Jim Hamilton is vice president of member communities at CompTIA.

Providing value to customers has long been a priority for SYNNEX Corp. in Fremont, Calif. One key strategy for doing so entails assisting integrator partners in expanding their solution portfolios. Managed print services (MPS) initiatives, supported by a vendor-agnostic Trustmark SYNNEX helped to develop, exemplify this strategy and play a key role here.

A leading business services process company, SYNNEX works with resellers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the U.S., Canada and Japan. In late 2005, management recognized the benefit of MPS in building annuity streams as well as in increasing the supplies-attached rate for resellers and distributors. At that time, management also realized that partnering with its solution provider customers to offer a turnkey MPS solution would enable SYNNEX to build stronger, more loyal relationships with them — and allow these customers, in turn, to forge the same caliber of relationships with end-users.

“MPS provides abundant upsell opportunities for our customers on products or solutions that might not be a part of their core offerings,” said TJ Trojan, senior vice president, product management. “End-users are generally printing less while integrating compliance, mobility, document management, security and workgroup printing solutions. These solutions, along with MPS, offer both growth and accretive margin opportunities for our partners in a print landscape that is seeing declining transaction print-related revenues.”

But while MPS delivered on its promise to SYNNEX and its partners from the time of its inception by the company, a few complications ensued. It became obvious to SYNNEX that solution provider customers’ definition and understanding of MPS differed from entity to entity. Such variety led to confusion not only at the solution provider level, but also among end-users. SYNNEX knew that creating industry standards for MPS would prove instrumental in alleviating this confusion and that its position as a leader in the MPS segment rendered it obligated to assist in any standards development endeavor. Accordingly, in 2010, the company began participating in the CompTIA MPS Community in 2010 and helping to bring the CompTIA Managed Print Services Trustmark to fruition.

SYNNEX itself earned the Managed Print Services Trustmark in December 2012. The Trustmark standardizes the code of conduct — ethics, customer relations and advertising — and business competencies needed to operate as an MPS provider, along with the business competencies required to manage and finance such an organization. The CompTIA Managed Print Services Trustmark also sets forth standards for individual sales skills necessary to position, sell and provide ongoing support of an MPS entity; as well as for individual skills needed to deliver agreed-upon MPS and continually support a deployed MPS. Although SYNNEX meets all of these standards, solution partners that want to associate their organizations with the company and earn themselves earn CompTIA’s Managed Print Services Trustmark can simplify the process by meeting the requirements pertaining to code of conduct, operational and managerial business competencies and sales skills.  

Validated Claims, Increased Credibility

Earning CompTIA’s Managed Print Services Trustmark has indeed benefitted SYNNEX in several ways and continues to do so, according to Trojan. Notably, it allows the company to stand out from the MPS crowd. “Due to the popularity of MPS, print-related service providers all claim that they provide managed print services,” Trojan said. “But the CompTIA MPS Trustmark is like an official stamp of approval that elevates SYNNEX as part of an elite group of MPS providers. It allows us to differentiate ourselves from our competitors,” which is critical given today’s business climate and the large number of MPS entities vying for their share of the market.

CompTIA’s Managed Print Services Trustmark also helps SYNNEX overcome one of its most significant MPS business challenges; helping its solutions provider partners to understand the right way to sell MPS, execute proper MPS objectives and meet the expectations of end-users. “The CompTIA Managed Print Services Trustmark affords SYNNEX the credibility and authority to meet such challenges,” Trojan said. “This credibility is especially important today, as end-users look to be more efficient with their printing practices.”

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