Evolution of MPS set out in report by IT and business analysis firm Quocirca, with Xerox named as top MPS provider.
The report, titled “Managed Print Services Landscape, 2013”, details the growing MPS market and the ways in which it continues to evolve, with Xerox leading the way for MPS providers due to the breadth of its services portfolio.
The transformation of the MPS market from the core services of device consolidation and optimisation to the favouring of long-term business improvement is highlighted, with the report noting that as enterprises move to next generation MPS contracts, they are looking to drive further cost savings and productivity improvements.
The report also notes how MPS leaders have begun to offer a variety of business process optimisation capabilities; including business process services (BPS) and IT services (ITS), as customers expect innovation, industry expertise, customised solutions and a commitment to continuous improvement on top of the traditional cost savings and efficiency initiatives gained from rationalising the print infrastructure. This particularly applies to larger businesses with over 10,000 employees, with 51 percent indicating that they have moved beyond traditional MPS to include business process improvement.
Further necessary changes to the MPS market include the catering for mobile devices, with the report finding that 20 percent of organisations have already included mobile printing as part of their MPS contract and a further 44 percent indicating that they are planning to do so. An example of this is the provision of an integrated cloud-based mobile print platform that have the same levels of security and control as printing from laptops or desktops.
The growing adoption of print security measures is also recognised in the report, which shows that an increasing number of organisations are deploying or planning to deploy secure “pull printing”, which ensures documents can only be viewed by authorised users.
Digital and paper workflows are increasingly being integrated to meet the needs of big data, which is becoming a greater focus for many large enterprises as they struggle to deal with the increasing volumes and diversity of corporate data. Quocirca therefore believes that MPS providers with mature business process expertise will be best positioned to articulate a strong proposition around big data.
In terms of MPS providers, OPI reports that HP, Ricoh, Lexmark and Canon were all recognised for their efforts in strengthening market presence, while Konica Minolta and Kyocera were also deemed “strong performers” after making recent progress in the market.
However Xerox were named as worldwide market leaders for the fourth consecutive year, with Louella Fernandes, Principal Analyst at Quocirca, commenting: “Xerox excels in its broad coverage of enterprise offerings across office, mobile, production and offsite commercial environments. Xerox continues to make differentiating investments for the marketplace with new assessment and reporting tools that provide customers with predictive analytics to simplify their print environment, and use the data to further cost savings and productivity benefits.”
Mike Feldman, Senior Vice President of Xerox Global Document Outsourcing and Managed Print Services, said: “Xerox continues to expand the value of MPS by bringing customers new services and solutions for accessing data and content. We’re setting the bar higher by taking what we learn from the print environment and building it into content management and business process automation strategies – so customers also benefit from ways to work smarter and speed time to revenue.”