Question

B2B Marketing Group Project Managed Print Services 1 Background Over the past 12 years, there has been a trend by corporate enterprises, e.g. companies with 1,000 employee or greater to outsource1 the management of their office equipment and document printing to major Office Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), such as Xerox, Hewlett Packard (HP), Lexmark, Ricoh, Canon, and Konica Minolta. This practice is known as Managed Print Services (MPS)2 . During this time period, MPS has grown to be a $10.1B global market growing at 8.4% CAGR (Compound Average Growth Rate) per year with approximately 60% of enterprises now turning to OEMs to manage their company’s office equipment and document printing. The following table shows the MPS worldwide market share and total revenue for the Top MPS providers as of year-end 2013. MPS Provider MPS Revenue (US $Billions) Worldwide Market Share Xerox $3.6 35.6% Ricoh $1.8 18.0% HP $1.6 15.9% Lexmark $1.2 11.8% Canon $0.9 8.9% Konica Minolta $0.5 4.8% Others $0.5 5.1% Total $10.1 100.0% Xerox is the MPS industry leaders with 35.6% market share, but competition is aggressive and also good at what they do. To learn more about Xerox MPS, click on this link. Enterprise MPS contracts are typically for 5 years in length and range in revenue size from $3M to $50M or more. Given the duration and size of these contracts, decisions are typically made by a team of B2B enterprise decision makers and take from 9 to 12 months to complete. B2B Marketing Group Project Managed Print Services 2 Your Group Assignment During this group assignment, you and your assigned teammate(s) will take on the role of the Xerox MPS Global Marketing Team. You have been provided a marketing budget of $1.5M with the goal of increasing your global MPS market share. With the sales cycle being 9 to 12 months in length, which for the purposes of this group assignment we will call the customer journey, you will want to allocate your marketing budget on a variety of market materials, programs, and promotion, which we will get to shortly. There are three phases to the customer journey: 1. Information Gathering – where potential customers use a variety of information sources, such as Internet search engines, social media sites, online news media, and MPS provider web sites to gather information. Approximately 60% of the enterprise decision maker’s time might be spend on gathering information before actually engaging an MPS provider. So this step in the customer journey is extremely important for an MPS provider to qualify and move onto Step 2. 2. Provider Evaluation – after narrowing the number of MPS providers down, the enterprise decision makers will now engage several MPS providers to gain additional insight into their capabilities. This typically happens in one of two ways. Either the decision makers issue an RFP (Request for Pricing) requesting the competing MPS providers develop a comprehensive written response detailing the capabilities of their MPS offering and/or the MPS provider sales resources are given the opportunity to share information about their company’s MPS offering and capabilities through presentations, case studies, thought leadership white papers, and the like. 3. Decision – in this last step of the customer journey, the enterprise decision makers make their final decision, typically between the remaining two competitors. Often these decision makers will consult with an analyst company, like Gartner, IDC, Forrester or Quocirca4 . During this final step, potential clients will also often visit an MPS provider’s briefing center where MPS subject matter expert will provide in-depth presentations and demonstrate their latest MPS innovations and competitive differentiators. They might also ask to talk with a number of the MPS provider’s reference accounts and/or review more case studies. Strategic Marketing Plan During the 4 weeks of this group project (Units #5 through #8), you and your teammate(s) will need to decide how you will communicate with one another to discuss and develop a group presentation that addresses the following six (6) areas: 1. Executive Summary – provides a brief summary / overview of your entire Strategic Marketing Plan, e.g. Target Audience through ROI. The Executive Summary should be the first topic that you include in your presentation, but the last topic that you develop. B2B Marketing Group Project Managed Print Services 3 2.

This is the answer I need most! Target Audience - identify three B2B decision makers (by job role) that you believe will be involved in making the MPS decision and document in your Group Report what you believe will motivate each of these decision makers in making their decision? 3. Competitive Intelligence - MPS has become a fiercely contested opportunity, with Ricoh, Hewlett Packard (HP), and Lexmark being Xerox’ biggest competitor. Before you determine how to allocate your marketing funds, you will need to gain a better understand of the competition and how they go-to-market. Given the work involved in analyzing the three competitor listed above, you might want to agree on what to analyze as a team, such as the competitor’s value propositions, MPS capabilities and offerings, and their marketing materials and programs… then divide up the analysis responsibilities. Document your findings as part of your Group Report. 4. Value Propositions / Marketing Messages – having read through the Xerox MPS information and studied the competition, discuss and determine with your teammate(s) how you will differentiate Xerox MPS from the competition keeping in mind your target audience and what will motivate each decision maker based on their role. Now determine your value propositions and associated marketing messages that would appeal to all decision makers and those specific to each decision maker based on their role and what motivates them. Document your decision in your Group Report. 5. Marketing Mix – here is where you and your teammates get a chance to discuss and allocate your $1.5M marketing budget. Choose from the marketing deliverables found on the following pages and align your selections to one or more the three stages of the Client Journey, e.g. Information Gathering, Provider Evaluation, and Decision. Keep in mind that you can use multiple units of each marketing deliverable, if you like. For example you could choose to develop 5 case studies, but if you do, please ensure that you multiple the unit cost by 5. Include in your slides the total cost that you spent on each stage of the Client Journey. What I will be looking for in this section is that you have given some quality thought to your marketing mix, allocated your budget reasonably across the 3 stages of the Client Journey, and that you haven’t exceeded you $1.5M budget. 6. Return-On-Investment (ROI) – determine how you will measure your ROI and document it in your Group Report. B2B Marketing Group Project Managed Print Services 4 Marketing Deliverables Line Item Unit Cost Description Analyst Reports $35K The cost to fund research conducted by an analyst company along with the creation of a Analyst Report citing the research. MPS providers often invest in Analyst Reports to leverage the analyst company’s brand recognition. Analyst Briefing $75K Cost of planning and implementing an Industry Analyst Briefing of top analysts companies to update them on your strategy. Typically Analyst Companies then write reports about what was shared at the briefing with the hope that they will speak positively about what they heard. Brochure $15K The cost to design and develop a high quality 4-page brochure. Client Case Study $10K The cost to create a 2-page case study brochure, plus videos, which can then be used on web sites, social media campaigns, and presentations. Content Marketing Campaign $150K The cost to create and deploy a Content Marketing Campaign using a variety of social media channels, e.g. Facebook, LindedIn, and Twitter… Direct Marketing Campaign $125K The cost to create and implement a Direct Marketing (DM) campaign. DM is often used to proactively engage enterprise decision makers and start them on the customer journey. Industry Marketing Materials $60K The cost to develop a compendium of marketing materials association with one target industry… Decision makers often want to receive marketing materials specific to their industry versus generic marketing materials. Industry Recognition Materials $10K The cost to create promotional materials associated with receiving MPS recognition from an industry analyst companies like, Gartner, IDC… Media Tour $10K The cost to develop content for a News Media Tour. Microsites $5K The cost to create a customized customer prospect web site that would contain most of the marketing contents listed on this and the previous page. B2B Marketing Group Project Managed Print Services 5 Marketing Deliverables Line Item Unit Cost Description MPS Demonstration $20K The cost to create a demonstration for use in an Executive Briefing Center. This cost also includes a video of the demonstration that can be used with presentations and microsites. MPS Presentation $35K The cost to create a presentations that can be customized by sales resources. Paid Search $75K The cost of raising visibility to the top of the search engine pages on the likes of Google, Yahoo, Bing… Used to drive traffic to your corporate web site. Video $25K The cost to develop a 3-minute video for use on YouTube, in presentation, and on the Corporate website. Webinars $25K The cost to create the content and implement a onehour webcast to communicate MPS capabilities to prospective customers. White Paper $10K The cost to create an 8 to 10-page Thought Leadership white paper. Thought Leadership white papers are an excellent way to communicate differentiation. Xerox.com $150K The cost of updating the corporate web site with fresh new content throughout the year. Xerox Sponsored Events $50K The cost of sponsoring a prospective customer event for 100 customers in a hotel B2B Marketing Group Project Managed Print Services 6 Definitions Outsourcing Definition1 The contracting or subcontracting of noncore activities to free up cash, personnel, time, and facilities for activities in which a company holds competitive advantage. Companies having strengths in other areas may contract out data processing, legal, manufacturing, marketing, payroll accounting, or other aspects of their businesses to concentrate on what they do best and thus reduce average unit cost. Outsourcing is often an integral part of downsizing or reengineering. Managed Print Services2 Managed Print Services (MPS) according to Gartner, a major analyst company is a generic term for a service offered by an external service provider to optimize or manage a corporate enterprise’s document output to certain objectives, such as driving down costs, improving efficiency and productivity, and reducing the IT support workload. Under MPS, a service provider takes primary responsibility for meeting the customer's office printing needs, including the printing equipment, the supplies, the service and the overall management of the printer fleet. The main components provided are needs assessment, selective or general replacement of hardware (optimization), and the service, parts and supplies needed to operate the new and/or existing hardware. The provider also tracks how the printer fleet is being used, the problems and the user satisfaction. The MPS provider analyzes the information gathered in the course of tracking printer usage and makes (or recommends to the customer) the adjustments needed to not only ensure fleet efficiency but also meet changing user needs. Voice of the Customer Insight3 Conducting customer focus group and surveys to better understand customer satisfaction as well as future needs and requirement. Analyst Companies4 Gartner, Inc. is the world's leading information technology research and advisory company. Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., Gartner has 5,300 associates, including 1,280 research analysts and consultants, and clients in 85 countries. IDC (International Data Corporation) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business B2B Marketing Group Project Managed Print Services 7 strategy. More than 1000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries worldwide. For more than 48 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. Forrester is a global research and advisory firm, focused on helping the world’s top companies turn the complexity of change into business advantage. Forrester research is based on insight and objective advice enabling IT professionals to lead more successfully within IT and extend their impact beyond the traditional IT organization. Tailored to your individual role, Forrester resources allow business executives to focus on important business issues — margin, speed, growth — first, technology second. Quocirca is a primary research and analysis company specializing in the business impact of information technology and communications (ITC). With world-wide, native language reach, Quocirca provides in-depth insights into the views of buyers and influencers in large, midsized and small organizations. Its analyst team is made up of real-world practitioners with first-hand experience of ITC delivery who continuously research and track the industry and its real usage in the markets.

Answer 1

B2B decision Makers in MPS

In such outsourcing decision following managers from different job role will be involved.

Department who will be envolved are

1. User, Back Office, Sales, Marketing, HR, Finanace Department- They will be taken into consideration as they are from user group and their experience with certain brand is very important.

2. Internal Information Technology Department. : Here the IT Manager will be responsilbe for evaluation the technical specifications and capability of the service to meet the requirements.

3. Department of Strategic Sourcing Group: This department will look in to the vendor capability as they are important to decide on the vendor capability of handling the task. they will have to execute the contract. their contract manger will form the contract.

4. Internal Finance team: They are most important as the Finance Manager will evaluate the different proposals from same company as well as from different company's and then take the decision on which one to buy.

5. Legal Department: Legal Manager will check and evaulate the contract from law point of view in order to avoid any dispute in future.