customer.

Pressure on prices / competition

As a product becomes popular, its price goes down. It is not only the result of mass production economies; instead it is merely the increase of competition that pushes prices down, and so does the margin. The globalization accelerates competition, leaving little room for healthy margins.

The competition based on price is not sustainable long term. It obliges the dealer to go find cheaper cartridges. Long term the quality is impacted, the customer starts suffering and he ends up by moving to a competitor looking for a trouble free product.

Not even big pocket with full of cash will work anymore in a low price strategy. The reason is that the printing market is very open and “perfect”. There will always be competitors somewhere ready to compete with your pocket. Fighting low price with lower price is a “lose – lose business”. There is no winner.

A consultant recommendation would be to change the strategy and redefine the sales proposal. Though the aim is to keep selling what you’re good at, the right approach is to present it differently; adding value around the cartridge box makes the customer perceive the difference between the cartridge he is buying from you, and the cartridge he can buy from somewhere else. For example, using auto-fulfillment technology converts your sales of cartridges into a service, where the customer is granted the toners he needs and with deep control on the costs.

Services

There are three major differences between billing cartridges and billing services:

• the first one is the perception of the customer. When a customer buys services he is indeed buying a solution to his problems. Opposite to a product that can be easily compared and where the main difference is the price, a service is valued based on how much benefit the customer perceives. Of course the risk is that the customer perception is something difficult to control and manage. But as long as his perception is good, the loyalty of this customer is high.
• The second difference is a consequence of the previous point: the possibility to get a healthy margin is higher in services. It is the result of the ability of the dealer to define its “service” proposal. The better he does it, the highest he can price his customer and the better his margin is.
• There is a third aspect that makes selling services very attractive compared to selling products: its recurrence. When the dealer bills monthly a recurrent amount, no matter if it is variable, it can much better plan for its financials, making the business more stable, and letting him focus on developing it, instead of struggling with cash issues. A service contract compromises both the dealer and the customer over a long period of time. This is good for the dealer as mentioned above. It is also good for the customer because he receives customized services thanks to the increasing knowledge of his needs that the dealer acquires.

Demands from customers

The financial crisis that most of the economies suffered from 2007 up until recently have stressed the need of companies of all sizes to control their costs. As a consequence, their willingness to outsource non-strategic activities like IT or printing has also grown. Printing is just that: a need, not their core business. Still plenty of companies spend thousands of hours calling to request toner, chasing the toner when received, allocating hundreds of square feet to stock the toner delivered in excess by the supplier, and again hours and hours renegotiating the price every year based on the volume of cartridges delivered, no matter if there was a need or not. And meanwhile nobody has been controlling to which extend all the cartridges bought were really necessary.

The customers are aware of this “hidden costs” and they demand the outsourcing of their printing needs similar to what they already did with other IT facility. The basics for printing outsource are that the contractor brings all components (the copiers and the printers, the supplies and the service), the contractor handles proactively all the needs of the printers (auto-fulfillment of supplies, control of stock, control of efficiency), and the customer’s employees step away from any task, specially anything related to the fulfillment process of toner and other supplies. Yet the control remains at the customer side, as a way to supervise the quality of the service.

The dealer is a fundamental element of the distribution channel. He is in a very desirable position: he knows his customers and his customers trust him. Though his position is threatened from many sides, he still can take advantage of his current position and reinforce his role. But he must adapt to the new situation, moving out from the competition in price and into the delivery of value added service. But this transition has to be done carefully: no need to make dramatic changes. The change should be well controlled: the dealer must start first with his current customers. He must adapt to the wide possibilities with network connected printers: automatic fulfillment of supplies. Last but not least, the dealer should not waste more time and start ASAP. Every customer he loses is a customer he will not recuperate, at least in 3 years’ time.