Xerox Marches Forward with Managed Print Services

Xerox has offered managed print services for more than a decade. But Xerox Senior Vice President Jim Joyce sees bigger opportunities ahead. Joyce gave me an update on Xerox’s managed print services strategy earlier this week.

“We introduced MPS to the market about 11 years ago but we called it MOS — Managed Output Services,” Joyce explained. It wasn’t until 2003 that Xerox landed its first major MPS/MOS deal –a seven-figure contract with a well-known pharmaceutical company. That’s also when Xerox was named to the Gartner Hype Cycle — a report that evaluates the maturity of technology companies. According to Joyce, the evaluation outcome is almost an afterthought compared to just being on the Hype Cycle itself. “The minute you get on that Hype Cycle, it starts to legitimize your business,” he said.

More recently, Xerox has repeatedly landed on the Gartner Magic Quadrant for managed print services.

Of course, competition looms around every corner. Joyce identified Ricoh and HP as Xerox’s two main competitors. And the market has been active with merger and acquisition (M&A) activity. For instance, Xerox has acquired NewField IT and HP has acquired Printelligent.

True believers in managed print services include colleges and universities. A recent Xerox win involves a major Ohio community college, while Ricoh scored a deal with Benedict College.

Still, Xerox claims to control 47 percent of the managed print services market. Most of the company’s MPS revenue comes from North America and Eastern Europe, with developing markets like Asia gradually picking up steam, according to Joyce.

But where do MSPs fit into the conversation? Xerox promotes solutions like PagePack and eConcierge to help MSPs generate recurring revenues. However, only about 19 percent of the world’s top MSPs offer managed print services to their customers, according to our fifth-annual MSPmentor 100 survey, which runs through Dec. 23, 2011.