Embracing the shift
Nick Swindin has worked within the office technology sector for more than 30 years, spending two decades at one of Europe’s largest providers of outsourced services before forming Active8 Managed Technologies and becoming the Service and Operations Director for the Group. During this time he’s seen the many ways the sector has shifted - and has been using automation to guide his business towards its future goals.
Active8 turned 10 this year. From the outset, our bigger-picture ambitions were always to be more than solely a print provider, although this is our predominant offering. Our aim is to become a long-term business partner to our customers, helping them to adapt and thrive in the ever-changing environment. Of course, to keep up with this ambition then we also need to be able to flex in the direction that the winds of business are blowing ourselves.
To survive this volatile trading environment, service providers must be adaptable and proactive. We’ve all seen reduction in print volumes since Covid-19, so we need to be smarter to find different revenue streams and trim unnecessary costs.
Everything within the print industry has an IT element to it; every device has an IP address, so the MPS market lends itself well to exploring opportunities within the technology sector. IT services and VoIP phones, for example, are all very relevant and viable opportunities for diversification. We’ve actually just launched our new product, Safe Web, which monitors the dark web to check if our customer’s details have been breached, which is just one example of how we’re reacting to the needs of the market to develop our offering and widen our customer base.
A considered approach to using tech
We’ve always operated with this mindset, but the pandemic emphasised the importance of generating revenue from other services. As part of this mission, automation has been crucial to us from the start, without question, helping us to manage numerous revenue streams and different types of contracts while keeping everything as efficient as possible.
“The key, though, is understanding where technology serves a purpose for your business, rather than using automation for automation’s sake. There are certain tasks where a human worker is essential, but by automating those that aren’t it means our staff can be deployed in ways that benefit us and our customer far better, and time isn’t wasted elsewhere.”
A partner for growth
Ultimately, every business will view their automated system in a slightly different way – for us, we see our ERP as a robust contract database, with a wide range of other useful features that run alongside it.
When searching for the right automated ERP, scalability was our biggest priority. We have ambitious growth plans and the last thing we want is to be limited by our back-end system. Other specific features such as an effective financial package and breadth of integration possibilities helped us to choose our system. Underpinning it all though, was the need to simplify our operations to using only one single data source – as the market changes, and with multiple new ventures to manage, it’s key to run the business on facts rather than just gut feel, which enables us to make better decisions.
3 ways to futureproof your business
Data-led decisions
You’re probably already using data to guide your decisions, but to prepare for the future, put this into a new focus. If you’re currently analyzing data from multiple sources, consider consolidating everything into one system – an ERP with lots of integrations and ‘bolt on’ features will make this far easier.
I chose our current system, ECI’s e-automate, because the data extraction is significantly more advanced than I’ve had before. If I ever need analysis on what has happened and when, I can often work out the ‘why’ pretty quickly as the data is easy to get hold of.
Broad scope for integrations
No one knows exactly where the MPS market is headed, but with diversification being so key for businesses looking to scale, there’s no point in investing in an automated system that can’t keep up. With e-automate being such a vast product, with numerous complementary products, features and third-party integrations, I’m confident that whatever direction we head off in next, the tool will be able to accommodate our needs.
Scalable systems
If a key reason for investing in automation is to cut unnecessary costs, then consider any additional fees that could occur when your business does grow. No one wants to be penalised for their own successes – but if your automation partner charges per device managed, for example, then this could affect your revenue potential and could hold-back your ability to scale in a profitable way.
The ECI ecosystem
Delivering an exceptional customer experience has always been a big priority for MPS providers and is key to them securing longer term contracts. However, as the professional environment continues to evolve it will become increasingly difficult to do so if you’re not keeping up with the reality of what your customers expect from an office technology specialist, or what features and services are helpful as their needs change over time.
Trusted experts
At ECI Software Solutions, we’re pleased to support:
customers across the world
new customers on average every year
active users of our software every month.
Since launching into the MPS market two decades ago, we’ve been continuously committed to helping SME businesses to succeed. We do this through strategic supplier and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partnerships, to deliver added value all while constantly developing and improving our solutions.
This mission remains the same today. Our team understands the challenges for office technology providers; diversification, moving to cloud-based systems and harnessing the power of data will be key now, and in the years to come.
We move in the same direction as the businesses we’re serving, helping us to create our fully-integrated ERP system, e-automate, which can cope with all of these demands and more.
e-automate: the ECI ecosystem
Our cloud-based device management products help to solve a lot of problems for MPS providers. Each tool can quickly gather data to inform everything from supply levels to giving you the postcodes where service is needed.
But what about the next step? Customers often ask us, “can I generate an accurate invoice?”, “can I automatically order the supplies I know that I need?” and “can I create a service ticket?”
This is where e-automate comes in.
Our solution was developed specifically to meet the challenges of the MPS sector. By integrating with each of these products, every ‘next step’ can be automated. It’s easy to act on the insights generated by every tool and the data they collect – but e-automate brings everything into one place.
It’s your full back-office system, covering almost every area of your business such as invoicing, contracts, sales, inventory, service support and accounting. With one, singular view, it’s easy to create innovative reports to understand what’s happening in your business so you can invest right, make beneficial changes and improve services to your customers.
And because it’s all based on the cloud, having better access to data doesn’t mean compromising on security – we’ve invested in a robust internal structure to ensure that your client’s data is safe with us.
How does it work?
A data collection agent (DCA) installed on your printer collects meter readings, which are fed into Printanista. Integrations with e-automate then connect this data to your accounting system, to automatically generate an invoice, quickly and accurately. This is just one example, and there are lots more combinations and integrations to explore.
How e-automate adds value
- Single source of truth for business data
- Information when you need it, wherever you are
- Easier collaboration across teams
- Productivity is improved
- Meet customer needs far quicker
- More accurate overview of entire business performance
- Focus on value-added work - act on data to meet business priorities, don’t waste time finding data and filling gaps
- A single system to grow with you, through integration and add-on products.
How we can help
ECI has been working with office technology specialists for more than two decades, supporting thousands of customers across the globe with our solutions designed specifically for and by those working in the industry.
Our ECI ecosystem can help you to gain visibility into your entire business and boost profitability, with a comprehensive business management solution designed to manage the unique challenges faced by managed print service providers now, and in the future.