Lexmark hands channel cloud print management option

Lexmark is rolling out its Cloud Print Management (CPM) offering to the channel after the service proved successful with enterprise customers.

Resellers will be able to offer customers per-device, per-month pricing and share real-time analytics to provide insights that can help them improve how the print estate is used.

The vendor is also underlining the security aspects of the system and encouraging partners to use it as part of a document and device protection pitch that turns printing into one of the strongest links in the workflow process.

Martin Fairman, UK and Ireland managing director at Lexmark, said the decision to open CPM up to partners would benefit resellers and a customer base that was increasingly looking for flexible cloud services.

“There are huge advantages for channel partners as they can start to embrace cloud technology,” he said.

The majority of customers are looking at digital transformation, and with the current remote working boom as a result of the Covid-19 coronavirus, many are also looking at trying to manage a disparate printing estate.

“A lot of customers are talking about cloud and digital transformation, and off-prem, and how that works with a lot of historical services,” said Fairman. “We are making it accessible.”

He said Lexmark had been using the CPM programme in the US to get things established, and had made sure the security was robust before taking it to the channel as a proposition.

“We have got to make sure it is absolutely secure when it goes into the cloud and it enables a partner to have an easy conversation with customers,” he said.

Lexmark will be making CPM available to its entire partner base, including the IT dealer channel and those that have come from an A3 copier background.

Given the current restrictions on events, the vendor is using its online learning and marketing tools to get resellers genned up on CPM and ready to take it out to market.

“A lot of education is being done around the market. Education is key to making a success of this and we have invested a lot,” added Fairman. “We are spending more money than ever before with dealers.”

Fairman added that it was also being open-minded about welcoming fresh blood into the partner network if CPM attracts some new managed service providers.

“We are always looking for new partners and new opportunities in the market. If a new partner wants to come on board, we can do that,” he said.

The CPM offering comes just shy of two months since Lexmark made the decision to bring all of its channel activities under one umbrella, launching the Connect global partner programme.

Bringing everything into a single programme was designed to give the vendor more opportunities to reward and support partner growth, and was built on efforts that started back in 2017 to ramp up the focus on the small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) market using the channel to deliver into that customer base.