I had a lot of wind shield time today and it got me thinking about the recent thread that Kyocera was moving with speed licensing for some of their MFP models.
I've always been a huge proponent of reducing the amount of MFP models that we offer to our clients. I believe there is no need to have 5 color and 5 black A3 models for clients and or sales people to choose from.
We as an industry need to simply MFP offerings to dealers and clients alike.
I would like to see one A3 model to replace all ten that I mentioned before. I'm not in favor of changing the 65-90ppm devices yet but the thought has crossed my mind. At lease moving from ten A3 MFP's to one MFP could benefit both manufacturers, dealers and clients.
- Less inventory for dealers and would eliminate stale inventory when a new MFP is launched. This is true for manufacturers also, just the strategy of how many different models to produce every year must be a tall task along with the engineering
- Clients can now buy a subscription for the speed of the device, I would tend to make the subscription an annual cost this way the client could increase the speed down the road if desired. This also gives our industry an on going revenue stream
- Clients can choose a subscription to add color either during the sale or after the sale. This too should be an annual subscription that can be turned on or off
- Clients can also choose a subscription for a variable speed copier, which means I can run the MFP at any speed I want. This could be a critical feature for companies that have busier times of the year with printing. If you remember digital duplicators they all had a variable speed control. It also might come in handy for printing and coping onto different substrates.
- Features, solutions and accessories are identical from the slowest speed MFP to the fasted MFP. As of today many of the manufacturers play games with these accessories and don't make them available for every model
- Moving to one A3 MFP will make sales people more proficient with the devices at a faster pace. Less support may also be needed on the manufacturers side of the business support and tech services
- Overall parts inventory for both manufacturers and dealers this will increase overall profits for both parties
As our industry moves to a post pandemic world I believe we need to simplify our offerings to our clients and present them with options and not box them into one device because of volume. Every MFP should be capable of producing as little or as much volume as they want to print. In essence we need to make printing fun again for our clients and give them options.
Here's a question for you. Let's say a client has a 60 page a minute A3 MFP, what would you say to your client if they asked "can I reduce the speed of prints if I want to?"
-=Good Selling=-
