Managed Print Services Present New Revenue Stream for MSPs

Managed Print Services Present New Revenue Stream for MSPs

By Bill Yates

MSPs looking for a new revenue stream are turning to managed print servicers.

Doug Green, publisher of Telecomm Reseller magazine, hosted a panel at ITEXPO 2023 titled "Grow Your Business with Manager Print Services." The panel included Brian Harris, CEO of Total Print USA, a managed-print services business.

Harris says customers come to him with three main reasons for getting into managed print services:

  1. Getting out of servicing printer customers
  2. Protecting their business from competitors
  3. Establishing recurring monthly revenues

Many clients have come to Harris because they let a customer talk them into an unprofitable printer service contract. Others want to protect their MSP from printer companies - which also run MSPs these days - from poaching their customers. Surprisingly, the cost benefits generated by another revue stream is the third-most popular reason that MSPS consider managed print services.

"I want to get hands off," said one MSP attendee when asked why they're considering managed-print services. "Printers are a nightmare. They break for no reason. We waste a lot of man hours trouble shooting printer problems."

Harris said that most printer service companies that are hired by MSPs are now running MSPs themselves. "Why would you let these printer companies talk to your customers?" Harris asked. "If you don't start talking to your customers about managed print services, somebody else will."

The threat from printer companies is real, said panelist West McDonald, founder at managed-print provider West McDonald. "Beware, they're coming for everything," he said

McDonald said the estimated market for managed-print services is north of $17 billion dollars. Only about 35% of the market has been addressed, he said. "We're in the early adopter stage," he said.

Printers are a problem for MSPs, said panelist Jay Christensen, vice president of channel sales at Printer Logic. He's also president of the Managed Print Association. "These things (printers) all break. They jam, or users screw them up," he said. "The problems never end."

Even if they don't break, just managing printers is a pain, Green noted. Keeping printers secure is nearly impossible these days, he says. Other pain points for MPSs that evolve from printer problems include:

  • Dealing with printer IT tickets
  • Providing driver management
  • Working on diverse printers
  • Navigation diverse computer platforms.

Securing printers is difficult because printer drivers have not kept up with the technological times, McDonald said. "Print servers have been out there for 40 years," he said. "There are huge security issues with printers because there hasn't been a lot of driver development."

McDonald listed improved security as the main reason to consider managed-print services. He says that simplifying the way printers are managed within an MSP is the second reason customers consider the service. Like Harris, he said adding another revenue stream is the third-most popular reason MSPs are considering offering managed-print services.

Verticals that can benefit from managed-print services include government, law, real estate and finance. Harris says the largest installation they've done involves managing 160,000 printer drivers for one company.

Gone are the days of figuring out how to manage printers with which you're not familiar. Most managed-print services feature native drivers and cloud-based communications, as well as management platforms that are both device and platform agnostic, Christensen said.

"For MSPs, this is a blue-dream opportunity," McDonald said.


Edited by Greg Tavarez
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