IT Guy Vs. Print Device

“IT guys don’t care about print,” says my husband, an IT guy, who then softens his position with a qualified, “Well, it’s not that they don’t care at all, but it’s way down on the list of stuff they care about.” I sort of suspect that addendum was to pacify me, however, since we’ve been living in the dueling-yet-converging worlds of IT and print since we met and often have conversations to this effect (yes, dinnertime conversations at our house are exactly as stimulating as you might imagine).

We hear the same sentiment echoed at IT-centric events, where many “IT guys” tell us they’d prefer not to mess around with print devices. “Leave it to the service technicians and the copier guys,” they say. “It’s more trouble than it’s worth.” But is it? Or is print simply an unrecognized potential profit center — a hidden gold mine for those who take the time to uncover it?

This is old news for us in the managed print world, of course. But for many in the IT world, it’s still an undiscovered and untapped resource that leads to many aha! moments for those who take the time to discover it. In the October issue of The Imaging Channel, we explore the converging worlds of print and managed services and talk to those who are making the crossover (in both directions) to find new profit centers.

One company we talked to for that article is Mythos Technology, a managed services provider that has recently made the leap into managed print. Mythos did have those same “IT guy” concerns about print. “Quite honestly, the biggest thing that was stuck in my mind with managed print was, if we get involved, we’re going to have to go touch the printers, and we’re going to have to change the toner,” says Mythos’ CTO James Laszko in that article. The solution? Partnering with a managed print provider to do the heavy lifting. The result? A month-to-month revenue increase of approximately 10 percent and a total 20 percent profit growth while achieving a 50 percent markup — all while mitigating the risk of losing its business to a print solutions provider that had expanded its offering to include managed services, which is a model we also look at in the article.

Want to know more about Mythos’ successful leap into managed print? Laszko will join us for a webcast,“Completing the Technology Pie,” sponsored by OKI Data, on Tuesday, Sept. 20 (if you’ve missed it, no worries; that link will take you to an archived version). Hear firsthand from Mythos and OKI how MSPs can get into print, find out how caring about print can equal profits, and then come on over to my house for dinner and join in the conversation.

This blog originally appeared on TheImagingChannel.com