The New Normal Ian Davis of McKinsey and Company recently said, “It is increasingly clear that the current downturn is fundamentally different from recessions of recent decades. We are experiencing not merely another turn of the business cycle, but a restructuring of the economic order.” This restructured economy is what I like to refer to as “the new normal.” As a society, we’ve witnessed a major shift with the adoption of the notion of “frugality chic.” Thriftiness has been embraced wholeheartedly by individual consumers and businesses alike. In addition, we’ve witnessed the emergence of the green consumer who is leery of green marketing and more interested in green solutions and savings. Finally, in the digital age with rapidly evolving technologies, people desire and require more control. There is a greater awareness and need for information security, and individuals and businesses must have confidence that the products they purchase will help protect the sensitive information that is important to them. The document imaging industry is not immune to this new normal. The traditional multifunction product (MFP) business is in the late maturity stage and there has been a steady decline in the number of units shipped since 2007. Similarly, as the economy declined over recent years and jobs were lost, we witnessed a sharp decrease in page volumes per device. These trends require that document imaging industry professionals – from dealers to manufacturers – adapt, evolve and ultimately shift the way they view and do business. What once worked is no longer a viable strategy in this environment. Consider this: for every $1 spent on A3 technology, end-users spend $3 on A4 devices. Similarly, for every page printed to an A3 device, three are printed to an A4. Those that define themselves as managed document services (MDS) providers see those statistics and realize an immediate quadrupling of market opportunity. Why only bring in revenue from pages printed to devices sold when you can generate revenue whenever a customer prints to any and all devices? According to Gartner, “By 2012, 70 percent of businesses with more than 250 employees in North America and Western Europe will acquire printers, copiers, MFPs and associated supplies as part of a managed print service contract.” Therefore, it is critical that dealers take a brand agnostic approach and secure MDS contracts now, with or without hardware attached. This shift in approach leads to an almost immediate expansion of a dealer’s customer base, increases their share of wallet, and improves customer “stickiness.” When the hardware lease does come up for renewal, it is highly likely they will not only be invited to bid, but also secure the contract based on the value provided by the MDS relationship. At Toshiba, we take a holistic approach to the document environment through a very customer-centric approach. We listen to the needs and concerns of each individual business and tailor solutions to directly address their unique requirements. This also means looking beyond fleet optimization to improving information security, reducing environmental impact, and managing printing at the user level rather than the device level. Ultimately, this provides more significant rewards, protections and cost-savings to customers. Two of the proprietary solutions Toshiba dealers can deploy are the Encompass Security Vulnerability Assessment and the Encompass Green Report. The Encompass Security Vulnerability Assessment identifies a customer’s current vulnerabilities such as data on the device, device access and user authentication, document security and end-of-life security. Dealers can then remedy current vulnerabilities and implement policies for moving forward. This means implementing end-user education, affecting change in employee practices and employing digital rights management tools to fully secure a company’s intellectual property. The Encompass Green Report identifies a customer’s eco-footprint. Unlike other competitive tools, the Green Report uses actual customer data to identify how many trees and other natural resources are consumed, as well as how much carbon dioxide and solid waste are produced. From there, dealers can recommend specific strategies for reducing use and waste, and improving recycling. In addition, Toshiba has several recycling programs available. Once dealers decide to define themselves as MDS providers, the next and likely most difficult challenge is developing and implementing the infrastructure to support sales growth. Recognizing this as one of the most difficult hurdles to overcome, Toshiba is devoted to helping dealers through this transformation with advanced training programs and dedicated corporate and field support. For example, many dealers may not have the resources or the training on a variety of devices to feel they can service customers properly with a brand-agnostic MDS program. Another obstacle is that potential MDS customers are physically too far away to provide the proper level of service support. Toshiba addresses these challenges by providing on-site service for all of these scenarios, and the dealer is billed a monthly flat fee plus consumables. This is a great way to augment a dealer’s internal service offering, optimize dealer training and parts inventory management, and allow for national accounts opportunities. Similarly, cost-per-copy (CPC) billing is a new challenge that requires infrastructure and automated meter capture tools. Toshiba’s PageSmart Express and PageSmart ABC help by providing meter capture tools and fixed wholesale CPC costs, a dealer branded e-commerce site for supplies ordering and management, and it eliminates guessing about real internal cost of sales. Toshiba also has created a MDS-focused training program known as LEAD Academy. LEAD Academy is an ongoing, self-paced, online education and certification program for dealers’ sales, service and consulting specialists. Today, Toshiba is a services-led organization, and I believe the dealers and industry professionals who position themselves in a similar fashion will ultimately be the most successful in the years to come. We have a new normal that requires the broadening of product and service offerings to increase wallet share. It’s time to evolve beyond the page. Bill Melo is Vice President , Marketing, Services and Solutions of Toshiba America Business Solutions Inc.