Case Study: Use MPS To Evolve Beyond Hardware Sales

By Gennifer Biggs, Editor, Business Solutions magazine

Kathy Cauldren is a straight shooter. She will tell you without ado that if it weren't for managed print services (MPS) her company might be making money, but far less. Certainly not the 20% growth she is projecting for this year, a figure that would push her office services VAR business near the $5 million annual revenue mark. So how does Cauldren do it? She and her husband, Tom, owners of KT's Office Services, saw the opportunity surrounding MPS and jumped on that technology about two years ago.

"If we didn't offer MPS, our growth would depend on products — laptops, printers, peripherals — and we'd see far less margin," says Cauldren, CEO of KT's. "The margin with MPS is very good; it is very profitable." KT's made the move to MPS because Cauldren was watching customers migrate to managed services to meet many of their IT needs, and the VAR wanted to take advantage of that enthusiasm for managed services. But that transition has meant adjusting to operations under a different business model and taking the time to talk strategy with customers, a role to which most printer dealers are not accustomed.