Industry Perspective: Lack Of MFP Knowledge Can Drive Profits

By Gennifer Biggs, Business Solutions magazine.

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Let's be honest; everyone needs an MFP. Even small businesses are looking for the power and efficiency offered by these office workhorses. But many VARs look at an MFP sale as a one-time offering, and they are missing on long-term revenue opportunities. Robin Wessel, director of product marketing at Xerox, has suggestions about what value opportunities are lurking in your customers' MFP fleet. "There is a really small percentage of end users that fully understand MFPs, and that means that resellers have a great opportunity to showcase all features and capabilities of MFPs that are underutilized — and undersold — and use that knowledge to position themselves as a trusted, expert advisor," says Wessel. He says there are three main areas of hidden value in an MFP.

Perhaps surprisingly, MFPs are a point in the office environment where a few tweaks can return big environmental improvements. That's because 80% of the energy used by an MFP isn't electricity. Rather, Wessel explains, it is the energy required to create and recycle the paper used by the equipment.

Security of the MFP itself is another overlooked point of value. Because MFPs have hard drives, VARs must consider and have a strategy for securing customers' MFPs. That means learning and applying access control/user control options.

Another overlooked opportunity is directly related to the power of today's MFPs to simplify workflows. Wessel stresses that MFPs don't take the place of a well-considered document management solution, but for SMBs that need some basic workflow support, MFPs can enhance day-to-day productivity.

Overall, Wessel stressed that if VARs are willing to spend some time learning the many capabilities of today's MFPs, they will uncover numerous places to add value for customers.