Xerox CEO: Services Offer Payday for VARs

Xerox chairman and CEO Anne Mulcahy said the vendor will continue to drive revenue and growth through a services-led strategy with numerous opportunities for resellers.

Mulcahy told Channel Insider that there are numerous opportunities for VARs delivering services such as document management, digital imaging and environmental assessments, and that there's still room for growth in the MFP (multifunction printer) and color printing markets.

Mulcahy said in 2007 $3.4 billion of the vendor's revenue was generated through services, and that number represented 8 percent growth over the previous year.  She added that Xerox expected similar growth this year.

"We've already done a lot of the heavy lifting to transition our business to a services-led technology strategy," she said, "This is a strategy that's working." 

Xerox VARs can move beyond resale and break/fix of copiers and printers by offering document infrastructure management, enterprise content management and communications capabilities, and by automating document processing services for customers, she said.

The vendor's Docushare Enterprise Content Management software suite lets VARs offer a complete content management service for document-intensive industries such as healthcare, education and financial services, she said.  Resellers can also generate revenue through imaging service, such as digitizing and archiving paper-based documents for customers. 

Mulcahy also stressed that the printer and printing markets still offer growth and revenue opportunities for VARs.  She said that Xerox generates 39 percent of its revenues from color printing, the most profitable printing area.  VARs stand to gain by helping customers upgrade older machines to color, or by offering full-service print management for customers' color printing needs

Don't count out MFPs, either, said Mulcahy, even though they've matured.  She said that MFPs can bring productivity, cost and efficiency gains to SMBs, and that VARs' ability "to offer the ability to copy, scan, print and fax on a single machine is a great value proposition." 

Mulcahy also stressed Xerox's focus on green technology and business processes and added that providing services such as environmental impact assessments can generate revenue.  She said VARs could not only help their customers go greener, but reducing energy and waste could also lower their costs and improve efficiency.