MPS and Commercial Printers: Learn from the airlines.

Here's one way to MPS + OPM/PSP = OP.
MPS = Managed Print Services
OPM/PSP = Original Product Manufacturer/ Print Service Provider.
OP= Organizational Printernet.

The strategy
1. Offer an extended service contract for mSB. mSB is micro to Small business. Every "organization" is a really a collection of mSBs tied together by a bunch of rules and power relationships.

2. Do a price list that is organized around impressions (OPM/PSP), but call them "clicks." Everybody knows what a click is. No one knows what an impression is. Bundle it with finishing. No one in sMB understands finishing. Do it for a selected menu of different kinds of paper. Everyone knows what paper is. Everyone knows how to choose from a menu.

3. Do multi tiered pricing that is time based.

Standby service
1 week expected delivery from approved PDF file. But, delivery may be delayed because of booked presstime.
Regular service
1 week guaranteed delivery from approved PDF file. Must be confirmed after receipt of approved PDF file.
Business class service
3 day guaranteed delivery from approved PDF file. Must be confirmed after receipt of approved PDF file.
First class service
Next day guaranteed delivery from approved PDF file. Must be confirmed after receipt of approved PDF file.

Organic Growth
Do a Frequent Print (Flyer) Program CRM program. Give Printer Points as a forward looking benefit of doing business with you. You could also probably get Amex to match your printer points with Frequent Flyer points. Plus you can tweak the incentives to smooth out the workflow. Plus you know how much people hate to give up their Frequent Flyer Points. If it works for them, why wouldn't work for you.

Making it work for MPS
This has to be driven by MPS. Person printers are much too busy printing, to prospect. Also Printers have manufacturing DNA, not VAR DNA. That's why it has to be you driving.

So . . .just include the commercial printer as another printer that you manage. The really good person-printer is at least as reliable as the most reliable machine box printer. If you can manage a couple of hundred of one kind of printer, it's really not that hard to manage say 5 to 20 of the other kind of printer. 5 to 20 will take care of almost anything that anyone wants to print at any service level. If you are as careful choosing the person printer as the machine box printer, the risk is manageable.

The hard part is aggregating person-printers that are as predictable as your machine-box-printers. But they are out there. I promise. Besides, you are already making intelligent judgments for your customers tying together the most appropriate hardware and software.

So how hard could this really be? Besides, Webmart has already figured it out in the UK and Okill has it pretty right in Australia. Sooner or later either of them will come here, or someone here is going to replicate what they invented there. It's just a matter of time.