An Expert's View: Managed Print Services In Europe

As the managed print services market takes hold around the globe, Europe offers an interesting mix of contradictions. Ed Crowley, CEO of Photizo Group, gives an expert's view of this fascinating market.

"Some of the first major enterprise managed print services engagements took place in Europe in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Lexmark's win of UBS, Ricoh's win of Unilever, and a number of other large multi-country engagements were the antecedents of today's managed print services engagements," said Crowley. "Some of these were closer to a 'pay for print contract' than what we would consider true outsourcing today, but these engagements represented a new way of doing business for what were traditionally transaction-centric businesses. They also provided a fertile learning environment as MPS pioneers developed their infrastructure for today's global managed print services engagements."

Nature of Market Creates Challenges Given this early lead, one would expect the European market to be leading the market, and in some ways, it does. It offers a rich experience base, and it is home to some of the leading firms in the managed print services assessment market, such as Newfield IT.

"At the same time," notes Crowley, "the very nature of the European market presents challenges that have hampered the type of progress enjoyed by North America. For example, Europe is not one homogenous geography, but a collection of many different markets, each with different languages, economic structures and distribution channels." Market research has shown that the decision makers, decision-making dynamics, and underlying market structures are very different in countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany and France.

Channel and Infrastructure Still Developing "Unlike North America with numerous pan-American distribution organizations with managed print services capabilities (such as the IKON group acquired by Ricoh or the Global Imaging Solutions group acquired by Xerox), there is no pan-European distribution channel for managed print services," he explains. And perhaps more importantly, Crowley points out the limited set of pan-European "infrastructure" providers (financing, software, parts, service and supplies companies) to enable the managed print services capabilities of resellers.

So, while the European market has some of the most experience personnel (particularly among hardware manufacturers who have been providing managed print services directly to the customer), the channel opportunity for managed print services is just beginning to emerge.

Recent Conference Shows Market Diversity The recent Managed Print Services conference in Barcelona provided a clear glimpse into the uniqueness of the European market. Over 160 attendees from hardware manufacturers, corporate decision makers, resellers, software providers, and support firms attended this three-day event. The unique "watering hole" atmosphere let competitors, their customers, and their channel partners network, share insights, and discuss best practices in a neutral setting.

A look through the conference sponsors gives a glimpse into the unique diversity of the European MPS market. Platinum sponsors including Hewlett Packard, Ricoh, and DocuAudit / FMAudit were accompanied by a number of Silver and Gold sponsors including MWAintel, PrintAudit, PrintFleet, and Xerox. Over 30 educational tracks addressed topics ranging from how to implement an MPS program in a large corporation to the MPS financial models for resellers.

Poised for Leadership Extensive global MPS studies, market forecasts, and other analysis show this $28B global market growing to almost $70B by 2014. Europe is actually predicted to be the largest MPS market by 2014, fueled by the growth of MPS in the channel and small and medium business adoption of MPS.

"The managed print services market is clearly building momentum in Europe, and the focus on offering managed print services through the channel will drive growth," says Crowley. "The question is, when will the financing, supplies, and parts firms offer the diverse set of offerings and country-level support required to enable the channel across Europe to successfully engage in managed print services in a major way?"