In the world of business, SharePoint is becoming a topic hotly discussed. According to the March 31, 2008 issue of NetworkWorld, Microsoft quietly sold over $1 billion dollars in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). This number didn’t even include the integration dollars behind roll outs of MOSS 2007 or its SMB counterpart, Windows SharePoint Server (WSS), which comes as a free download from Microsoft or as part of the core operating system.

Did that $1 billion (with a “B”) perk your ears?

Well it should.

What does that mean to the independant dealer channel, and just about every other consultant out there?

This technology is not only hear to stay, it has rightly achieved a position within the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) space as a tipping point. Many experts are exclaiming that SharePoint has surprised everyone in how it has offered a wide-reaching solution to previously unmanaged information, and can scale from very small businesses up to large, worldwide organizations.

What is perhaps of most interest to the independant dealer is how SharePoint 2007 accelerates the talk track regarding managing a company’s documents and their workflow, overlays existing Document Management Systems (DMS) offerings, and has the potential to shift balances quite radically.

In this 4 part series, we will examine whether SharePoint 2007 is a friend or foe of the independent dealer; whether it should be embraced or exorcised will be a decision ultimately left to you, but this exploding market offers compelling evidence that you will indeed have to befriend this behemoth - or take it on head to head.

Read this series here. 

Ken Stewart’s blog, ChangeForge.com, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology. Ken is also the Director of Technology at Kearns Business Solutions.

Almost overnight, Microsoft SharePoint 2007 sold more than $1 billion since its release, according to the March 31, 2008 issue of NetworkWorld. Mike Gotta, an analyst with the Burton Group goes on to say,

I have not seen anything like this since the early days of [Lotus] Notes… The talk [around SharePoint] is getting strategic now, and people are talking about it as a middleware solution”

In my March article, Are You Getting Schooled on SharePoint?, John Mancini, president of AIIM, went on to say:

1. The entry of Microsoft SharePoint as a serious player in the document and records infrastructure marketplace.  This is one of the most important developments in evangelizing these technologies that we have ever seen. Suppliers and consultants will debate what MOSS can do and what it can’t.  But it won’t matter; it will spread like kudzu through the end user community.

I said it then, and I say it again, John is right on. Without even trying, Microsoft has sold over $1 billion (that’s with a “B” folks) in licensing. This isn’t even including the WSS rollouts, and third-party revenues being generated. John Fontana had this to say:

…[It's the] prototypical Microsoft tool - good enough for small-to-midsize businesses; adaptable to large enterprises; and most important, having plenty of financial opportunities for third-party ISVs and systems integrators.

One of the big tricks for Microsoft is that it’s SharePoint solutions are so tightly integrated with it’s own unified communications stack, Exchange servers, and Office application suites. Simply put, it is extremely flexible for workgroup and small company collaboration opportunities.

However, it has its limitations. Those thinking it is the end-all-be-all of document management, are sorely mistaken. It does not scale well, according to Fontana. Simply put, Microsoft stores everything in “what amounts to one universal table”, to include the documents themselves. This is a nightmare to manage with large amounts of content.

However, Microsoft is expected to fix this in its next version, rumored to be shipping in 2009. What does this mean for the competitors? Watch and see!

My suggestion would be to acquaint yourself with the solution now, and either begin offering solutions with this in mind, or partner with a company that understands it and can work symbiotically with your company.

I am honored to bring you a guest post by a good friend and author, Corey Smith, mastermind behind the business and technology blog, masterthebusiness.com. In his spare time, Corey has also founded several companies to include Resumango and TributeMedia as well as being the Chief Web Architect for Dealer Marketing Systems and Editor-in-Chief at Office Product News. I do hope you enjoy reading this post as much as I did.

There are many reasons why [tag]paperless office[/tag] initiatives fail. I think that in order to truly understand why they fail, we need to understand the difference between how companies use paper and how individuals use paper.

I am a big proponent of the paperless office. I hate paper and wish that it would all go away.

With that said, I have a [tag]printer[/tag] in my [tag]home office[/tag] and I use my [tag]scanner[/tag] to copy documents all the time. I have stacks of paper on my desk and paper in my file cabinets… probably more because I am messy than anything. I love to read a book in print and not from my computer screen.

I should say that the stacks of paper on my desk are the reasons why I don’t like paper. I hate the way the are organized. I hate the way I have to find them. I just hate it.

The reality is, people use paper differently for different reasons. When we talk about paper that we use personally, we need to apply a different standard to that paper than how we use paper in business. We need to jot down notes. We need to highlight the way we are used to. We have been conditioned to expect paper to be the tangible proof that we are doing something. Even my to do list is on a sheet of paper sitting next to my three computer monitors, keyboard and mouse.

A large company is different. It may be efficient enough for me to look through my one file cabinet and find a peice of paper (well, maybe not for me, but for most people), but, it is not practical for a company with many file cabinets to allow each employee that needs access to a file cabinet to have it.

It is like the difference between [tag]Mac[/tag] and [tag]PC[/tag]… you need to have the right tool for the job. I need my PC because so many people use it and I have to understand that technology. I need my Mac because a couple of my hobbies require it and a PC simply won’t do. (Although, if I could choose, I would choose my Mac hands down).

When considering moving to a paperless office and implementing a paperless [tag]workflow[/tag] or even implementing a full blown [tag]document management[/tag] system, we have to realize that there is the right tool for the job. It may never make sense for you to implement a database on your computer to manage your documents, but when we start talking about managing documents in an organization and we need to eliminate those information silos, a paperless document management strategy becomes a critical conversation.

 Corey Smith’s business and technology blog provides a common sense approach to running your business. He also maintains a news feed service for the copier, printer and document management industries.

Today we wrap up our review of John Mancini’s article in ImageSource titled Top 10 Industry Trends, authored by John Mancini, the President of AIIM, outlines what he believes to be the top 10 drivers within the DMS space… Let’s continue our discussion with the number 10 influencer in the DMS space this year and evaluate social technology trends today:

10. A need to connect in new ways. End users need to find each other and learn from each other more than ever.

‘A need to connect in new ways,” Mancini writes… a fairly open-ended comment, but one that has some profound implications, and a statement that would indicated end-users aren’t exchanging information as readily as before…

This brings up a wonderful question of whether the up and coming generation is more apt to share information amongst themselves because of exposure to such an abundant growth of information and social media in general?

I’m sure there are studies and reports, but look around. The Corporate America of yesterday is getting turned on its ear. Big business still rules the roost, and the almighty dollar is high on the priority list of just about everyone, in the corporate sectors of America at least. However, I see an amazing and growing prevalence to gleefully share discoveries, much like scientists would revel in the discovery of some new star.

Newsgroups and message boards of the past offered no glitz or glam to attract users, and it was often hard to comb through what information was there. It finally seems that technology has actually become usable in the mainstream to improve the quality of life in general.

Add to this the simple fact people are more easily able to connect across larger geographies. First things like travel became easier with the additions of automobiles and trains; now we find ourselves in a brave new world where travel isn’t even as necessary; a time where mobile phones worldwide are close (or already) out numbers traditional land based lines, global positioning systems (GPS) are available in consumer-based handheld devices, and social media tools such as Twitter allows you to literally track what someone’s every move is.

I dare not dream of what tomorrow may hold for us, but the sunrise upon today offers a glimmer of what is to come: A world of open dialogue and information sharing which has Corporate America’s ears perked to be sure. We used to talk about globalization when I was in college, a few short years ago; well my friends - it is here.

John states people must find new ways to connect. Those ‘new ways’ are here so Corporate America must find applications for use of these tools to improve the business, increase efficiencies, and most of all increase mind-share from the grass roots to ivory tower.

Today we discuss the increasing tensions between control and access. In a recent article in ImageSource titled Top 10 Industry Trends, authored by John Mancini, the President of AIIM, outlines what he believes to be the top 10 drivers within the DMS space… Let’s continue our discussion with the number 9 influencer in the DMS space this year:

9. Increasing tensions between control and access.  There are more and more ways to create, print and distribute information.  Trying to control everything will be a frustrating task. This will be exacerbated by the increasing power of search tools and the entry of younger workers into our workforces. The pendulum has been on the” control” side of the document management world for a while; it’s now on the move.

This is an issue of constant debate and consternation among newbies and pundits alike. This is much like anything in life, and security and convenience (access) are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Total control favors the individual or those in power, whereas access favors the masses and gives the individuals better control (or the illusion of better control) over a smaller cross-section of their area of influence.

 As our government trends towards more socialistic policy, too much control becomes a debate. For instance the debate revolving around socialized medicine is a classic debate of control versus access. This being said, we are really talking about who should have access to the information contained on the documents?

What is attactive about a [good] document management solution (DMS) is it offers access with a layer of control. A good solution will allow the owner(s) a leash, of a fashion. For instance, if they decide a certain group of people need access they can grant a level of access, and deny access to another group - or even layer varying rights like viewing, editing, or even deleting records.

John hits on an excellent point that companies of a size most definitely struggle with. In a smaller company, one person or a handful of people have all the access and control of information necessary to conduct their jobs effectively. As the business grows more specialized responsibilities are assigned and silos of information become prevalent - or bottlenecks in the flow of information.

To continue to grow, good companies blast through these dead-zones of information and empower associates access to information while keeping the leash on and allowing it to be yanked if someone gets out of control. It usually isn’t until something quite bad happens (theft, loss, etc.) that a company realizes how loose their perceived control actually is. This realization is usually followed by an extreme tightening of the belt except in the wisest of companies and causes a huge culture-crash.

Enterprises are a bit different, and government organizations even more so. Within enterprises, the ability to report on access is extremely important, specifically in publicly traded companies or companies heavily regulated by government agencies. While control is important, access is a consideration as well. IT usually plays heavily in this teeter-totter of the enterprise because they are charged as gatekeepers.

Control is usually more important than access in the public sector, and even with recent legislation enabling citizens access to more documents the access is almost never expedient because there is no enterprise-level initiatives for DMS.

All organizations are coming to grips with the wild fire of access to information provided by access to the Internet and social media (e.g. Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Twitter, etc.). People have come to revere social media as authoratative (see Wikipedia), and feel both empowered and entitled to have access.

Smart business executives and management are undergoing an awakening to the power of social media within the company as a means to turn-on new levels of productivity and tap previously unrealized resources by assisting associates in blurring their work and home lives… afterall, isn’t it a greater benefit to have a production-focused individual rather than a clock-puncher?

In a nutshell, technology empowers and distracts people. The blurring of lines between work and home has become a dangerous trend that can threaten one’s sanity just a bit. However, everyone feels they have to have a constant flow of information (access), but we must ask whether we are in control of the information or if the information is in control of us, demanding we continually check-in to see if we missed anything.

Indeed, the debate of control and access will rage on, and in every case a culture (be it corporate or a nation) must make constant decisions as to which will win. Generally, most sane individuals will choose a median approach - a compromise of reasonably controlled access. So should there be all of this drama of who should have what?

Too little information means we cannot provide knowledgeable service, and too much information can provide more options than necessary and short-circuit the decision-making process. I would contend we ask ourselves what information is necessary to do our job and keep us as close as possible to our valued customers. No more or no less information is needed.

Up next, we finish our series on the top 10 drivers of document solutions this year. We ask why do we feel such a need to connect?

Today we discuss the need for best practices in document solutions. In a recent article in ImageSource titled Top 10 Industry Trends, authored by John Mancini, the President of AIIM, outlines what he believes to be the top 10 drivers within the DMS space… Let’s continue our discussion with the number 7 influencer in the DMS space this year:

7. An accelerating need for quantifiable best practices in the user community.  Why does every implementation seem to sound like it is starting from scratch? Haven’t we all collectively learned something that can be documented and shared without paying some consultant a ton of money? Is there some role that a magazine like imageSource can play in helping to aggregate all these end user successes?

John strikes on something very near and dear to my heart… Well, John I hate to break it to you but the simple reason there are very few (if any) published best practices is the simple fact that many solutions providers (formerly copier dealers) are sales driven organizations. Does the motto, “Let’s sell the solution first and figure out how to make it work later,” ring any bells?

Without being funny, there is some element of truth in this. Many solutions providers are still trying to figure out just how to sell a good solution that works and makes them money. Let me tell you, it was tough just to get a network survey to connect a copier. Can you imagine trying the change to the culture necessary to facilitate a well conceived and executed discovery process?

About the closest person I’ve seen to having the secret sauce is Darrell Amy, over at Dealer Marketing Systems, with his ProSolutions Bootcamp. I know there is the stigma of a high-priced consultant, but with all of the “dealer community” still trying to get their hands around document solutions it’s tough to come up with the entire process overnight. Darrell has some good talk tracks to tie some disparate sales processes and solutions processes in place. However, it’s still up to the dealer to come up with the installation and support processes. It might be possible to look to a vendor/manufacturer, but often times they do not hold your customers as dear as you might.

Most solutions providers are still struggling to get things going, and may even be in their first year of selling document solutions. The pain is tremendously high and the returns are not yet realized. Many will fall by the way side, but I have hope that John’s vision of a common collective of information might yet be available. I do wonder though, as protective as the dealer community is with it’s information, would this utopian vision of knowledge sharing become available?

Interestingly enough, I must say I’ve been impressed with the overall amount of knowledge sharing the community is willing to offer. Everytime I have asked for advice or information it has been offered quickly and happily. Of course, I’m not in direct competition with the those I’m asking either.

Here’s what it will take to achieve the knowledge share John references:

1. Higher level of maturation within the solutions provider ecosystem.

2. Established and/or dominant players at the provider level.

3. Consolidation of CMS/DMS vendors, thus providing a standardization of sorts.

4. A panel of representatives willing to organize the information (build and they will come).

The reason it feels like every implementation is starting from scratch is we have not yet even scratched the surface of the proverbial solutions path. With these four things, it might be possible to finally create some type of knowledge sharing system. Only time will tell…

Tomorrow we discuss number 8 on the list, the blurring lines of technology in the solutions arena.

Tonight we discuss ”the rise in importance of the channel and solutions providers” of document solutions. In a recent article in ImageSource titled Top 10 Industry Trends, authored by John Mancini, the President of AIIM, outlines what he believes to be the top 10 drivers within the DMS space… Let’s continue our discussion with the number 6 influencer in the DMS space this year:

6. The rise in importance of the channel and solution providers.  As the core technologies become viewed more as infrastructure, the capabilities of those who actually deliver and implement solutions becomes critical.

This is a critical role many solutions providers count on in order to drive professional services revenue. I would be interested in what others in the industry are seeing as there is definitely some truth in what John says, but not to the extend I would call it a fire sale just yet. The solutions providers’ business models still vary widely from company to company, as do the expected results.

I would propose there are two general schools of thought at the solutions provider level. The first revolves around the transitional copier dealer attempting to play in the arena of “solutions”. Typically a dealer will take on one (maybe two) lower-end, and easy to implement, file cabinet replacement. The professional services engagements are minimal, so they will typically train the connected technician or “IT Manager” to handle the installations. This allows them to maintain gross profit generally and many customers are quite fine with this presentation. All in all, it is not a predatory relationship, but it is definitely not a strategic relationship either.

The second is a provider who invests in an infrastructure of more highly trained engineers and sales staff. This is much more costly, runs the risk of side-tracking the current sales, and overall has the greatest risk of flopping. So why even risk this? Well, the profit margins can be substantially higher, the deals much larger, and the customers tend to be arguably longer-term. While this has the greatest potential for overall revenue generation, if serving your customer is not the focus, customers can begin to view their long-time provider of copiers, printers, and faxes as just another software company trying to turn a buck. Be cautious of this slippery slope.

Some dealers have found a hybrid model works, much like the territory and major/named account divisions in mid-sized to larger dealers. This is an equitable model so long as your staff is competent to understand the differences between the types of clients and their respective needs. In other word, it can be disastrous to attempt to force a lower-end solution into a more enterprise environment; conversely, it can leave a bad taste in the small business owner’s mouth if you leave them with an over-powered (and over-priced) solution.

In general, it should be expected to see a fair amount of professional services revenue as a result of a document solutions sale, and generally can equal or exceed the revenue of the software itself. But do not expect to see a run on the bank for phase two engagements at the outset. Most clients are content to renew their maintenance and call in for helpdesk support as needed (another key component to a successful document solutions program, by the way). This is understandable and to be expected as a business grows its base, and the base will most likely be a smaller percentage of total revenue if a company is to maintain stability of profit.

Outside of this, my contention would be that clients aren’t really pressing for phase two engagements because they were looking for a very specific solution, which was met (thinking tactically again). It should be expected that most companies will begin to ask questions about expanding between years 2-4 of a current solution if they are on-track with proper growth strategies. If not, then why not bring these questions up in your account reviews?

Interestingly, both customer and solutions provider have a choice to make: The former must choose whether to invest in a tactical solution to meet today’s needs or invest in a partner to help them achieve their goals today and tomorrow. The latter must choose which professional services model they will follow given their goals for revenue generation, customer retention, customer acquisition, and growth.

Everyone has an opinion about what is right and what is wrong. Only you know your business (customer or provider). So sit down, take a deep breath, and think about what’s important to you. After all, it is your business isn’t it?

I have been thinking a lot about whether DMS will have a place in the paperless office of the future, or will the likes of Google’s and Microsoft’s search engine tools replace the need for structured data? I mean look at WordPress as an example. I just write, tag my articles, and publish. I don’t worry about where they are stored because I can always go back and find them using search tools. This is a much different feel than our older HTML based websites.

Think about this… DMS for the copier dealer has been the “natural lead-in” from a copier-based sales mentality, or so the experts say. Presumably it is a bridged sales strategy allowing the those reps focused on hardware to feel a little like they understand they are still working with documents. Not saying it can’t be done, but that’s a tight corner to take. Most dealers are selling pages - a far different industry than selling software. The company I work with even struggles with this culture change on a daily basis as we blend into a consultative and strategic mindset. It is a slow progression we started many years ago, and the old habits still creep back in.

So what about the solution itself we are selling? Why has DMS or even CMS become such a buzz word? Does it have a shelf life or is it a technology that has a shelf life of 1 or 2 decades, much like the VCR tape?

I suppose it would have to depend on the applications you might expect. For instance, when we started our DMS conversion several years ago, we had the mindset to eliminate paper filing rooms and process paper documents much faster. It seemed like a wise direction at the time.

Fast forward a few years and enter a new ERP system, a new phone system, an overhauled infrastructure and even a second DMS suite (the first one couldn’t cut it). We now find that there is a need to store files, but there are considerably less paper documents to store. Why is this? Is the paperless office coming true?

Not so much. We have found ways to create less paperwork through process improvement and have also found that we don’t need to keep as much (there was a lot of duplication going on). And one of the most profound things my staff has discovered over the past 3 months is just how much of an impact a closely aligned ERP system can have on paper-reduction; paper doesn’t need to exist as much on the outside of our ERP system as it did in the other.

We are seeing some reductions in the arena of paper production, but does this in and of itself indicate the demise of DMS? After thinking and working with our solution there are 2 reasons I don’t think DMS is or will be dead anytime in the near future.

The rise of Business Process Automation (BPA) tools (sometimes referred to as workflow automation). For instance, the partner we chose had a vision 4-5 years ago that DMS was only a bucket, if you will. It held the documents you collected (paper or otherwise). Now they have launched their comprehensive BPA tools that we are expecting to have a significant ripple effect throughout our organization.

The second reason for DMS sustainability is simply lack of integration in the SMB between supplier, vendor, and customer. While there are systems that allow us access to more information than we ever had before, many times these disparate systems are unconnected from one another; we find ourselves moving from system to system in an attempt to pull information.

To be sure, technology is becoming cheaper and cheaper by the day, and the price tag on integration doesn’t scare so many people as it did due to falling costs and better interoperability standards. But it is unreasonable in the near future to think the seeds of change will grow so quickly as to change the simple fact that to conduct business documents (electronic or otherwise) must flow between companies and customers. Just look at the sales process as 1 example (vendor quote, customer PO, vendor receipt, customer receipt, vendor invoice, etc.).

 DMS isn’t going anywhere in the near term. There are a lot of things that will change in the next decade, and I do not pretend to know what or how those changes will impact DMS specifically. I do know people will be people and software will continue to evolve and change. Unlike the VCR tape, software is simple a collection of electrons in a given order; they can be arranged and re-arranged innumerable times producing new code to solve new problems. As long as the people designing the code stay focused on the needs of their customers and developing trend in the document space, document solutions will remain relevant and needed to help people make sense out of the ever-increasing volume of documents.

Tonight we discuss “the renaissance of capture.” In a recent article in ImageSource titled Top 10 Industry Trends, authored by John Mancini, the President of AIIM, outlines what he believes to be the top 10 drivers within the DMS space… Let’s continue our discussion with the number 5 influencer in the DMS space this year:

5. The renaissance of capture.  As the market expands into mid-sized organizations, there is untold untapped opportunity in organizations still reliant on paper processes. The expanding use of multi-function devices as access points to document systems creates all sorts of opportunities for solution providers.  But solution providers need to get out of the mindset that this is still a hardware business or a hardware sale.  It ain’t.

Indeed their is a renaissance afoot. However, it is not just within the small realm of capturing documents. Paper-based documents are still a very cost-effective way to transport information from one place to another. The printed page is increasing at an estimated 11% per year with 2006 volumes at somewhere close to 3500 billion pages (courtesy of Gartner via Jim Salzer over at DocuAudit International). However, I have seen no supporting data to further determine if these are simply reproductions of documents already available online or original documents to process and capture (although I have my suspicions).

DMS was originally intended to help structure the mess of file rooms, desktop clutter, and bloated file servers where otherwise structured data might be used (e.g. databases). A logical person might think DMS would be a strong contender to help structure the data with the rampant production of documents abound in today’s business. However, with increased potency of line of business (LOB) systems and the ever rising availability of digital originals, one can’t help wonder if the need for paper-based capture may be waning. On the flip side of the coin, dealers selling DMS are wondering whether providing a repository for the documents will allow people to let loose the purse strings and encourage generous volumes of reprints.

No doubt there are companies with rampant paper processes, and every dealer is anxious to know whether the pain is enough for them to buy one of their solutions, whereas business owners who have not adopted a DMS are asking why they would buy something when they don’t see a problem…

If the dealer is attempting to position a piece of hardware as the solution rather than taking into account a customer’s need for an over-arching strategy, I disagree with the opinion that the expanding use of multi-function devices as access points provides an opportunity to the dealer. However, I do see that DMS will provide an opportunity for dealers to reap the rewards of tying their hardware to a compay’s DMS or LOB system using middleware packages.

My only caution would be that dealers don’t become tunnel visioned in the process. John is clear to state “it ain’t” a typical hardware sale. True enough… so why even go in talking about the hardware at all?

In a recent article in ImageSource titled Top 10 Industry Trends, authored by John Mancini, the President of AIIM, outlines what he believes to be the top 10 drivers within the DMS space… Let’s continue our discussion with the number 4 influencer in the DMS space this year:

4. Trend #1, #2, and #3 add up to a dramatic decline in a collapsing price point for core document functionality at the desktop.  As a result, the market is exploding in two directions – across large organizations and into the mid-sized market.  From a cost vs. functionality perspective, this is the golden age of end users.  But we need to remember that the part of the industry focused on large organizations that need to integrate and standardize on an ECM infrastructure is vastly different than the part of the industry typical at the low end that simply is looking for a better solution to paper and/or a mess of network drives.

With the advent of great new focus on the end-user experience, John is absolutely correct in stating “… this is the golden age of end users.” Technology continues to increase its useful applications and simultaneously drop in price. Can I get an “amen” to that!

However, what is, and should be, compelling to the dealer is not only the decrease in the cost of acquiring the technology and the increase in usability, but a distinct divide that is forming between enterprise and SMB opportunities. This gives pause to many a sales manager.

Let’s face it, dealers are still talking about connecting copiers for crying out loud, and if you are in this category - well, you’ve still got a fighting chance. I’m not saying go out and start slinging software just to say you are. However, I am saying that you need to realize the network is what’s important, and PC’s and printers are simply devices hanging off the edges to render information.

That’s an interesting concept, I know, but the whole point of having a network is to exchange information and with the increased usefulness of software solutions, IT is being dispersed into the business units and being forced to use those long-overdue soft skills. This means the old saying, “there’s money where there’s mystery” just got taken out with your recycled paper… executives are smarter and more savvy than ever.

With this division of small and large business, the dealer community as a whole is ill-prepared to take the next step… let alone attempt to compete with the likes of IBM’s FileNet, Westbrook’s Fortis, or EMC’s D5… forget it. You aren’t prepared for the long sales cycles nor are you prepared for the gut wrenching decisions you will be forced to make. Let me tell you that just because you understand how to manage a large MPS client, this does not qualify you to take on IBM. Stick to what you know best.

If you typically sell to the SMB’s, and have a loyal base, you are in prime shape to help your valued customers step into the digital age - all over again (can I get another ‘amen’ to that!). At the very least you can help them reclaim file storage space and find documents more quickly. At best, you can become the new hero that made everyone in the company happier they know you. That’s a novel feeling for a copier jockey, isnt’ it?

Take advantage of the fact that the large players just don’t get the SMB market; EMC for instance thinks any business less than $500 million in annual sales is an SMB… Do you think they understand your $20 million dollar customers better than you do? Guard yourself against the declining margins of hardware, and show your customers you do more than try to sell them what’s in the warehouse that month. 

Show your customer you want to understand their business, their challenges, and their goals. Show them you actually care about their needs, and you may just find yourself in the unique position of being asked for advice. Quit talking about connecting copiers, and start talking about solving a business owner’s problems!

Tommorrow: We discuss “the renaissance of capture.”