Xerox hosted an analyst event in NYC this week, coinciding with their annual sponsorship of the US Open. After a nice evening of tennis, we started bright and early to hear about what they’ve been up to since our last briefing roughly a year ago.

VP John Corely kicked things off, discussing general opportunities where he sees MPS growing 10%, A4 color MFPs growing at 8% and entry color at 5%. Apparently there’s some good news from Xerox’s print group. Who knew! By 2017 2/3 of Xerox’s Technology revenue will come from Channel. This is a shift from the traditional direct revenue that had dominated Xerox for years.

According to John, “We have the best and broadest portfolio of technology and services in the industry. We have the best people. We’ve got an iconic brand. We have a huge catalog of services to provide to our channel partners.” We’re talking software, workflow and applications and it’s all targeted at building customer loyalty.

Xerox has 22,000 partners in 18 countries. They do 250k transactions a year and have 1,700 employees. A Global Partner program introduced in January was built to help bring partners into the fold, no matter where their abilities are. They do seem to have a lot going on.

This meeting coincides with a rebranding initiative announced just a few days ago. CMO John Kennedy discussed this attempt to rebuild the brand. “The Xerox brand has been in a state of perpetual evolution for many decades. I’m going to show you the next step.”

Here’s a new video they posted on YouTube of one of their new ads. Ironic, the social media king in this industry doesn’t actually let their people view YouTube in their own offices in NYC (we couldn’t pull it up until we left their WIFI).

https://youtu.be/jWTETDH2Jpc

John candidly discussed how strong the brand used to be. He wants to leverage that and frankly, it’s about time. There’s a reason people STILL call a copy a “Xerox.” They started this industry. But since the ACS acquisition, copy and print have seemingly become bad words (understatement). Maybe not to the people presenting today, but the whole industry had noticed Xerox’s focus shifted away from print to services to the point where the industry has wondered if Xerox was eventually leaving print altogether.

This is not a bad thing if you’re on the services side, but it’s a death knell for the technology group and it’s certainly taken its toll. Xerox runs EZ Pass. Xerox is huge in Healthcare billing systems. We get it. But we never hear about the copiers and printers and services built around them anymore. It’s almost as if Xerox was afraid to talk about their past. Like someone said print is going away, don’t talk about print. Well this isn’t Kodak and film. Print isn’t going away anytime soon and there’s still a lot of money to be made. Kennedy seems to understand that and is looking to evolve the brand while tying it back to its roots. Bravo!

What else is Xerox doing to become more competitive in the SMB space? There’s a strategic focus on MPS and Solutions for Channel/SMB, A4 and Supplies, Production and Innovation. They’re improving partner productivity through enablement, incentives and systems. They want to leverage the evolution of the Xerox brand to “take us beyond print.”

We are a growth engine for the organization. They’re apparently profitable and driving revenue. Can it outpace or offset the consistent losses we’ve seen over the last several years from the technology group? Certainly not where things are currently but perhaps these initiatives will help. MPS is experiencing double digit growth. “Machines in field, page potential, volumes – we’re seeing growth in the majority of most of our metrics that drive the P&L,” according to Corley.

Later in the morning, VP Toni Clayton-Hine talked about helping their partners make a difference. Toni sees opportunities in apps, cloud resources, mobile print and security. Well, so does each one of their competitors. So what makes them different? MPS, ConnectKey and personalization. Xerox’s turn-key MPS program may be the industry’s best. Analyst firm Quocirca’s most recent report seems to validate that, once again showing Xerox as the market leader.

Mobile printing really is an untapped opportunity. Xerox referenced that 83% of customers want it but only 14% have it. I’d wager more have it but don’t realize they have it, but it’s really the same thing in the end. The customer wants to print from their mobile device but doesn’t know how to. People now have as many documents (if not more) locked in their phone as they do on their work network.  Xerox wants to help people print these if they want to. No, users won’t print most of their documents but unlocking even a fraction of them will no doubt boost shrinking print volume.

The conversation around ConnectKey, Xerox’s app development program was a bit heated. There was a lot of dissatisfaction and confusion behind it’s rollout with many of the analysts in the room. However, there’s a ton of opportunity here. The presentation that followed was from Josh Justice of Southern Solutions, a Maryland Xerox dealer/Agent who has developed useful apps that are now being licensed by other Xerox channel partners. Not only is he using the ConnectKey workflow apps to sell his gear, he’s earning revenue through building and distributing his own within the Xerox ecosystem (over 10% of their recurring monthly revenue).

Finally, we saw some stuff under NDA that I can’t talk about but stay tuned, you’ll hear it here soon!

There is a lot going on with Xerox and those of you that think they’re becoming irrelevant in the SMB print world are going to be sorely mistaken. Xerox has a strategy and focus on this market and they’re quietly putting resources behind it. They’re not going away anytime soon.

~Andy