Maybe you are in sales, and you are reading this blog. Most people would generically classify me in IT. I might argue we are all in sales, but I’m not going to insult your intelligence.

Instead, I’m going to tell you what you are missing. I’m going to tell you what I see almost every single sales person walk by in every single ‘assessment‘, and what they always fail to counsel their clients in every single interview. It is low hanging fruit. It amazes me.

We let our clients browbeat us with price, or features, or some misperceived value they have stuck in their head which is often only slightly true.

Can I get an ‘amen‘ here?

So are you in sales, or are you in education? Let me ask this another way: Are you a baby-sitter, or are you the most educated person on how documents move in and through your client’s organization?

How can you know your client’s business better than they do?

This is a fair question. After all, you aren’t looking at their P&L, and most likely they aren’t going to show it to you - even if you are a “consultant” to their business.

What’s your next best alternative?

Ask questions - lots of questions. You job is to uncover truth… and you have to be passionate about:

1. Helping your client’s business like it is your own.
2. Seeking truth.
3. Showing your client what truth is in their business.
4. Being willing to walk if they can’t or won’t commit.

Armed with truth (answers) clients have to be prepared about what they are going to hear. Some, many, will be in flat denial. So you have to ask why they called you in.

And here’s where the turn comes that you are missing.

Very few clients are really solving security problems relating to documents. Oh, everyone talks about security - and sure you can sell them the latest whiz-bang data-overwrite kit for their do-everything-but-make-coffee paperweight in the “copy room”.

But did you SOLVE their security issue?

You have to understand that security is not a 1-stop shop. It is like that thing you try to  present to your clients called a “document strategy” right? Well, this is part of that.

The client has to take ownership of this overall strategy for it to be effective (see point on flat denial) and commit to doing something about it. That is the hard part.

Here’s a softball… sure your clients have firewalls at the gate, anti-virus loaded across their swath of computers, data-security kits, and they might even have “remote monitoring services” (this is where you say, “ooohhh - aaahhhh!”).

But what are they doing to secure that piece of paper coming out of that printer, copier or fax?

Folks, paper is a preferred method of information conveyance for a reason - it’s PORTABLE…

That nice, little 3-page document can be neatly folded and put right inside your pocket and there is not a thing they can do about it - or is there? This could be sales leads, or lease documents, HR records, or that oh-so valuable P&L they didn’t want you to see (but your Accounting Manager just sold it to your competitor).

“No, that would never happen in my company,” the client exclaims! (see point on flat denial - again).

So is it that easy? Maybe I am over-simplifying, but are you walking past security risks in your clients’ companies every day? With print auditing software, document management systems, and processes these risks can be greatly reduced (and help your client sleep a little easier at night).

Think about giving control back to your clients, about protecting their informational property. There’s what you missed - take it from the IT guy.

“Where’s there’s mystery, there’s magic” as the saying goes.

IT has held a position of sway in many organizations since mainstream business began integrating technology with their lines of business. In today’s economy, it is unthinkable to detach technology from your business. I think most would agree, while the headcount can be hotly debated, there is a lot of job security for the technologist’s position within a company.

However, IT has been known to be a little myopic in their approach in support of the overall business and its needs. In other words, IT has a bad rap for being tactical in offering solutions, often retreats to methods of control rather than seeking understanding, and would rather play with toys that dig into sticky cultural issues.

The Throne:

Many small-to-medium businesses (SMB’s) across the U.S. have created the position of IT Supervisor or IT Manager. This designation often times indicates a position that is integral in “supervising” or “managing” the various technology systems and programs in place within the business, in support of day-to-day operations. This position is often thought of as a tactical support position, executing strategies set by the “business-side” of the business.

Well, what about businesses who have CIO’s?  This is supposedly a position of influence, directly able to impact top line growth, bottom line savings, or both. Studies indicate that more CIO’s are now reporting down the “food-chain” to COO’s and CFO’s.

Last year, 45% of those responding to a survey by the Society of Information Management said the CIO in their organization reported to their CEO. This year, that number is 31%.

Position or Philosophy:

Why would the position of the key technology player in a business even matter? There are 2 key reasons:

1. The position can indicate a company’s perspective on how technology impacts the business.
2. Reporting directly to the CEO offers some level of political clout, and allows more autonomy in setting holistic and strategic agendas for the business.

However, position alone is not truly important. Technologists within a company can be successful in many different reporting structures. The key to understanding whether IT is valued within an organization is understanding that IT must value the organization, and bring value to the organization.

Too often, IT spends its time toddling around with the proverbial blinders on, does not seek to understand the business, and keeps the culture at arms length - to be dealt with, not embraced.

This study indicates that CIO’s know they need to change:

[CIO's listed their] top three concerns—staffing, business/IT alignment, and building up business skills—are all human resource and skills related and that those issues were cited by more than 40% of respondents.

Gatekeeper or Bridge:

In a previous article, Is IT a Gatekeeper or Bridge, I detailed 4 skills every technology leader should embrace:

1. Align yourself with business units
2. Listen and don’t be defensive
3. Innovate
4. Offer customers choices not obstacles

Here are 10 questions to ask yourself:

1. Do you know what your business is in the business of?
2. Do you find ways to help increase sales?
3. Do you find ways to help spend less? - and I’m not talking about ordering 4GB of RAM instead of 8GB with your new laptop.
4. Do you welcome people into your office or quickly pick up the phone and pretend to be in a deep discussion?
5. Do you understand the goals and challenges of each of your business’s leaders?
6. Are you looking to help your business leaders achieve their goals and overcome their obstacles?
7. Would you rather be at your desk deciding whether DameWare or VNC works better, or out talking with your customers to see what you can improve in their work lives?
8. When your customers see you coming, do they smile and waive, or do they look down and sigh?
9. Do you wear shirts with slogans like, “I read your emails” or “I H8 U”?
10. Do you point fingers or pull the thumb? In other words, so always look to blame someone else, or seek to carry the burden on your shoulders and solve the problem at hand?

Consultant to the Culture:

My point here is not to disparage the technology advocates and enthusiasts within the organization, nor to undermine their vital role in supporting the day-to-day operations. No, this diatribe is pointed squarely at those claiming to be in leadership positions who slough off their responsibilities of stewardship.

IT Supervisors, IT Managers, and CIO’s, once they understand the business, must understand they should be a chief consultant to the business - seeking to blend technologies and cultures; they are both the cheerleader and critic, painting a portrait of how things could be sprinkled with some seasoning of reality.

Wake up! IT has to get out of the business of being in IT, and into the business of running the business.

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.

Today we start our three part series on Managed Print Services: the Theory, the Tools, and the Targets.

Managed Print Services, or MPS as it is referred to, is as much art as it is science. As of yet, customers do not fully understand it, and the scary thing is that there are very few solutions providers that do either.

According to pundits and neophytes alike, MPS has garnered a special place among those in the output industry. Everyone hails it as the next ‘big thing’ that will yield buckets full of money in an industry marked with year over year declines in margins.

Indeed, properly managed right-sizing initiatives can be very profitable and save a customer a good deal of money over alternatives. How can someone deliver on revenue for one while showing savings for another?

Let us examine some of the theory behind why a company would venture into review of MPS in the first place.

1. The traditional copier fleet has found its way on to the wire and the space for document output has become crowded in a “me-too” frenzy of ’speeds and feeds’ (and industry term used to describe a cost-minus sales approach).
2. There is a huge collision between the space of the traditional copier/mfp manufacturers of the world (Xerox, Canon, Sharp, Ricoh, Konica, Kyocera, etc.) and the printer manufacturers of the world (HP, Lexmark, etc.).

Given these dynamics and the complexity of these devices’ feature sets, more and more often IT is being asked to manage the device fleet. And what does IT do better than almost any other organization within the business - identify and implement processes through standardization.

…stud[ies] shows that decision making for MPS agreements is driven by the IT organization over 60% of the time. In many cases, the traditional copier decision makers (purchasing, facilities management, and operations) are ‘losing out’ in the internal struggle to control the hard copy device fleet (the collective group of copiers, printers, and MFP’s which reside in most organizations). - Ed Crowley, CEO of The Photizo Group

Savvy “copier dealers” and “printing VARs” alike are rushing headlong into their version of MPS - trying to put their spin, trying to evangelize customers, trying to win the land grab!

What makes a sound partner yesterday still makes a sound partner today:

Managing printers is not a new thing. IT has been doing it for decades now - and HP has been helping customers do it some fashion or another. The trend now is to right-size your fleet of output devices and lower operating costs across the board.

Many statistics point to the majority of document costs being in the related costs area - not in the fleet acquisition or actual realization of the document on the output device. One big area network administrators can speak to is the rampant number of calls they receive on printing related issues, for instance. I know I can.

With trends in outsourcing over the last decade, CFO’s and CIO’s alike are looking for ways to help their balance sheet. Does offloading an unattractive portion of the P&L to a strategic partner make sense? Couple this with the ability to refresh the technology, control your costs, and  throw in an economic downturn, now you have a boiling pot of water ready for the chef. It’s what they call a classic ‘win-win’.

Strategy not tragedy:

However, many customers remain uneducated on what they are spending and what a properly equipped partner can bring to the table.

As with any opportunity there are many “fly-by-night” operations, and it behooves the client to educate themselves on options, and just what their prospective partner’s definition of MPS actually is. As they say, “The Devil is in the details.”

Customers can avoid many unpleasant situations by simply reading the contract and asking pointed questions. Crowley also points out that many organizations go through phases of learning what they want, so there appears to be some education in the negotiations as well:

Another finding from the study relates to how the components of MPS contracts tend to change as decision makers gain more experience. This is driven by changing expectations as decision makers gain experience with MPS and begin to raise their expectations beyond simply gaining control of the fleet to actually optimizing the fleet, and eventually, enhancing the firm’s business processes by adding new fleet and document management / workflow capabilities.

With all of that said, a blossoming opportunity remains on the forefront of both vendor and customer alike.

Up Next: we discuss the various software tools used in helping companies manage their fleets.

Update: Read the entire series.

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.

In today’s rapidly moving world, savvy businesses rely on every business unit to ‘play the game’. Each business unit must understand its function as part of the whole much like an arm, a lung, or a brain plays its role to help the body function.

IT is no different, and must not only understand the business goals, but actively pursue bringing value to the business. To do so, technology leaders must 1) align themselves with business units, 2) listen and don’t be defensive, 3)innovate, 4) and offer customers choices not obstacles.

Align:

Technology leaders find themselves working with and for more tech savvy CXO’s and business unit leaders. The landscape has shifted and executives expect delivery of results not excuses. By aligning yourself with your business units’ initiatives you have the best chance of understanding the drivers that make your company successful. This will give you a chance to bring technology to bear in order to help solve the problems and avoid becoming an obstacle contributing to why a business unit can’t achieve its goals.

Listen:

Know you culture. IT must learn not only to listen, but to whom it must listen. Don’t get defensive when confronted with problems and don’t accuse them of whining. You must learn to be direct but professional and encourage your customers on how to approach you professionally. Even if someone seems to be attacking your personally, you must maintain a level of control. Remember who your customers are, and what the business priorities are. But most importantly ensure your customers understand the priorities you have and where their priorities fall in relation to your overall strategic goals.

Innovate:

Innovation is not only coming up with good ideas yourself, but understanding good ideas flow in and throughout the people in your company everyday. Ensure you are seeking out advice from not only business unit leaders, but people on the front line as well. In seeking mind share, individuals will begin seeing that you care about their needs and aren’t just making decisions in your ‘ivory tower’.

Choice:

Give your customers choices not obstacles. IT has been stereotyped as the constant nay-sayer. It is important that your customers understand why somethings can and cannot be done. Give them choices, and put the decisions in their hands. You may find they begin helping you achieve your goals if they align with their own. Once they begin walking in your shoes, they may just take a step back.

It is also important to understand that you should not place artificial obstacles in your customers’ or business unit leaders’ path as the daily business will present enough of these. It is not enough to have a reason why something cannot be done - have alternative solutions to the problem and you will find this wins you a great deal of political capital.

In summary, gone are the days where IT could hide behind the mystique of technology. Executives and customers alike are more technology savvy than ever and can see through your ruse. You must seek to align yourself with your company’s business units by building relationship and listening to their needs as well as understanding their challenges. Last, continually look for ways to innovate, and don’t allow yourself or your team to become stagnant.

If you are following these goals, you will most likely find frustration in bumping against glass ceilings. To be successful you must persevere adversity by staying focused on the goals. Success does not come from being the almighty gatekeeper but in seeking to build bridges to cross the canyons of adversity as a team.

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.

When you think of IT, MIS, or any other acronymn used to describe the technology department of a company, what is the image that comes to mind? Does it resemble a Saturday Night Live skit Nick Burns, Your Company’s Computer Guy?

Many IT-types have bemoaned the fact that technologists have gotten a bad wrap. I wonder why that is?

Simply put, the stereotypical computer tech was always long on computer wisdom but terribly short on the softer skills in life, such as tact and social grace. I am not totally sure whether most computer guys had watched too much Gordon Gekko and fancied themselves all powerful, or if they just didn’t notice they were alienating their customers. Either way, the end result was the creation of our famous stereotype, Nick Burns…

As a manager, culture is one of the most delicate things to balance. Do you choose the talented player that can put points on the board and overlook some ‘minor’ team-fit issues? Do you sacrifice and choose a mediocre player that can get along with everyone and take direction?

That’s a trick question, to a certain extent. You choose neither. It is possible to choose talented players, but you can’t forsake the overall team concept. Combined, individuals can accomplish wonderful and extraordinary things. So don’t sell yourself short and let your ‘IT rooster” rule the roost. It won’t be as easy as pounding your fist, and you have to decide for yourself if your IT guy is your go-to-guy.

If you are an IT guy or gal, make sure you put yourself in a position to be the go-to-guy (or gal). By keeping customer service in the forefront of your mind and engaging in your culture you may not win employee of the year, but you could get a reputation for solving problems rather than being one.

In a recent post by Michael Krigsman over at ZDNet, Krigsman asks if IT is becoming extinct (also note the cute url post: (…?p=666). While Michael most definitely has experience within the technology industry, the title is a bit sensationalist and the subject matter seems a bit over-the-top… While I agree many of the yester-year IT leaders are ill informed on how to bridge business objectives using technology, I disagree that IT will become extinct.

The executives must understand how to hire talent that is customer service focused, and not keep hiring the “computer guy” (SNL). Of course IT as a whole is not going extinct, but Krigsman is correct in that many job roles are becoming a commodity. However, there are so many dynamics abound within each company, let alone a vertical or IT as whole, to simply gloss over and come to some reactionary hypothesis.

Just because individuals are espousing this gripe or that complaint about corporate IT, it shouldn’t coerce you into putting on blinders and cracking the whip…

After all, we are talking about people when it is all said and done. What was it the once beating heart of IT cared so deeply about? Wasn’t it a way to help people reach new levels of productivity and feel good about their contributions without having to repeat the meaningless and mindless tasks required of yesterday’s business?

Many companies have often wrestled with the idea of “owning” software. While most people now understand the concept of intellectual property, business owners are feeling the pain behind keeping up with the barrage of updates, patches, and major releases of the army of software products now required to run their daily business. To mitigate risk, many companies see a value in outsourcing areas of their business that are not their core competency. This has led to the SaaS (Software as a Service - see SalesForce.com) model gaining ground. The thought is that it is typically cheaper to rent the software than to own it. In my experience stand up time is very quick, but integration costs and subscription fees can get to be a little expensive over the life of the solution.

While SaaS in the DMS space has a bit to go before it reaches any true level of maturity, a fast growing example of seed-change can be seen where political campaigns are turning to Salesforce.com’s Campaignforce to help control costs, increase the speed of deployment, and leverage the social-network phenomena to gain votes. Most channel or direct software vendors see this type offering as a loss leader to create a funnel in order to bring more customers to their core offerings. To some extent, this is a bit concerning in that an offering such as this would not necessarily be the best solution for a customer, if a channel or direct vendor is only angling to bring a customer to their core offering.

There also seems to be a division within the SMB segment itself that is causing some introspection among the software vendors and service providers alike. Much like the “copier-industry”, this segment 1 customer base does not have the expertise or budget to manage intensive software projects, nor do they feel they need a “big software package” to manage their business. Generally, this segment 1 ranges from 1-10 seats (possibly ranging to 25), whereas the medium sized, or segments 2-4 customers might have 25-250 seats (ranging as low as 10 or as high as 500). The truly ’small company’ (less than $1 million in annual revenue) simply does not have the cash flow to invest in an offering unless subscribing to a SaaS model, nor does it want a big, complex software package to manage - as being nimble in the market place is a key advantage to scrapping with the big guys. However, some savvy business owners quickly realize the opportunity to apply this type of technology to their businesses, and the ability to offset future costs. As this type of business gains acceptance among the general SMB business community, expect DMS in the segment 1 and 2 markets to grow dramatically. Much like the HP inkjet printer business, the goal is to make money on the residuals across a large base of customers; this helps keep the costs low for the software vendor and partner and keeps prices competitive for end-customers.

With all of this said, there are many dangers that are lurking around the corner for every SMB, some of which have been mentioned above. The greatest obstacle I have seen is still project success and cultural acceptance, by far. While IT project failure has decreased over the decades, it is still dangerous to embark on IT projects in general. The Standish Group, widely regarded as the leader in IT Project risk assessment, publishes the Chaos Report. In a 2006 study, only 35% of IT development projects were considered successful, whereas a project that encountered cost or time overruns or did not meet user needs requirements was a staggering 46%. Even though this study references software development projects, I can tell you from experience many projects are doomed to failure before they even start.

The responsibility of conducting due diligence still rests squarely with the prospective customer - caveat emptor; it has become obvious to me the CMS/DMS companies have inventory to sell and that’s what they aim to do - even if the solution is not everything the customer needs. Only a provider that is willing to truely form a partnership is worth evaluating in the long run, since their business is dependant upon your success.

Integrating emerging technologies into a business can bring important benefits to the company. Look at how revolutionary facsimile technology was at the time, and what a game-changer e-mail has become. An owner must be extremely cautious not to bet the farm on an emerging technology unless they fully understand the value-benefit proposition as well as the cardinal rule, the culture must adopt the solution or it will fail. DMS technology will be important to decrease file-room sizes, allow for quicker access to documents, and aid in the processing of “hard-copy” documents. For all those reasons, I think it is a growing priority from which SMB owners cannot afford to turn away; however, they do have to ensure they understand their business and choose a good technology partner that understands theirs.

In the overly saturated market of electronic content and document management there is a deep divide developing between the enterprise-class content management systems (CMS) and the small and medium business document management systems (DMS). What is interesting to me is there are some programmatic differences between the applications, but the key differences tend to come in with the levels of professional services offerings and general approach or offering to the target account.

Many larger CMS/DMS vendors, like EMC, see the SMB marketplace as a ripe opportunity since their upper end client-base has been saturated. I am not completely convinced they understand the SMB marketplace as it requires strong channel partners or seriously commercializing the offering, thus reducing the lucrative professional services divisions’ opportunities. The smaller players have some interesting offerings, but with all of the chatter in the space, it is difficult for potential customers to determine the best offering for their business without simply jumping in the proverbial water. Therefore, what do they do, they turn to trusted technology partners in their area for advice.

This prompted many software companies into looking at channels instead of investing in a direct sales force - or at least, augmenting direct sales forces. This is a stable model and has some unique advantages, like allowing for localized service - which SMB customers identify with quite well.  However, there is often a wide variation in the level of expertise at each channel partner, so SMB owners would be well served to dig in and understand the bench strength of the local provider as well as what certification programs the software vendors require.

Another disadvantage of a channel-sales model is simply a cost factor. With each hand through which the inventory passes, the costs rise to the end-customer. Add to this any installation, training, maintenance, and customization fees and the price tag for an SMB can quickly rise to a dollar figure that could make an owner’s head spin. But, what an owner must way is whether the expertise of the local provider and on-going support offset a slightly higher cost, many times the answer is, “Yes.”

Learn the tricks to control costs in a DMS project and the benefits and risks of Software as a Service (SaaS), in Part 2 of this story…

A colleague of mine once told me that people in the IT field were classified as one of two personality types: a farmer or a pioneer. He went on to explain that a farmer is one who patiently plows the land reaping small rewards and taking what nature gives him or her. The pioneer, however, is out exploring the vast and undiscovered wilderness, setting trails where no one has dared travel before.

I have worked with many people over my short career in technology, and what I have found staggering is the amount of individuals in IT that are just that – individuals. Let me explain… First, they do not participate as part of the larger team – and most certainly do not ‘get’ the grander business needs. Second, their customer service focus is wholly lacking so they often resemble the computer guy off of SNL. Third, they view themselves as guard dogs, taking care of the corporate computers – which is not an dishonorable position in and of itself; but they settle for the scraps of meat thrown from the corporate table…

With all this said, a bit tongue-in-cheek, many IT professionals still do not seek out ways to decrease costs, increase revenues, and improve employee job satisfaction through advances in USABLE business technology applications and initiatives. To some extent, I can understand the mentality of protecting your little corner in the maze of corporate cubicles, but what I cannot stomach are those that have no vision or inkling of corporate strategy and how to positively impact this. Instead, they plod along picking the land dry instead of blazing a trail looking for new paths that others may follow one day.

If you are a manager, director, or C-level individual – and are not a pioneer, you may want to stand up and peek outside your door to make sure there isn’t someone younger and hungrier coming your way! Get a clue people… align yourself to your customer and add-value to what you are offering; if not you may be put out to pasture like an old mule…

Regards,

Ken