Meet the partners leading the way with DaaS
Tom Wright speaks to the UK partners flying the DaaS flag for HP internationally
The concept of managed print services (MPS) is nothing new to the channel. However, it perhaps isn't something flashy enough to ever feel the need to shout about.
Even HP's global print boss, Enrique Lores, says it's difficult to follow his PC counterpart on stage at HP partner events, after the revelation of powerful new laptops that excite crowds.
But over recent months, MPS workers at resellers have found themselves slowly nudged into the spotlight.
The uptake in as-a-service offerings has gathered pace to the point where some clients want their actual devices on a subscription model, not just software.
The benefit for MPS providers is that printers have long been offered in this way, and they already have the systems in place to offer other devices in the same format.
At HP's partner conference in Houston, a host of UK-based MPS providers were given the stage in front of peers from around the world.
One of those partners was Softcat, with head of DaaS and MPS Rhys Lawson offering an insight into how the reseller is growing out its model.
Lawson joined Softcat just over five years ago to set up the firm's MPS offering, which he is now broadening out to cover other devices.
He told CRN that once customers realise that device-as-a-service (DaaS) isn't just a new term for leasing, their appetite for the fledging model grows.
"When people first jump onto DaaS they think it's a glorified financing contract, and it drives me insane," he said.
"It isn't. DaaS is made up of multiple components: analytics, life cycle, break-fix… finance is just one of those components. You can have all the other components and still purchase the devices with cash if you like.
"Finance is the vehicle that fits the narrative because it is more efficient, but DaaS is not a finance offering."
Lawson said that the main differentiator between DaaS and a standard finance or leasing deal is analytics.
What DaaS allows resellers to do, he explains, is monitor a device from afar and assess how it is performing. For example, the data Softcat gathers can predict when a battery is about to fail, allowing it to be changed before it stops working completely.
"What blew my mind was that, in this day in age, we are putting these devices out into the ether and we are not harnessing them to design a solution before they go in, but more importantly to start to add more value afterwards," Lawson said.
"It is not that the devices don't have the data. We have all this data but I don't think anyone has found a simple and digestible way to present all the information for internal people and customers to add value.
"DaaS pulls through multiple streams of data for proactive monitoring so we can easily see what devices are overutilised, what is under underutilised, battery failures before they go down, and CPU usage."
Howard Hall, managing director at HP partner DTP, agreed that the analytics capabilities of DaaS are becoming a key selling point.
He explained that while DaaS adoption has been slower than expected, the clients that have adopted it have benefited because fewer tickets are raised with helpdesks.
"Some of the predictive analytics is starting to gain traction, whereby the devices will identify they're going to fail. The software can then raise its own ticket within ServiceNow, for example," he said.
"Those sort of things are starting to really grab people's attention, in terms of the automation.
"The guy who runs DaaS for HP has said that some of the early adopters in the US have seen service desk calls drop by between 30 and 40 per cent. When that happens you can drive efficiencies in terms of reduced headcount or the service desk people doing more valuable things."
Made in the UK
The UK partners were out in force at HP's Houston event, which is not surprising, given that the UK channel is playing a key role in how the vendor shapes its DaaS strategy in Europe.
Speaking at a press conference after the main keynote session, HP CEO Dion Weisler said that the rationale behind the acquisition of UK print provider Apogee was to address a fragmented European market.
"We really honed in on Apogee because an inconsistent European landscape is a very fragmented market as a whole," he said. "You have lots of different countries and there is no single large European provider of managed print services.
"We made it clear that we were going to be an extremely serious partner in the A3 copier space. We made a $1bn (£758m) acquisition of Samsung's printer business and we made a very sizable acquisition in Apogee.
"We wanted to learn about how to really drive the services and solutions that matter most for our customers, and we wanted to participate in the profit that is driven from services.
"The acquisition of Apogee is all about achieving both those objectives."
HP's UK channel boss Neil Sawyer was quick to point out that HP's channel DaaS credentials this side of the Atlantic extend far beyond just Apogee.
"If the UK and Ireland's channel could act as consultants for the rest of the world's channels, we would be in a very strong position because they are often the thought leaders and the pioneers across the globe," he told CRN at the event.
"We have various resellers that are representing those subjects from the UK. Softcat are talking about DaaS and Total Computers are standing on the global stage in front of other resellers talking about how they've got into it. For me, from a pure UK and Ireland point of view, that is great for our industry.
"We should be really proud of that. We are here representing the UK and Ireland as much as we are HP."
Hurry up, Europe
HP's strategy of acquiring an already established MPS provider is perhaps a sign that DaaS adoption in Europe has been slow.
HP's EMEA president Nick Lazaridis told CRN that Europe is not as far advanced as the US, and DTP's Hall confirmed growth has not been as quick as anticipated.
"It has been slower than expected, a bit like managed print," Hall said. "There is great intent, but it is a bit like horrible medicine - it doesn't taste very nice but you know it is good for you.
"It's the same with DaaS. The slow adoption has come from the client side a little bit, in terms of transactional buying and also from reseller side because it is something different to sell.
"Those two things have slowed adoption down a little bit, but we are starting to see a lot more interest and we're gaining a better understanding of how to position it."
Hall said that some in DTP's sales teams - particularly those used to making transactional deals - have struggled to adapt to DaaS selling.
However, they have started to see more success by drafting in the MPS sales teams.
"I wouldn't say we have closed a lot of deals, but that hockey stick approach is about to take off, I believe," he said.
"We are trying to combine the two - if you are already buying your managed print from us, why not buy your DaaS from us?"
It is clear that HP will continue to nudge its MPS partners towards DaaS, but it's also likely that it will look to gobble up market share inorganically.
In the run-up to its acquisition Apogee had been on an M&A spree across Europe, snapping up Balreed and Danwood in the UK, as well as a number of firms in mainland Europe.
Tuan Tran, who leads the HP business unit that is managing Apogee, said that the plan is to allow the print partner to continue its acquisitive strategy.
"We have kept them at arm's length and we want them to continue to grow. Their mission is to acquire partners and we want them to continue to be aggressive, to acquire and to grow through acquisition. Their mission is to build out a European network of channel partners," he said.
"Allowing them to do that gives us access to that channel."
The benefit for HP is that it plans to, in the long term, move all of Apogee's customers to HP. Tran claimed that this will benefit Apogee as much as it will benefit HP.
"Converting the install base over to HP will be something that gives them a competitive advantage and makes them more profitable," he explained.
"We will enable margins for them, over time, by winning new deals with HP devices. We're learning from them as we go into this space."
The best of the rest
The partners CRN spoke to in Houston all said that HP is further ahead than any other vendors in the race for DaaS supremacy - some suggesting by six months, and some suggesting by years. Softcat's Lawson said that a host of vendors have been in touch with the reseller regarding their own DaaS strategies, but he is sceptical as to whether they are creating genuine offerings.
"Other vendors say they have DaaS because they have seen what HP is doing, but all they have done is given us the option to put devices onto finance," he explained.
"We have shut the door on a number of them and been clear on why, because for us the real value is the analytics; the insightful information that we have never had before.
"Microsoft are looking at it, Dell are probably in second place, and you have Lenovo as well.
"HP are five steps ahead of everyone but they have to keep climbing. They can't stay still because there is a danger that once Softcat and other partners get there, we'll see so much value that if they're not moving fast enough we will use our own software and do it ourselves."