Selecting The Right Managed Print Solution - PART THREE

This series discusses some of the key factors in selecting the right MPS solution for your organization. As an independent, time is precious. Having fewer resources than national service organizations and the OEM's, you need to quickly assess your options, make your selection and implement! Hopefully, the questions we are posing help you in this process.

Part Two highlighted that the solution you select must be flexible enough to grow and change as your business needs change. Moving, on, our next factor is:

Is the DCA (Data Collection Agent) software or hardware based?Are you using a key? Although they are great for capturing snapshots, they do not aid you in gathering data in real time or giving you the ability to proactively respond to toner and service needs in your customers' environments. Therefore, we will exclude them from this discussion.

There's no doubt that software can be easily deployed and implemented. Simply send a link to your customer and they do the rest. We, like most in our space, offer a software DCA option that has been met with great market acceptance. However, software delivery isn't always the best direction and can certainly be met with resistance. Some customers will refuse to download outside software onto their network, particularly one that is sending data out. Others have complex network security settings that can make it difficult if not impossible for data to be transmitted. And if the IT staff encounters a problem on their network, guess which program they will blame and remove; you’re DCA. Then you must convince the customer that your software isn't the problem and try to get it reinstalled. This can take days or weeks, meaning that you are unable to monitor and be proactive in the environment. This approach could also close the door on the opportunity all together. You must have options that can meet their most security centric IT Groups. Theirs also a lot to be said about the on-going maintenance software residing on someone’s equipment vs. a solid state network appliance that racks in their data center and runs unobstructed doing one function and one function only; managing print environments and blinking with nice colored lights as a visual reminder that you are always monitoring all your customers operational needs.

If you find yourself in this security-centric environment, then deploying your hardware DCA option will be your best if not only solution. A Hardware based DCA, such as our Magic 1500, allows the customer to determine where the device is to reside on their network; how it communicates outbound and what IP ranges it can monitor. It can easily be set to run through a proxy server, be assigned a static IP address and restricted to only send out data via encryption. It will also work on any network environment, not just Windows platforms. They can place this device in a DMZ zone, put a sniffer on the back end and comfortably lock the device down to meet any security requirements the organization may have. We’ve seen customer save deals, win deals, and take deals by leading with a hardware based delivery model.

Make sure that the MPS solution you select isn't preventing your from securing business due to your DCA delivery mechanism. Do your research and select a solution that will provide you the best fit for you and all of your customers.

Give us your feedback. Have you run into any issues or objections regarding the DCA you currently use? Has this influenced your decision to change or augment the MPS solution you utilize? What other pros and cons can you think of regarding this issue?