Office Document Solutions: The Disruptive Opportunity
For companies in the mature office equipment arena that hope to enjoy continued growth and success, disruption in a new market is a critical path. The greatest disruptive opportunity available to today’s office equipment providers is with office document solutions.
In a direct comparison with established players in the IT industry, office equipment vendors may seem unable to compete in terms of products and technical expertise. Nevertheless, such a comparison overlooks the strengths of those same vendors when applied to the needs of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
By offering lower-cost solutions that provide unique value, convenience, and ease-of-use to SMBs, office equipment vendors can effectively and profitably capitalize on the document solutions opportunity. MFP and appliance-based document solutions offer these new, low-cost capabilities.
MFP and appliance-based document solutions provide unique value as intelligent, distributed resources, with low cost and sufficient performance for workgroups and departments. This makes the solutions particularly attractive to SMBs that cannot utilize or financially justify the comprehensive features of traditional vertical line-of-business and enterprise IT solutions.
The synergies between the attributes of these document solutions and the value and performance demands of underserved IT customers are a ripe combination for creating a new, disruptive market segment.
Market Approach
The model of disruptive innovation leverages a cost and business structure that enables new market entrants to move up in the learning curve, making necessary and important mistakes along the way. Customer feedback is key to successfully testing, improving, and eventually packaging a solution. Working with customers who trust the provider and are willing to test new technology is a tremendous asset.
The players most likely to benefit from the office document solutions market opportunity are outlined in the figure below.
Figure 1: Key Office Document Players
Office Equipment Manufacturers & Subsidiaries will benefit from continued equipment sales and new professional service opportunities through new and existing direct channels.
Direct and Independent Office Equipment Resellers will benefit from continued equipment sales as well as the ability to offer unique, local professional services, particularly within the SMB segment of the market. Mega-dealers will also be able to support solution opportunities within larger accounts that require nationwide coverage in countries like the United States.
Facilities Management Companies will be able to leverage their existing infrastructure and enhance their service offerings with professional services that emphasize the use of MFPs and other appliance-based technologies in workgroup environments.
Hybrid MFP Dealers/VARs will be able to leverage their existing expertise in networking technology along with their credibility among IT-focused decision-makers to expand their solutions offerings into the document solutions space.
Conclusion
The greatest disruptive opportunity available to today's office equipment providers is with office document solutions. To take full advantage of this opportunity, office document solution providers must build the requisite business model, as well as product and marketing strategies. A disruptive innovator should focus on providing lower-cost solutions that provide unique value, convenience, and ease of use to low-end customers.
This white paper is available immediately to clients of CAP Ventures’ Network Document Solutions Consulting Service. To learn more about the report or to make a purchase, please contact Stewart MacDonald at (781) 871-9000, ext. 175 or via e-mail at stewart_macdonald@capv.com.
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