Like any other business, the document management industry has been evolving and with that evolution, so has the way dealers and resellers view this category.
“Before you’d get dealers who’d bring all bizarre things to the table and you’d try to constantly get them to understand what document management software is and what type of document management classifications it belongs to,” recalls David Bailey, president of DocuLex. “Document management doesn’t just mean scanning a document and converting it into a Word document. To me that’s not document management.”
Bailey’s and DocuLex’s vision of document management is focused on managing documents and document processes as well as managing e-mails. He believes that most DocuLex dealers now seem to understand that concept.
Like most document management providers, the DocuLex model for selling document management relies on the office technology dealer to make the initial customer contact and identify the specific document management need. After that, DocuLex will often come in and demo the product and close the deal. Usually by the time DocuLex is brought in, which Bailey says is about 90 percent of the time, it’s a valid prospect.
Overall, Bailey feels that most DocuLex dealers have a good grasp of what they’re selling, specifically DocuLex’s Archive Studio, even if it is mostly an understanding of the bullet points of the solution.
Bailey acknowledges that if the dealer were strictly selling document management solutions like they were in the olden days they would probably know the software inside and out, but these days most dealers have way too many things on their plates, which is why is there to pick up the slack.
“Most dealers appreciate that,” says Bailey. “They get the commission or discount and the maintenance renewal every year. And we hand-hold the customer and make sure it’s a good relationship.”
Where dealers falter when selling document management, according to Bailey is underestimating the amount of power a document management system requires to run. “Even though we publish specs, and they’re OCRing every page, and indexing in Word, based on the business process, it can consume a lot of power,” he emphasizes.
That’s another area where DocuLex can make a difference—via cloud hosting solutions. “We basically manage the server for them and make sure they have enough horsepower and bandwidth,” states Bailey. “We’re getting a lot of traction with that.”
DocuLex’s target market is small business, a business segment careful about where they spend their money.
“Document management solutions aren’t a must have in a business, as much as we would like it to be even though it might save them money in the long run,” acknowledges Bailey. “Instead of customers trying to get the price down what I’ve seen is customers trying to squeeze more productivity out of [their system].”
As customer demands have increased, Bailey is seeing a customer-base that’s actively automating their business processes much more than archiving documents for future access.
“I see this as a way to become more sticky with the customer,” says Bailey. “If you’re just an electronic storage product they can swap you out for someone else without a whole lot of effort.”
What’s next for DocuLex?
Version 5 for one, which Bailey says will be a leap up for a Web-based product and one that’s in the wheelhouse of office technology dealers who are looking to move into managed services. DocuLex can help with that transition since they have an infrastructure in place, including its cloud hosting services and its ability to manage servers and offer data center capabilities.
“If you start reading these articles about the copier industry, it sounds like [dealers] are thinking in that direction,” says Bailey. “They’ve got the managed print thing [down] and are now looking at managed IT services. This is a good segue for them to do that with a vendor who they have a relationship with.”
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