Toshiba America Business Solutions ? otherwise known as TABS ? is today expanding into managed business services with the launch of a new organization, Toshiba Managed Business Services (http://toshiba-solutions.com), which will be led by Bill Melo, who is vice president of marketing, services and solutions for TABS, but will now also serve as general manager for the new Toshiba Managed Business Services group. In a webinar held last week, Melo and Chris Applegate, the latter of which will serve as general manager for Toshiba Managed Business Services, laid out details for the new business group.
First, Toshiba Managed Business Services ? or TMSB ? will focus on marketing its services primarily to enterprise-level customers, and vertical markets, focusing in particular on healthcare, higher education, retail,? manufacturing, and financial services. The new business unit will be located at TABS?? new headquarters in Irvine, California, and has its own dedicated staff. According to Melo, TMBS is already operational, with staff set up in several cities.
What will it offer? Managed print services of course ? and Toshiba?s own unique take on it ? as well as managed document services, document security, document capture and workflow improvement, barcode printers, digital signage, and retail kiosks. As part of its mission, TMBS staff will help customers: manage printing costs, make document workflows more efficient, implement practices for more environmentally friendly operation, and help clients secure documents and devices, as well as comply with regulatory demands.
One well-known example of Toshiba?s digital-signage technology is its Vision screen located in New York City?s Times Square (above displaying images obtained from NASA?s Curiosity rover on Mars). They?re also found in more mundane settings, such as in restaurants and bars. The company?s digital signage products include video walls, both interactive and non-interactive, menu boards, and digital signs for transactional kiosks.
Kiosk terminals are used in retail and transportation, for enabling consumers to submit payment and for providing travelers with travel information, and, for instance, in offices, for checking-in and checking-out.
A Crowded MPS Market and Winning Customers by Printing Less
Toshiba?s existing managed print services (MPS) program ? known as Encompass ? includes services for reducing printing costs, as well as services for scanning and capturing paper-based documents and integrating scanned and captured? data into business workflows, as well as services for ensuring document and device security.
Toshiba, however, takes a unique perspective on managed print services, reflecting what it says is a very crowded MPS market. ?The MPS space has become very overcrowded. What we?re seeing is the value propositions from these (MPS) companies is sounding more and more the same,? noted TMBS? Chris Applegate, with MPS providers putting forth the same proposals, which are basically assessment of the customer?s print environment, analysis, optimization, and fleet management.
Instead of just promising customers that they?ll lower their printing costs, Toshiba?s goal has been rather bold ? to not just reduce printing costs but to reduce how much clients actually print.? ?True value comes from reducing print, not just making it less expensive,? says Applegate ? a case in point being Toshiba?s marketing of Adobe LeanPrint software, which is designed to reduce toner and paper consumption (see here for more on LeanPrint). Toshiba argues that by helping customers print less, they can actually win customers by reducing their print costs more than competitors can, and what Toshiba may lose in lower page clicks, they?ll gain by getting more customers and a bigger share of the overall market. ?That?s a basic quandary in our industry that we have customers who want to use our products less,? says Applegate, ?But helping customers print less will give us a greater share of the market.?
Another weapon that Toshiba says it has in its MPS arsenal is its hardware partnerships with Hewlett-Packard and Lexmark, as Toshiba can offer printers and MFPs sourced from both of these partners as part of a managed print services plan (as well as its own eSTUIDO office MFPs). ?We?re different in MPS because we bring in hardware from other vendors,? says Applegate.
Our Take
It?s not surprising to see Toshiba get on the managed business services bandwagon, joining the likes of competitors such as Ricoh, Canon and Xerox. As overall printing volumes have continued to gradually decline in the past years, these printer and MFP hardware vendors are naturally seeking ways to expand from pure hardware into various services, for instance, services that involve digitizing customers? paper documents with their MFPs? scanning capabilities, and providing solutions and software for linking this digitized data into customers? workflows, and by consolidating customers? print fleets to reduce printing costs. Toshiba is unique though in that it?s a gone a step further with MPS by promising to reduce customers? overall printed-page volumes ? whether this will prove the ultimate winning strategy remains to be seen.
Like this:
Be the first to like this.
the weeknd echoes of silence gio gonzalez san francisco fire patti labelle the weeknd the weeknd payroll tax
No comments:
Post a Comment