Print IT Reseller - issue 48

01732 759725 38 VOX POP ...continued The Brexit deal is bound to affect trade. People are already worried that a lack of any workable trade deal will leave the UK floundering Derek Jones, Managing Director, Synaxon UK “Next year will be all about managed services for the channel. We’ve already seen a significant shift in this direction over the last 18 months and that’s going to accelerate significantly over the next few months. End-user customers are catching on to the idea that they can pay for an expert to monitor and manage their IT and print – and take all that hassle off their hands. “We have had a fantastic response to the launch of our new SynMSP membership category, which is especially designed for MSPs and our partnership with Autotask in this area means we are ready to provide any technology reseller with a simple way to automate and manage their services propositions. We’d expect to see quite a few of our members convert to the SynMSP membership now and more resellers who are moving towards managed services joining us as a result of this programme.” www.synaxon.co.uk Matt Goodall, Service Director, Office Evolution “2017 has been a strange year. More and more businesses are being stretched – with both budgets and staff levels being cut. Increasingly, many are putting loyalty, service and quality to one side and making decisions based on price instead. “So where will this lead in 2018? Well I’m pretty sure that the likelihood is that lots of copier dealers that are here now, won’t be around at the end of 2018. “The obvious reason for this is that prices cannot continue to fall, because this impacts on the quality and service that customers want and need. Somewhere along the line something is going to have to give. The likely outcome is that smaller dealers that don’t have a good sized MIF will lose customers and continuing to trade won’t be viable as they lose out to direct operations and the nationals, or are absorbed by the very same. “That sounds all doom and gloom but it’s not. The industry has always been pushed and dealers have always been absorbed and renamed, you only have to look at Alco, Danka etc. in the 90s. “As always, when budgets are pushed some people panic and they make cuts in the wrong areas. Office Evolution recently retained a very sizeable academy school and increased the machine placements there. The overriding deciding factor was quality of service and response time, having dealt directly with a manufacturer previously, the school had experienced long delays in getting supplies and segregated teams that couldn’t attend to all faults as they worked on different segment products. So hold on to that hope that quality and service always shines through and not every customer is focused on just the price. “The Brexit deal is bound to affect trade. People are already worried that a lack of any workable trade deal will leave the UK floundering, and imported goods as all copiers are, will become more expensive. But here is the thing, we are in one of the most sustainable trades out there, during the last recession when companies and individuals were going out of business, solicitors and insolvency firms massively increased their use of printers and copiers. Schools maintain their use almost without change, and machines that came back from companies that had ceased trading, provided low cost machine sales for new start-ups. The paperless office that has been promised for 30 years now is still not here and seems some distance away still. “GDPR is without doubt going to provide opportunities for the industry – the more stringent requirement to secure data, encrypt drives, and certification of security levels will provide a revenue stream. Document management software for secure storage, retrieval and modification will also increase sales, tie this in with copy control software like Papercut that traces the who, what and when, of document printing and the MFP becomes a part of a far bigger picture. “The grey market is going to be huge, we have seen such a change in 2017 from aftermarket suppliers providing just aftermarket alternatives. Many now offer original manufacturer products at vastly reduced prices, meaning that stated yields are achieved, no risk of incompatibility is experienced and overheads are reduced. Are we going to see the grey market starting to offer hardware in numbers? And if we do, what will that mean to suppliers? “To summarise, we need to be flexible in our approach, we need to ensure we have our own costs under control and our options need to be open. 2018 is going to be a year of changes. We have already set our 24-month plan in motion, we know where we want and need to be, what we are and are not willing to change. We are confident that 2018 will be another growth year for Office Evolution.” Colin Griffin, Managing Director, Blackbox Solutions “Data and document security will be important areas for growth during 2018. With the impending introduction of the General Data Protection Regulations in May, businesses will be required to ensure that their security is robust in order to avoid costly fines – not to mention reputational damage. While this will see increased expenditure on IT security infrastructure – in the form of improved firewalls and other software security measures – printer fleets also offer cyber criminals a back door to sensitive data and new protocols will need to be introduced. “Document security extends beyond the digital realm, as a breach can be as simple as leaving a document unattended on a printer. We'll see businesses investing in improved procedures to protect documents and ensure they are collected by the right person. Solutions include devices with document control, such as having employees swipe their ID badge, or enter a username and password, in order to retrieve sensitive documents from a printer. Derek Jones, Synaxon UK Matt Goodall, Office Evolution