Print in the Channel - issue #11

LEXMARK

Mark of quality Lexmark is set for continued growth in the coming years, and this is because it has a set of solutions for enterprise and channel partners that satisfy a range of needs, including sustainability.

October was a good month for Lexmark – the global imaging and IoT solutions company was recognised as a leader for its managed print services and cloud print services by global print and market insight research firm Quocirca. In its Managed Print Services Market Landscape 2023 report, Quocirca highlighted Lexmark’s industry expertise, deep sustainability focus and comprehensive security approach. It also recognised Lexmark’s small and medium businesses (SMB) MPS offering, which was expanded in February with the launch of MPS Express, a solution for SMBs to streamline their document management processes and free them from day-to-day printer management. Bringing enterprise solutions to the channel For Arjan Paulussen, Lexmark’s managing director for Western Europe and English- speaking Africa, this is pleasing. “Some of the enterprise grade solutions that we’ve had for our direct customers for a while we’re now bringing to the channel, such as MPS Express. Basically, MPS Express provides that entire enterprise grade managed print services offering to channel partners that don’t have the time and/or investment available to build their own infrastructure. It’s costly to do that, so we package that up, including monitoring, management, proactive delivery of toners, etc, which enables the channel partner to go to their end users and essentially sell it as their MPS solution. “With Enterprise customers, you’re looking

at hundreds or thousands of units, but this solution works from one or two devices. It is a tremendous capability and we’ve had a lot of good feedback from our channel partners so far. It’s a good example of AI analytics and machine learning combining to turn something that is enterprise grade into a true value add for our channel partners. We have numerous partners onboarded already, they’re now going out and selling it successfully.” This is indicative of the confidence in Lexmark currently, as the business takes advantage of the more favourable market conditions currently. “Over the past couple of years there were massive issues around logistics and component availability - as there was for the rest of the industry – leading to us having to really forecast accurately because shipments often became much more expensive, we tried to protect our customers and channel partners from that,” Arjan says. “But we’ve come out of that period in a strong position and we’re on a path of continued growth.” Arjan adds that the impact of the pandemic wasn’t as great on Lexmark as it was for some in the sector. “We’re more in the front office side of the industry, and for many people there was simply no choice to stay at home because they had to continue to run banks, retail stores in person,” he says. “So compared to some manufacturers that are more focused on the back office, our decline was less. “Now we are looking at strong growth. We have a model in place that aims to protect our existing accounts, and then we look to expand the business with those existing accounts through introducing new solutions and new technologies, for instance, there is a lot of focus on IoT right now where we can offer more value to those customers. For enterprise and channel partners we have some strong growth initiatives in place and this year we have endeavoured to reward our channel partners in a more meaningful way for the new business that they bring into Lexmark.”

Arjan Paulussen, managing director,

UK, Western Europe & English-Speaking Africa

lexmark.com

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