Ingram Micro Eyes Growth In Managed Print Services

Ingram Micro Inc. has launched a program aimed at recruiting its IT channel partners to sell managed print services to small- and medium-sized businesses, a market that nearly every major printer has said it is trying to crack, but remains neglected.

’In general, I think this is a market, regardless of which manufacture, we think this is a market that’s under-penetrated,’ Mike Erwin, executive director, Vendor Management, Business and Consumer Solutions, Ingram Micro. ’We think it’s a market that no one out there is really serving. We’re doing this in a way to make it very easy for our resellers to support the guy in that market.’

Erwin said that while today, partners may sell their IT customer a printer, they leave behind the supplies and service, but Ingram, he said has made it easy to capture those dollars as well. He said the new program Ingram Micro MPS features bundled solutions from leading vendors – currently HP and Xerox -- all under one simple monthly solution that can be white-labeled and invoiced directly on the channel partners’ behalf.

’We managed instillation,’ he said. ’We have the data capture set up before the installer leaves, so this is how we keep track of the toner usage. We do all the toner shipments and then we do all the billing. This is usually the hardest part of this, trying to managed all the billing. So we’re doing that on their behalf, doing all the billing and collection and the way its designed its just straight monthly payments.’

Erwin said many of their IT partners are already serving those small businesses, places with fewer than 500 employees, which may only need five or six printers or multi-function devices. He said by leveraging relationships inside those organizations, partners can reap ongoing revenue.

’For us, this is about helping our IT resellers get into this market and take advantage of opportunities that they’re already a part of, but they’re not seeing the whole sale,’ Erwin said. ’We're doing it in a way that is very easy for our resellers. Very much a turn-key type of set up.’