2011 the Year to Emphasize your Managed Services



Managed Services

If you are looking to expand your sales in 2011 and want to increase your margins and get away from selling commoditized printing services maybe it is time to market your company as a provider of various managed services. What are managed services you might ask and why do I care?

Wikipedia describes managed services as the practice of outsourcing day-to-day related management responsibility as a strategic method for improved effective and efficient operations.

A managed service is not really a new concept but it is being marketed and promoted in all types of industries in slightly different ways.

One managed service that most of you are probably familiar with and one that the PEiR Group has been talking about lately is Managed Print Services. Managed Print Services (MPS) involves managing hardcopy device fleets (copiers, printers, multifunction devices, and fax machines) in a unified fashion. While this can be done internally, the term is typically associated with outsourcing the fleet to an external vendor. There are typically three stages in the customers’ adoption of outsourcing:

1. Control: During this phase MPS implementations are focused upon gaining control of the fleet.
2. Optimize: At this point, the implementation is focused upon optimizing the fleet by trying to ensure that hardcopy assets are deployed in the optimal manner.
3. Enhance: In the final phase, customers move beyond optimization of the fleet to actually enhancing the capabilities of the fleet by using document management and document workflow to improve basic business processes such as processing loan applications, or other paper intensive processes.

Another related term being promoted by IT companies is Managed Service Provider (MSP). A managed services provider is an outsourcing company that delivers and manages network-based services, offers technical knowledge and expertise, applications, and equipment.

A new managed service term that is quickly being promoted by the Commercial Printer Industry is Marketing Service Providers (MSPs). Marketing Service Providers offer a range of hosted marketing services that embed marketing technology and software offerings. These offerings include proprietary marketing databases, predictive modeling, vertical marketing and data expertise, email delivery and assurance, and marketing program design and support.

Construction Document Management Services (CDMS) is a managed service that more and more reprographers are beginning to offer but, as far as I know, the industry has not coined it as a bona fide managed service, which I believe we should.

My definition of Construction Document Management Services involves providing a solution that combines managed services (i.e. cloud based technologies and services) with AEC industry specific software as a service (i.e. content management, bid management, project collaboration and construction management software) that enables project teams to securely store and file, retrieve and exchange, communicate and distribute construction related content and other project related information to project stake holders and finally professional services (installation, training and customization) all with the goal of increasing project team productivity, cost savings and on-time project delivery.

So if you don’t think that managed services are important for you and your business maybe it is time you did. I will add to this concept in future postings!

Best…..Shaun

PEiR to Power Sales with New 2011 Theme

Over the last few years The PEIR Group has used centralized themes to help our members focus and rally their businesses toward facing specific trends, challenges and practices in the reprographics industry.

In 2010 our theme was Innovate 2010. The idea behind this theme was to help our members and us (The PEiR Group) to review and assess how things were being done in all key functional areas of our businesses and to identify areas that could be run more efficient or ways that our customers could be better served.

Many of you were innovators on a variety of fronts: introducing new products and services to existing customers; identifying new markets and clients to serve were some of the most successful innovative approaches we observed in 2010.

In 2009 and 2008 our theme was Strategic Moves. What strategic moves were made back then you may ask? Many reprographers recognized the need to position their companies towards subcontractors and general contractors. Others realized the need to move into display graphics and make investments in flatbed printers and electronic cutters.

As we look back over the last 12 months, I think you will all agree, 2010 was one hell of a year for reprographic companies and their AEC customers!

In the US, many reprographers experienced double digit declines in revenues due to the Great Recession. Some repro firms were fortunate in 2010 and had small declines or in some cases small increases in sales. In talking with those company owners who reversed the industry trends most attributed their good fortune to their unique markets and/or their diverse mix of customers and services.

Throughout 2010 the recession had a major impact on all sectors of the Global Economy. In the US, the unemployment rate began the year at 10% and remained steady for most of the year. Just recently the economy is beginning to show signs of growth—however it is not coming from the AEC marketplace.

The US construction industry’s unemployment rate began 2010 at 24.7% (highest on record since 1976) and ended the year somewhere around 18% (the highest of any industry and roughly double the overall unemployment rate).

The Architectural and Design community also suffered significantly in 2010. Unemployment statistics for architects indicate that approximately 13% of all architects are unemployed and in some communities, like Phoenix, 20% of the architects are unemployed. As the year progressed the AIA’s outlook for Architects was mixed; November Architect Billing Index began to climb to 46 but in December the index dropped 3 points to 43 (indicating that there are still more building jobs finishing than starting).

So what is in store for reprographers in 2011? The beginning of a whole new business cycle (recovery)! The big run up in construction projects has ended and the new normal is what we can expect. This means projects will begin to be reintroduced to investors, design firms will begin doing a lot more preliminary project design, construction companies will be going anywhere they need to, to find new projects and, everyone will be in need of marketing and sales support.

In order for reprographers to be successful in 2011 and beyond, they will need to stay close to their existing customers, prospect for new customers and new projects and develop new products and services that are relevant and purposeful to the project stake holders.

Reprographers must realize that technology (digital files and the internet) has disrupted the reprographics industry; new digital workflows are being implemented throughout the project life-cycle and as a result drastically reducing the need for prints. Reprographers who think that print volumes will return, as in past economic recoveries, will be in for a real shock.

So what should a reprographer do? Reprographers need to have a sales culture that empowers their employees to sell other stuff besides printing. What stuff and how?  We will get to this in later posts!

I think we all agree sales are the key to your company’s success. If you noticed (above) sales and marketing is key for your customer’s success also. So if we all agree sales is vital for success; how do we learn to be more effective at selling and at the same time helping our customers become more successful?

This is where our theme of SalesPower2011 comes into play.

The PEiR Group will be sharing strategies and offering training programs to help improve your overall sales effectiveness. However, in order to be successful in sales, it is essential to have the right products and services that your customers are looking for. So in addition to sales help, The PEiR Group will be sharing ideas and strategies for selling the right combination of products and services that will help your customers be more successful!

So let’s not dwell on the past and let’s get out and talk to our customers and prospects and find out what they are doing and identify some of the challenges that they are facing and how you are postioned to help solve them.

Happy New Year...Shaun Meany

Shaun's Corner "Sell Technology Not Print"

I was in Up-State NY and Boston last week to meet with several of our PEiR members and their AEC customers to learn about the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for our industry in 2010.

One thing is abundantly clear: While opportunities to sell customers printing services appear to be declining, the opportunities to approach customers with technology solutions are huge and growing. The days of throwing bodies (labor) at problems are long gone. Every AEC company recognizes the need to use computers and software applications to improve productivity and efficiency.

Whether they use AutoCAD, Microsoft Office, Timberline, Prolog, Primavera, SharePoint or whatever, they are all accustomed to budgeting for technologies. They simply need reminding to extend that technology review to their reprographics services. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the bidding process.

The contractor community, has a limited number of funded projects in the works. As a result, contractors are required to do a lot more bidding to win a project. The bidding process used by many contractors is oftentimes very inefficient, and as a result, can create technology sales opportunities for those reprographers who can demonstrate the value of their bid communications and document distribution services.

In an effort to keep costs down and in some cases to keep their doors open, many contractors are trying to cut any costs associated to pre-construction activity, in order to survive. Remember, contractors don’t make money by bidding, they SPEND money. To stay in business, they need to make the bidding process as cost effective as possible. To most, that means reducing costs in bid set printing by eliminating them entirely, or passing printing down to subs by simply distributing their bid documents digitally.

That’s where we need to turn into technology promoters.

Solutions like PlanWell/BidCaster and Sub-Hub can offer better document control, productivity improvements, bid response tracking and better security than ANY analog-based solution. Contractors are still opting to use less sophisticated digital distribution methods (technologies) like FTP and CD’s because they do not understand the savings that your technologies can offer.

Reprographers who are struggling to get GC’s to pay to use their document management solutions need to remind themselves that they must explain to their customers that the technologies they (reprographers) offer actually help solve problems and create value.

Some reprographers are still lucky enough to be printing bid sets for government projects particularly in markets that require bids to be distributed in paper. Others claim that bid set printing is declining so fast that they (reprographers) are finding that they have more print capacity than the market is demanding. I could not help noticing at some shops, production devices and personnel were sitting completely idle. Such circumstances demand a different approach to remain relevant to our customers and viable as an industry.

Don’t lose the chance to help your customers to increase productivity and reduce costs with the technologies you can offer. You may need to price the technologies a bit different but I think you will find that you will have a better chance of getting your customers to accept the costs.

Automating the Bid Communications Workflow in the Construction Office

It is important when selling technology that you understand what problems and inefficiencies you can solve for your customers.

In the bid process you can save the pre-construction department labor, printing costs and increase their chances to win more projects. Effectively doing more with less and that is what the marketplace is looking for!

"Who Should I be Talking With About Bid Communications?"

By David Swider, Sub-Hub

Many of you who have phoned or emailed ask: “Okay Dave, we identified or qualified which companies to target for Bid Communications, now who should we be speaking with at these companies?”

As most of you know, the answer varies, but in most cases it will be one of these three no matter the size of the company:

· Bid Coordinators or Assistants
· Estimators or Project Managers
· VP of Construction, Executives or Owners

Any or all of these three positions will have an interest their company’s Bid Communications. It is however, important to know what language they all speak. By language, I mean “what are they hearing?” In most cases, you will find the following:

· Bid Coordinators and Assistants – The language they hear best is features and benefits.
· Estimators or Project Managers – The language they hear best is more bids on bid day, better bid coverage.
· VP’s, Executives and Owners – The language they hear is more profitable projects, reducing risk, higher margins.

At the end of the day, these are the functional areas you want to address when it comes to Bid Communications. Just remember to ask yourself: “Am I speaking their language?”

Are you Qualified?

By David Swider/Sub Hub

We keep hearing about digital solutions with bid communications and how our AEC prospects and clients are asking for reprographers to provide those services. How do we qualify these prospects for digital solutions? The answer is simple. Look for the classic following traits:

1.) Web sites containing project photographs – Companies who post job site photographs or list recent artist renderings of projects they have completed, are just one step from making their web site a functional revenue and efficiency platform. Say you have seen their project photographs and follow with: “have you ever given thought to posting digital files on current projects you are bidding?” can only get them thinking. This simple question will lead to a discussion of how executing this simple step will drive more competitive bids on bid day. Easy.
2.) Companies with .ftp Sites – Companies with repositories of digital files are even more in need of your digital solutions. You may qualify the potential digital revenue opportunities by asking:
a. Who manages the digital files on your .ftp site?
b. Can your contractor track who has been in to see those drawings?
c. How often does your competitor visit your .ftp site and bid against you?
d. Are you paying for the .ftp site and a bid communications program?
More often than not more than one system being used and it will be fraught with risk, inefficiency and lack of project control. This is a definite conversation starter – use it.
3.) Smaller General Contracting Companies - Family-owned and smaller contractors
are prime targets for digital solutions because: Dad is the tradesman, Mom is the bookkeeper, Son and Daughter are crew and bid manager respectively. Quite often the “Mom and Pop” shops can do the same work as the larger contractor; they just lack the resources to manage the bid process effectively. Ask these firms to describe their current bid process and be ready to take notes feverishly because they will lead you to a digital solution every time.

Okay, what’s the moral of the story? Every one of your AEC prospects and customers has a need for a digital solution – you just need to ask! If you want to further discuss this topic feel free to contact me at:

dswider@sub-hub.com

Bid Communications

By David Swider
Director of Business Development, Sub-Hub

Have you noticed how crowded the Invitation to Bid and Project Communication space has become in the last few months?

Increasingly, General Contractors (GC’s) are looking for ways to be more efficient in sending Project Communications to their Owners, Architects, Subcontractors and Suppliers while still linking to their digital documents. The competition is trying to secure the project communication business and in many cases this is happening at great cost to the reprographer’s digital and print revenue.

How are these companies “taking” our business? Every day our competition is calling on our GC’s, offering to provide them with an easy-to-use tool for project communications. They tell our GC that all they need to do is upload the digital plans/specs. or other documents via their software and it will ensure that their subs and suppliers have everything they need to know about their project and submit their bids.

What is compelling the GC to use these services? They will tell the GC that since your local reprographer needs a digital file to fulfill print orders, and you give that reprographer the “Paper Revenue,” your reprographer should give you and all of your subs a copy of that digital file FREE. To add insult to injury, they will also tell the GC that in addition to providing the free digital files, if your reprographer is charging you more than $.05 a square foot they are not looking out for your best interests.

Sound familiar? If it doesn’t, we either haven’t spoken to enough of our GC’s or we better start asking our GC’s if they are interested in this service.

What can we do to keep our hands on this revenue and our GC’s, while still giving them a valuable service that increases efficiency in their business? At the end of the day, these competitive communication companies require one thing….the Digital File. Without the digital file these competitors do not stand a chance. Generally speaking, each of us already has access to that file currently in the workflow at all our shops.

Many of us are familiar with the Bidcaster program, which allows for our customers, or us as their reprographic services providers, to send ITB’s out to their subs based on Project Documents we currently manage for them in PlanWell. Many reprographers are now utilizing Bidcaster’s ITB functionality, along with the document management prowess of PlanWell, to make them increasingly more revenue as more and more of their customers are requiring these types of digital solutions performed by their reprographer.

Now, reprographers have another alternative called Sub-Hub. Sub-Hub is a digital plan room (as opposed to a Document Management system) combined with an easy to use bid communication tool. As the reprographer you can now add revenue to your shops by creating, converting and posting the digital files, and then providing the backbone (via Sub-Hub) for a private digital plan room for your GC, and their subs. You can also fulfill any print orders that the GC has sent out to their subs with the click of a button. Your GC will appreciate having the control of the documents and the communication process all under one roof.

Regardless if your GC is looking for an alternative to his FTP site and a more efficient way to contact subs on jobs, or if his scope of work demands complete Project Document Management services and a comprehensive ITB Solution, we have a tool that will keep you in the game, increase efficiency for your GC customers, and even make money for you!

If you have not yet investigated Sub-Hub and the many benefits it offers to both you AND your GC’s in today’s rapidly changing reprographics environment, then type: sub-hub.webex.com and browse meeting to see how you may succeed with this offering. Meetings are held every Tues. Thurs. at 8:30am – 10:00am PST.

Editor’s Note: For direct questions please contact David Swider at dswider@sub-hub.com or 925-658-9025. The Bid Communications feature will become a regular feature of Point of View.

The Art of Bid Communications

Bid Day - GC Presentation Objective:
Our objective was to bring in a local project manager from a General Contractor and get an idea of what the bid day looks like from a General Contractor’s perspective and what a reprographer can do to earn or lose his business. What we received were discussions of several key concepts:

Loyalty - Does it Exist?
PEiR Learning: If saving a GC a lot of money still does not generate loyalty what will? While nothing may guarantee loyalty here are some things that may help:
• Stay in touch with your General Contractors on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. No news is not always good news.
• Communicate often that you value the GC’s business while allowing the GC to identify how much value they receive from your service.
• Become that trusted advisor by knowing their business and interacting with their clients.

Fees and Services – It should be free!
PEiR Learning: Time and again our General Contractors still only see us as providers of paper. The next time your General Contractor says it should be free, ask them to build another 10,000 square feet onto your shop for free. While this may not be a good idea, it underscores a reality that we should bring into the discussions of the following concepts:
• We provide more value than paper prints.
• We must help them understand this critical point as the digital age is upon us.
• The amount of money spent on paper according to our GC may be less than 1% of job costs yet we are the most critical aspect of the bid process. There is value in what we offer.

Efficiency – “One Stop Shop”
PEiR Learning: Without a doubt Sub-Hub, Bidcaster and Planwell provide this very functionality for General Contractors. If we are not offering this to all of our A/E/C prospects and clients someone else will and then we will be forced to compete on cost per square foot on paper. This will reduce our efforts to being little more than a Vendor as opposed to leveraging the relationship and resources you have invested and worked so hard to achieve.
• Ask your General Contractors about their current bid process and where the feel it needs improvement.
• Identify (in actual dollars) the impact inefficiency has on their process. At that point you have already built your case for additional service fees such as document management fees and digital download fees.
• Talk to the solutions Bidcaster/Planwell offers to the entire process from planning to project closeout. You will always identify areas that will highlight how valuable you are to the process.

Confusion – “We know what we need”
PEiR Learning: PEiR members helped our visitor identify the fact that the process he feels is one stop shop actually isn’t, and from a higher level is less efficient process than he already has with a BidCaster/Planwell offering. How we can help with confusion:

• Identify if the process they are using leads them to the goal they are trying to achieve.
• Is the GC solving a problem and creating another?
• As the process changes you will need to help the GC identify potential changes to the process.

Conclusion – Be Prepared

Obviously, we can never know in a live scenario where our General Contractors will lead us. The best thing we can do is be prepared with as much information as possible and keep trying to identify what the General Contractor really needs. THIS IS WHAT MAKES BEING A PEiR MEMBER SO IMPORTANT! Our group has the best minds in the business and sharing the best practices and hearing what is good and not so good in our processes and systems will continue to drive our success. We look forward to your participation in our next meeting and upcoming road shows.