Gartner's managed print services Magic Quadrant is a useful starting point for identifying and evaluating managed print services (MPS) providers. It is intended for Gartner's client base of mainly midsize and large organizations, many of which operate throughout two or more regions, and some of which are truly global. Although not all MPS projects are multiregional or global at the outset, customers often choose to scale up one region at a time: In this way, they can manage their office printing in a unified manner globally. The providers in this Magic Quadrant have the geographical scale to attend to your office printing needs across world regions in a coordinated way.

Numerous other MPS providers approach their MPS projects locally or country by country and region by region and cater to like-minded customers, but they do not appear in this Magic Quadrant. Why not? As organizations progress from the prevailing loosely managed approach to an efficient and closely managed one, it makes sense to manage the entire fleet in a unified way, rather than with today's characteristically fragmented approach. Naturally, some MPS customers are organized in a way that makes a unified fleet impossible or are confined to one country or region.

Your vendor selection should be based on a detailed evaluation of your office printing needs and goals compared with a service provider's capacity to fulfill those requirements and expectations. Just because a service provider falls into the Leaders quadrant doesn't automatically make it the right choice for you. All selections are buyer-specific, so vendors in the Challengers, Visionaries or Niche Players quadrants may sometimes be a better match for your requirements. For example, service providers in the Challengers quadrant are capable of delivering the services required by most enterprises and may have a long MPS track record. Customers who are unready to go beyond the local or national level, or whose interest in MPS is limited to reducing their printer and MFP fleet costs, may find Challengers more than adequate. By the time they're ready to go global in dozens of countries or take on a document-content-centric project for their main business unit project, the Challengers may be prepared to deliver it. Those in the Visionaries quadrant match both the range of needs and the geographical scope of many midsize and large organizations. For smaller organizations or large ones situated mostly in a single locale, vendors in the Niche Players quadrant may be the most attentive and most-cost-effective match. All the vendors ranked in this Magic Quadrant are large, established companies, so buyers should not assume that the Niche Players are likely to drop out of the market in the near future.

The prolonged economic slump that began in 2008 presented all MPS providers with conflicting opportunities and challenges. How they responded says a lot about your likely experience as a customer and about the future prospects for each provider.

• The opportunity was that, thanks to the downturn, new customers of all kinds decided to reduce their office printing spending by 10% to 30% and adopted MPS to make that happen.

• The challenge was that many of those customers brought with them all the doubts that prevented them from adopting MPS in the past: doubts about whether their organization was really prepared to make changes, about whether "soft" costs that do not show up on the books are in scope, and even about their willingness to accept outside help and guidance about their printer fleet, let alone about optimizing their business processes. Conversations with MPS decision makers in midsize and large organizations suggest that customers' urgent need to cut costs outweighed their doubts but did not remove them.

MPS providers have always grappled with customer concerns, and most of them respond with a mix of easily recognized printer-fleet benefits (e.g., hard-cost savings, conservation and perhaps labor savings) and document-process improvements that might yield "soft" benefits, such as speeding up core business processes or boosting customer satisfaction. MPS providers typically strike a balance by, for example, deploying a reduced number of cost-effective MFPs in your fleet but also bundling into the cost per page pull-printing functions that help you both secure your documents and reduce your print volumes by double digits, or by bundling in walk-up scanning solutions that automate your paper-intensive enrollment process, perhaps, for example, shortening the customer line in front of the bank manager's office on a Friday afternoon.

The first problem for MPS providers in 2010 is that some cost-driven customers now apply commodity-style sourcing methods to pick apart the various elements of these bundles, focusing on discrete components, such as software license costs. The customers zero in on the cost per page but often discount the value of the help they will need to customize the solution to their own business, or the value of the consulting help they will need to configure the solution, or the value of the integration and support they will need to make it all work. Some customers have also piled on service-level agreements (SLAs) that demand, for example, higher printer uptime levels than they ever imposed on their own IT organization, or shorter repair response times than they really need.

The second problem is how the MPS providers respond:

• The low road — MPS providers snap up as many customers as they can by reducing their MPS proposals to the absolute lowest cost per page in return for a stripped-down and simple hardware and service bundle. The pull-printing option, for example, might still appear — but as an optional monthly charge — calling attention to the cost but playing down the fact that this option could pay for itself by cutting their page volumes by 10%. We know vendors are on the low road when customers show us proposals titled "Managed Print Services," with an optional monthly service fee for managing the printer fleet. Rather than take the time to help customers understand and make a persuasive case for MPS, some providers have simply redefined their services in a way that minimizes the risk of losing the deal to cutthroat competition, but undercuts most of the benefits of MPS. What is more, some contracts also contain hidden costs that will be paid at the end of the term or in the event of even a small reduction in page volume, and these could diminish the savings. Although watering down MPS may save a deal from cost-driven competitors, the consequences, such as the outages that some customers have reported due to razor-thin inventories of supplies, may sour them on upgrading to a better version of MPS later.

• The high road — MPS providers invest enough in needs assessments to demonstrate the savings and other benefits of MPS to the eager advocates in IT or the Purchasing Department, as well as to their skeptical colleagues in, for example, the Claims Department or Finance Department. Depending on their appetite for change, customers may adopt some of the solutions now, some later, and perhaps forgo others. Those customers who simply want to negotiate a traditional lease/service agreement can still negotiate this with the commodity approach — but not under MPS.

All the MPS providers in our Magic Quadrant mix the high- and low-road approaches, but the proportions vary by vendor and, most importantly, by customer. The degree to which each vendor followed the high-road versus low-road approach (or, the degree to which each vendor emphasized price over value) helps explain its position on the Magic Quadrant, as well as the changes to the vendors' positions.

The following is a timeline of the development of the MPS market.

• The "utility printing" concept comes in response to the increasingly diverse range of other IT infrastructure services and business process services being offered at this time. The idea is to bring the benefits of outsourcing to office printing, so customers seek to outsource the entire office printing function.

• Only a few vendors offer MPS at this time, and the customers are a subset of large corporations in North America and Western Europe that are open to experimentation.

• Cost savings opportunities draw large numbers of organizations to actively and closely manage office printing.

• The focus shifts from outsourcing to print optimization, as MPS becomes the means for a growing number of organizations to identify and assess, and ultimately reduce, their visible and hidden costs, including consumables, support and maintenance.

• Most providers ask customers to sign a third-party lease instead of the pure utility model and then combine this with the costs of service and consumables in a per-page charge that typically includes a minimum monthly page quota.

• A wider variety of MPS packages is introduced for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) either directly from the provider or through its channel partner.

• MPS becomes a standard part of vendors' strategies to sell office printing to midsize and large organizations, resulting in increasing numbers of customers. To help win over cautious customers, all the major MPS providers agree to roll a portion of the customer's existing equipment into its MPS contract.

• Full-cycle results of early MPS customers are now visible, and more customers are in the market for the second time around.

• New refinements around needs assessment and usage tracking, user surveys, user education, and help in meeting environmental goals become mainstream MPS practices.

• Customer behaviors began to be shaped by the global economic slowdown — We saw accelerated interest in MPS, as organizations sought longer-term cost savings while bringing their print environments up to date and managing them over time. MPS helped them manage the life cycle of printing equipment, through better analysis and monitoring of their printing fleets, and make the best use of their existing print infrastructure. Once treated as a special request for certain large customers, MPS sometimes became a tactic for salespeople to approach and engage new customers. For the first time, MPS became available from almost every printer and multifunction product (MFP) vendor and from most dealers (even if only locally). It increasingly was packaged for SMBs.

• Focus on cost savings and quicker return on investment — Cost savings is the most common driver behind the decision to go with MPS because it enables customers to reduce their printing and copying spending through product consolidation or redeployment. It gives them a consolidated contract for hardware, supplies and maintenance for greater visibility of spending. MPS also provides the flexibility to scale pages, print resources and cost to match business volume and staffing. It has the ability to shift costs to where customers have available budget via chargeback and by turning capital expenditure into operating expenditure or vice versa. However, when evaluating projected savings, buyers also need to look at "softer" costs, such as how much they spend on replacing supplies, on services, on maintenance and on help desk, as well as the negative impact that an unmanaged printer/copier fleet can have on employee productivity. Organizations must ensure they communicate that they want to maximize both short-term and long-term savings, as well as work processes and other benefits.

• Varied and diluted approaches — Despite the advances in vendors' ability to successfully deliver MPS, some customers are not getting as much guidance and help as they need. This dilution of the MPS concept is partly the result of salespeople trying to sell MPS to customers who are not ready to entrust the management of their fleet to vendors. It is also the result of competition between vendors eating away at the vendors' profit margins to the point in which they focus on what is most profitable to sell, rather than what the customer really needs.

In September 2008, Gartner published its first managed print services Magic Quadrant. As Gartner's 2008 Visionaries and Niche Players strove to catch up with the Leaders, their markedly improved execution resulted in them moving up into the Challengers quadrant in our 2009 managed print services Magic Quadrant. The deep economic recession encouraged businesses to scrutinize their office printing. The 2009 Challengers and Leaders faced demanding customers, and their execution against commitment fluctuated. In 2010, MPS providers are caught between promoting and providing the long-term savings and business-process benefits that MPS should bring and the reduced appetite for (potentially disruptive) change, as well as the increased appetite for quick, simple savings as the customer base widens.

Many MPS engagements focus on equipment, supplies and service, ignoring such goals as paper-based business process improvement and the alignment of the print strategy to other areas of IT. Buyers should seek to benefit from their MPS providers' industry-specific expertise to incorporate their documents in electronic processes. By seeking to enlarge the scope of their MPS this way, organizations can maximize cost savings and process improvements. It is therefore important for organizations to ask their potential MPS provider to demonstrate solutions for specific vertical industries and applications.

To manage their office printing more actively, customers need to involve more parts of their organization — not just Facilities Management or IT, but also the line of business and Purchasing (also known as strategic sourcing or procurement). The change is greatest for organizations accustomed to letting IT specify what is needed and then handing it off neatly to a Purchasing Department to get the best deal. Coordination is important, because MPS deals and the accompanying terms and conditions are much more complex than the customary purchase of hardware, and good results demand multidepartmental cooperation throughout the process.

MPS requires more planning than traditional printer and copier purchasing, so both buyers and sellers must readjust their time frames. Letting more people have a say in selecting a more complex package can easily double the three-month purchase cycles to six months and the six-month cycles to a year. The reward for the added complexity, however, is a 10% to 30% cost reduction instead of the roughly 5% possible under traditional purchasing practices. Buyers who skip the assessment and analysis upfront shouldn't be surprised if they end up saving less than they hoped for, or perhaps even worse, living with the wrong choice of provider or the wrong services and equipment for the next few years. Note that much of the value that MPS provides is determined in the assessment phase that begins before the equipment is delivered, so prospective buyers should use their leverage to demand it be done carefully. Because the assessment often begins before the contract is awarded, customers should strive to use the clout they have at this point in the deal and not sign off until they have a solid case for MPS and understand what the vendor will deliver and how.

Although most organizations could, in principle, manage their own office print actively and effectively, in reality, many lack the time, the staff, the experience, the tools and the focus, and they simply will not do it on their own. Organizations that manage their printer, copier and fax fleets can save between 10% and 30% of their print costs. This is something organizations can do on their own if they know exactly how to proceed and have the resources to do so. If not — as is often the case — then an MPS provider can help. MPS promises to help organizations carry out the needed changes and save them money by providing the staffing and expertise to determine their true needs, optimize the fleet to meet them, and track and monitor them to keep the optimal state in place afterward. MPS also allows customers to bring their best sourcing efforts to bear on what becomes a single, comprehensive multimillion-dollar deal that usually lasts at least three years. The deal may go beyond the printer, copier and MFP fleet to include better handling of documents with direct business benefits. The deal may also encompass centralized reprographics departments (CRDs, also known as copy rooms) and even mailrooms.

"Managed print services" is a Gartner generic term for a service offered by an external provider to optimize or manage a company'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 and makes (or recommends to the customer) the adjustments needed to ensure fleet efficiency and to meet changing user needs.

MPS is mostly adopted by organizations with more than 500 users, across all industries and in all world regions. Although MPS can benefit all but the smallest organizations, it is midsize and large ones that ask Gartner about it the most. Large organizations, in particular, tend to have the most complex and least efficient office printing practices to begin with, and thus stand to benefit the most from optimizing them. These large organizations and many midsize ones, as well, typically have offices in multiple locations and world regions. Some seek MPS in all of their offices from Day 1, but most choose to start small and then add sites, divisions, countries and regions over time. For that reason, our Magic Quadrant is limited to providers that can serve as a single source for at least two world regions.

MPS may also be expanded to include staffed services, such as CRDs (copy centers) as well as telecommuters. It may also include enterprise content management services and workflow optimization components, such as developing custom applications for smart MFPs that automate paper-intensive document workflows and route scanned pages to document management systems. It can also be extended to include the restructuring of document workflows.

MPS does involve a consolidation of spending, but the actual payment schemes vary. Generally, the external service provider either owns the hardware or (more typically) leases it from a financing company in its customer's name. The customer usually pays a per-page charge, which covers the cost of the equipment, any leasing costs, the supplies, the parts, the service and other MPS elements. Some contracts stipulate a minimum number of pages per device per month, with unused pages forfeited. Others involve some variation on the monthly minimum, such as a sliding cost per page that decreases as the number of pages increases. Services are usually folded into the click charge, although in some cases, they are billed on a flat monthly or quarterly basis. Contracts that impose no minimum number of pages appear risk-free but typically obtain some other financial commitment on the part of the customer, such as a flat fee, a per-device fee or a per-seat fee. Some MPS contracts include guarantees of a certain result, but this hinges on agreeing to do things the vendor's way.

Only vendors that meet all the following criteria are included:

• Is able to provide the equipment (via lease or as a procurement service)

• Provides the supplies

• Performs the break/fix and preventive maintenance

• Provides the technical support

• Provides MPS in two or more world regions to at least one customer. The customer must be verifiable and have at least 500 MPS users. The regions are North America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); Asia/Pacific (including Japan); and Latin America.

• Provides the long-term tracking and management of the printer/MFP fleet

• Performs the initial assessment(s)

• Buys back or disposes of existing equipment that is being replaced, if this is required

• Bills on a per-page or per-seat basis

The inclusion criteria exclude print-related services that fall short of MPS. These include traditional, narrowly drawn copier contracts, certain retail printer service packages, and most infrastructure outsourcing contracts. Some genuine MPS providers also did not qualify because they do not serve multiregional customers in a unified way.

Konica Minolta and Oce have provided MPS in past years, but we added them to the Magic Quadrant in 2010 because they met all of our inclusion criteria for the first time in 2010.

No vendors were dropped from the Magic Quadrant in 2010.

The Ability to Execute axis positions each MPS provider based on its success in delivering results today as well as its preparation to deliver results in the future. On this axis, Gartner verifies an MPS provider's capability to deliver MPS based on direct feedback from extensive interviews with its clients and other provided customer references.

Gartner analysts evaluate MPS providers on the quality and efficacy of the processes, systems, methods or procedures that enable their performance to be competitive, efficient and effective, and to positively affect revenue, retention and reputation. Ultimately, MPS providers are judged on their capability and success in capitalizing on their vision.

Each criterion is weighted high, standard or low in importance and scored accordingly. Table 1 shows the criteria for evaluating providers' ability to execute.

Product/Service: This criterion addresses core goods and services offered by the MPS provider that compete in and serve the defined market. This includes current product and service capabilities, quality, feature sets and skills. We probed how well the provider ensures that the customer ends up with the right mix of equipment and help throughout the MPS engagement.

Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy and Organization): Viability includes an assessment of the overall organization's financial health, the financial and practical success of the business unit, and the business unit's likelihood of continuing to invest in the service solution. We drew on all available sources to gauge how solidly grounded the MPS providers are today and how safe a bet they are for the future.

Sales Execution/Pricing: This criterion examines each MPS provider's capabilities in all presales activities and the structure that supports them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation, presales support, and the overall effectiveness of the sales channel. MPS agreements can lock in customers for years and can do more harm than good if the terms, conditions and pricing are drawn up wrong. We examine how well the vendor ensures that the customer gets a fair deal that is appropriate for the customer's needs.

Market Responsiveness and Track Record: This criterion looks at the MPS providers' ability to respond, change direction, be flexible and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act, customer needs evolve, and market dynamics change. This criterion also considers the provider's history of responsiveness. Successful MPS engagements cater to specific needs of the customer at hand. We looked closely at how far the vendor goes to ensure the success of the specific customer.

Marketing Execution: This criterion refers to the clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed to deliver the organization's message in order to influence the market, promote the brand and business, increase awareness of the MPS offering, and establish a positive identification with the service/brand and organization in the minds of buyers. This mind share can be driven by a combination of publicity, promotional activities, thought leadership, word of mouth, and sales activities. Effective marketing is important, because customers struggle to understand exactly what each vendor will do for them and how this differs from one provider to another. We look from all angles at how well the vendor communicates this, and how easy it is for customers to obtain this information.

Customer Experience: This criterion evaluates the relationships, products and services/programs that enable clients to be successful with the MPS evaluated. Specifically, this includes the ways customers receive technical support or account support. This can also include ancillary tools, customer support programs (and the quality thereof), availability of user groups, and SLAs. Successful MPS turns on the provider's relationship with the customer in ways that SLAs and contract clauses can never entirely anticipate and enforce. We look from numerous angles at how well the provider ensures it maintains a good all-around relationship with the customer.

Operations: This criterion reviews the MPS provider's ability to meet its goals and commitments. Factors include the quality of the organizational structure, including skills, experiences, programs, systems and other vehicles that enable the organization to operate effectively and efficiently on an ongoing basis. Office printing is one of those technologies that affect almost everyone, so even small disruptions matter. We look at how the vendor works hand in hand with the customer to minimize the disruption to the end users and key stakeholders in the customer organization.

The Completeness of Vision axis reflects each MPS provider's prospects for success by analyzing its view of the market, its service operating model, and its strategic plans for growth and service improvements. Gartner verifies an MPS provider's vision based on presentations from the providers and direct feedback from extensive interviews with the MPS provider's clients, as well as insight gained while answering Gartner client inquiries on that topic.

Each criterion is weighted high, standard or low in importance and is scored accordingly. Table 2 shows the criteria for evaluating providers' completeness of vision.

Market Understanding: This criterion refers to the MPS provider's ability to understand buyers' needs and translate these needs into products and services. Vendors that show the highest degree of vision listen to and understand buyers' wants and needs, and can shape or enhance those wants with their added vision. We look at key areas in which the provider can prepare the customer for tomorrow's priorities as well as today's.

Marketing Strategy: This criterion evaluates the MPS provider's strategy and approach to marketing and promoting MPS. We looked for a clear, differentiated set of messages consistently communicated throughout the organization and externalized through the website, advertising, customer programs and positioning statements.

Sales Strategy: This criterion reviews the provider's sales strategy and its capability to sell MPS. It includes the strategy for selling MPS that uses the appropriate network of direct and indirect sales, marketing, service, and communication affiliates that extend the scope and depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and the customer base.

Offering (Product) Strategy: This criterion addresses the MPS provider's approach to MPS development and delivery that emphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology and feature set as they map to current and future requirements. Across each of the main elements of MPS, we examined how the vendor maximizes the benefit of its MPS to customers.

Business Model: This criterion assesses the soundness and logic of an MPS provider's underlying business proposition. A sustainable MPS business model must not only deliver savings and other benefits to customers, but also minimize the risks. We looked at how the vendor protects its customers against the risks inherent in MPS.

Vertical/Industry Strategy: The experience that MPS providers gain and investments that they make in vertical markets will help them build and retain their customer base in an increasingly competitive market. We assessed the MPS provider's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of individual market segments, including verticals.

Innovation: This criterion includes direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources, expertise or capital for investment, consolidation, or defensive or pre-emptive purposes. As MPS matures, customers should expect continued improvements both in what vendors do for them and in how they do it. This depends on judicious investments. We look at the quantity and quality of the providers' investments in MPS versus the value that they will likely provide to customers.

Geographic Strategy: This refers to the MPS provider's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of geographies outside the "home" or native geography, either directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries, as appropriate for that geography and market. Many of Gartner's clients have offices scattered across an entire country or region, several continents or the entire world. We evaluated the ability of the providers to accommodate the range of customers' geographies, from local through national, regional, multiregional and global.

Leaders provide MPS to a wide range of customers, including the largest and most geographically dispersed, so they must demonstrate a truly global reach. They must demonstrate not only the skills to deliver today's MPS, but also the understanding, initiative and resources to prepare for tomorrow's MPS. Leaders characteristically augment the full scope of MPS with a wide range of added-value services. As a result, they are frequently shortlisted by large and midsize customers.

Although Challengers have solidly demonstrated that they provide the core elements of MPS, they communicate a less complete view of the market direction than Leaders. The package of services they offer and the way it is marketed may also cater to a somewhat narrower range of company sizes and industries than that of Leaders. Even when the customers are the same as for the Leaders, the scope of engagement may be more narrow.

Visionaries thoroughly understand today's market and also know how to address customers' future needs and expectations. In the aggregate, they provide a wide range of MPS to a diverse range of customers. What differentiates them from Leaders is their ability to successfully market and deliver all of their services to customers of different scale and across different regions in a well-unified way.

At the current level of market maturity, there are no Visionaries in this Magic Quadrant.

Niche Players meet all of our inclusion criteria but provide a more-narrow range of services to a more-narrow range of customers than the other vendors. They may be a cost-effective choice for customers whose requirements, scale and geographical scope happen to be a good match. Some customers also report that the Niche Players pay them especially close attention and are generally more accommodating than large vendors.

• Year after year, Canon's MPS customers praise the efficiency and expertise with which it installs and rolls out its equipment in their sites, and with which it delivers its MPS processes. It does a good job of assessing customer needs, designing a compelling future state, and helping move customers to that target state through tracking and customer education.

• Some customers tell us that Canon helped them cope with unexpected developments that required flexibility, such as redesigning the floor plan or adjusting the minimum page volumes when their staffing or other factors changed.

• As Canon takes on more MPS customers with more-complex needs, it has added a special oversight function to proactively ensure that all SLAs are met, rather than wait for customers to notice.

• Canon now offers MPS in most world locations (bolstered by a recent alliance with Fujitsu in Japan). Canon's global strategy features standardized core services. However, as a customer, you may also find much variation in the levels of MPS experience and business momentum between the different world regions and countries.

• If your printer fleet extends across different countries and regions, research the differences in practices between the countries and locations where you may eventually roll out MPS.

• Ask Canon for references in your industry (and region). Although we're confident of Canon's ability to understand and cater to specific verticals in a valuable way, we lack evidence of large-scale Canon MPS engagements in some of the industries to which Gartner's clients belong.

• HP has hired staff to carry out its vision of tying MPS with broader IT infrastructure and systems, services and solutions, by creating a worldwide MPS-focused business unit. The new Managed Enterprise Solutions unit can advance MPS within Enterprise Business engagements and on its own.

• HP's alliance with Canon finally provides it the full range of copier-style (A3) MFPs it has always needed to complete its equipment lineup. However, inquire on what equipment, options and repair response times are available in the regions where you operate because these may vary.

• Whatever your industry, HP probably already has customers in it and can refer you to them to tell you about their experience. Knowing that your MPS provider understands your industry is reassuring.

• HP has invested in new processes and software to streamline the delivery of important aspects of MPS, such as needs assessments, new site rollouts, proactive remote and on-site services and supplies management, help desk integration, and tracking and reporting.

• HP has a variety of payment schemes for MPS and will allow you to scale back the quantity of equipment or number of pages in your MPS deal in case your volumes decrease, at least up to a point. Ask about the different approaches and compare. But also make sure you nail down and get in writing how this will work — some customers did not do their homework and were surprised to find themselves on the hook.

• Just because HP can provide clear and timely bills doesn't mean it always does so, and some customers report this did not happen. Insist that HP explain to you how it will provide bills that are not only easy to understand but are amenable to your auditing practices.

• If your MPS proposal counts on HP providing you with Canon equipment, ask for specifics about how Canon will carry out its responsibilities, such as delivering and installing the right equipment at the right time, and providing maintenance, parts and repair over time, because HP's global and national-level commitments rely on local Canon offices and dealers for follow-through.

• Konica Minolta does a good job of clearly and persuasively explaining the case for MPS, and this could help you, in turn, make a strong case to management and to the other stakeholders, such as line of business departments.

• Konica Minolta does a good job of patiently gathering the information needed to understand site-by-site needs, right down to interviewing users and managers. Some competitors rely too heavily on automated data gathering and gloss over this important step.

• Konica Minolta can serve large customers, and it has some customers with thousands of users. However, its direct operations are nicely scaled to midsize organizations (with 500 to 999 employees) that are large enough to justify MPS but worry they won't get the full attention from other MPS providers.

• With the respectable range of industries it serves, Konica Minolta is in a good position to tailor its MPS to maximize the benefit to specific verticals, but it has not yet refined its MPS program to that point — note that the degree to which this applies varies by region.

• Although Konica Minolta has MPS customers in the different world regions, and it now supports other vendors' brands as well, most of its past MPS experience is limited to Konica Minolta equipment.

• Lexmark has a long history of providing MPS to a large number of industries, especially finance, retail, healthcare, government, utilities and manufacturing.

• Although most MPS vendors talk about optimizing customers' workflows, Lexmark actually understands what streamlining work processes involves. Its solution approach, which predated its MPS, involves listening closely to its customers, analyzing how they use documents in the business context, and proposing either off-the-shelf or custom solutions to help them.

• Although MPS providers don't always deliver on what they promise, Lexmark has won praise from customers for accurately and honestly stating what it will do for them.

• If you find Lexmark's understanding of your industry and its line-of-business specific solutions compelling, resist the temptation to limit the engagement to those departments and push Lexmark to extend its MPS across the organization.

• Lexmark continues to work around gaps in its product line for A3 MFPs with speeds that exceed 50 pages per minute (ppm). Normally, the company proposes A4 alternatives, but it will find a way to accommodate you if you speak up.

• Oce has invested effort in documenting its MPS processes, such as customer needs assessments and customer reports, in a clear, detailed way — something that competitors often overlook. That documentation can make a big difference when you use the assessment results to win support from management and from line-of-business departments and other stakeholders.

• Oce is well-equipped to integrate your printer fleet with your CRD or copy room. It has years of experience operating customers' CRDs and mailrooms in Europe and in North America, and under MPS, it can leverage its staff to provide hands-on service and supplies replenishment. These are tasks that, despite the best intentions of some competitors, can never be fully automated.

• Oce has anchored its MPS in industry-standard process methodologies, such as ITIL (IT services management) and Prince2 (structured project management). This may help you win the support of senior IT management for your MPS plans.

• Ask Oce for solid references in your industry (and region). Oce caters to the needs of customers in different industries, but the number of clients it has served varies by industry and location.

• If your MPS has any custom services or allows exceptions to the contract, make sure you get them in writing. Canon acquired Oce in 2010, and it is allowing it to operate autonomously for now, but Canon may standardize its MPS across the two units in the future.

• Customers look for a predictable MPS rollout, but some Oce customers report differing results in terms of getting the MPS fully up and running, depending on the capabilities of the individual running that particular account.

• Pitney Bowes supports customers with small, dispersed sites in vast outlying parts of North America and beyond. At the same time, it also caters to centralized sites, where it can help you integrate your MPS with your document processes in mailrooms and copy centers, and it is well-positioned to tie your MPS into document-centric functions, such as records management.

• Pitney Bowes is able to provide the hands-on, on-site services that some customers seek, and it does not try to impose on them a remotely supported approach that is convenient for the MPS supplier but not convenient for the customer.

• Customers report that Pitney Bowes helped them make a smooth transition into MPS, rolling out the equipment and software, and paid good attention to such details as how help desk calls are handled.

• Some customers are uneasy with the way most vendors use MPS, at least partly as a distribution channel for their printers and supplies, because they fear that as a result, they will be sold more printing equipment or capacity than they really need. Pitney Bowes has less incentive to favor one brand over another than competitors because it does not manufacture printers or MFPs, and all the equipment it supports under MPS comes from other manufacturers, such as Canon, HP, Sharp and Xerox.

• Although Pitney Bowes offers MPS in North America, Latin America and Western Europe, we have seen few examples of its MPS outside of North America.

• Expect to do some research to fully understand Pitney Bowes' MPS offering. You may get an incomplete picture from the company's various websites, which provide only a high-level view in some countries and nothing at all in others.

• Good MPS outcomes are built on good organizational alignment across departments, which your choice of MPS provider can enhance or deter. Although Pitney Bowes has an impressive customer list, it lacks the track record that some of its competitors have in aligning its MPS with its customers' line-of-business departments and IT, because Pitney Bowes' customer relationships often grew out of relationships with the mailroom or Facilities Management.

• Customers praise Ricoh's diligent follow-through on its MPS, starting with its thorough needs assessments and continuing through its well-managed rollout and delivery of services and supplies.

• Ricoh has taken an eclectic approach to R&D, blending methodologies from the different world regions and from the various companies it has acquired, such as Lanier, NRG, Ikon Office Solutions and InfoPrint Solutions, as well as from partners such as IBM.

• Ricoh is busy perfecting its change management services, bolstering its own MPS experience with an infusion of external consulting. Change management helps customers overcome the internal constraints and resistance that MPS projects often face.

• Ricoh staff delivers most of its services directly, but in some countries and locations, it also relies on dealers. Before you sign, make sure you understand who will deliver your MPS, what elements the dealers will not be able to deliver, such as software, assessment or service levels, and ascertain how Ricoh will ensure their cooperation and what you'll do about it in case they don't. If you have any doubt about whether Ricoh will ensure consistency between regions, ask them how their expert "SWAT" team can help.

• Some customers report breakdowns in communication with Ricoh during rollout, resulting in equipment or staff not being in place as planned. Review your plans and check to ensure they're on track.

• Some customers encounter inconsistencies in Ricoh's fleet status and statistical reporting across different countries and locations. If you're considering Ricoh on a multinational scale, scrutinize the consistency of Ricoh's reporting across countries, especially if you are operating under different contracts.

• Toshiba's efforts to improve and standardize its processes have resulted in good customer care, including better user training and fewer billing problems than most MPS providers.

• Although fully capable of serving large customers, Toshiba truly caters to midsize ones and tends to lavish more attention on midsize customers than its larger competitors do. Its responsiveness and willingness to adapt its practices to customers' needs has won it a growing base of loyal customers.

• Although Toshiba has its own line of MPS offerings and printers, it will also absorb equipment that you already own under its MPS.

• If you are a large enterprise, make sure Toshiba assigns project managers and account managers with the appropriate background. Although Toshiba has large banks and other enterprises as customers, most of its customers are midsize organizations.

• Comments from Toshiba's MPS customers point to a need for more consistent two-way communication as to what will happen. Review the detailed statement of work that Toshiba will provide you before signing off so you clearly understand how the service would be implemented — from rolling out software to the handoff of help desk calls.

• Toshiba is expanding its multinational reach, but it still has a scant track record with MPS in Europe and has less evidence of a move toward a global MPS than most of its competitors.

• Xerox successfully provides MPS worldwide to large multiregional and global customers, as well as to smaller local ones. Its unparalleled reach is due to its entrenched operations in hundreds of countries worldwide, including those served in the Asia/Pacific region by its closely aligned partner, Fuji Xerox, of which it owns 25%.

• Xerox was one of the main companies to shape and define MPS, and it continues to invest heavily in developing the processes and software to support and expand the range of services it provides.

• Xerox is almost unmatched among rivals in the range of industries it serves, and it will usually be able to find customer references in your industry.

• Customers often report that Xerox does a thorough job of assessing their needs and establishing a reliable baseline on which to build its recommendations.

• Although Xerox has made strides toward streamlining and simplifying its products and services, its MPS offering is one of the richest, and salespeople may overestimate or underestimate your appetite for business-process improvements or for industry-specific solutions. Ask about alternatives, rather than assuming a first proposal is the last word. For example, customers whose relationship with Xerox was limited to the Purchasing or Facilities Management Departments should treat the move to MPS as a chance to explore Xerox's industry-specific solutions with its line-of-business departments.

• Probe for differences about how contractors or local partners deliver on MPS in regions where Xerox relies on them instead of its own staff. Some multiregional MPS customers report deviations or limitations in terms of pricing options, contract language and assessment processes, potentially frustrating your effort to unify your office printing worldwide.

• Xerox allows customers some flexibility on monthly minimum volumes in case their needs change, and it can also pool the customers' pages across the fleet to balance out overages and underages. Some customers have complained recently, though, that the fine print of the contract negated the protections they thought they had. Your legal team may not be tuned into the nuances of MPS, so when the time comes to review a proposed contract, ask them to check this point.