3 Takeaways from IBM on MPS

ZDNet special author, Leslie L. Gordon IBM, starts her article, Nine ways IT can help organizations ‘go green’ and reduce paper consumption (follow the link to the full article), with how expensive liquid ink is and outlines 9 ways in which organizations should consider reducing costs and offering some help in environmental stewardship.

While I don’t wish to stand on some pulpit and denounce paper-based processes, we all know where the trend lines are going for output and related costs. We all know this translates into less gross profit for the service-side of our industry if they continue to adhere to old ways of doing business in what is quickly shaping up to be a new economy for our industry.

My Take-aways:

1. Read into this that every single point presents an opportunity for those willing to engage and approach the old problem from a new vantage.
2. While this direction will not immediately result in the obsolescence of paper (as history has proven) the technology is finally reaching a point for “best practices” to be digested by the corporate culture (technology + generation + need = adoption).
3. Just recommendation 1, alone, indicates the importance of leveraging and operationalizating software tools to manage by variance AND that we should sell our value instead of our margins.

   Integrate software that automates manual reporting and analysis, and electronically distributes reports over the Web or on mobile devices. One mid-size company estimates that it saved enough paper to cover 5,519 football fields on a yearly basis simply by moving manual-based financial and operational reporting processes to a business intelligence system.

The takeaways are only the tip of an iceberg drifting towards the ship of our industry. This economic downturn has accelerated the typical cost-conscious message delivered as the first objective of any managed services engagement. While the upturn will present some alleviation from the sense of urgency for cost-cutting felt by potential customers, pay attention to the turning tide.

Ken Stewart’s website, ChangeForge, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology in an information-centric world. Ken serves on the board of the new Managed Print Services Association, an international industry organization seeking worldwide best practices for the managed print services industry. He is also the founder of Seeking the Son. He is always interested in connecting with you.