Johannesburg, 13 Jun 2012
Lexmark plans to increase its software and solutions offering as it adapts to market changes.
This is according to Kyle Farmer, GM for Lexmark Enterprise Sales in EMEA, who says the company will increase its focus on solutions, so that these make up 50% of its offering, up from the current 30%. He adds that the company's goal is to derive revenue not only from hardware, but also from software.
To illustrate the need to evolve Lexmark as a company, Farmer uses Kodak as an example of an organisation that did not respond quickly enough to market changes. He argues that, in contrast, Lexmark recognises that the print industry is evolving and is responding to this.
According to Farmer, changes in the industry include some businesses moving to 'printless' models as well as businesses looking for document management solutions.
Farmer also points out that while the printing market is not experiencing growth, managed services is. Last year, managed services grew between 15% and 20%, according to IDC. Farmer adds that Lexmark grew its managed services 42% in the EMEA region, and 30% globally.
According to Farmer, Lexmark's investments into managed print services over the past 11 years will set the foundation for the company to evolve, increasing its software and solutions offering to complement its hardware offering.
In line with its strategy to grow its solutions offering, Lexmark has also spent the past two years acquiring software companies, Farmer says. These include Perceptive Software, a digital content management system; Pallas Athena, business process optimisation software; Brainware, intelligent document capture software; Isys, an enterprise search engine; and Nolij, an enterprise content management system for education.
Farmer argues that these acquisitions have allowed it to add data management solutions as well as data analysis to its offering. He explained that when companies capture information, they must also analyse and classify it, for example through character recognition, before putting it into the workflow process.
Farmer suggests that the success of companies will depend on how they manage the mass of data currently available. More specifically, he says the challenge is for companies to be able to provide data at the right time and in the right context. According to him, 80% of data is unstructured, with 90% of data not managed. He says this means there is an opportunity in the marketplace to help companies capture, access and manage this information.
Share