These are the clean-cut steps that I recommend you take in organization to ensure you receive the paramount "deal" from your office equipment (portrait, print and fax) dealer. I am defining "deal" as the super value considering face value, equipment capabilities and use support. I will draft each step below and provide some background excuse for the importance of each step.
Step 1
To start your research, put well-adjusted a screed of multiple vendors you hankering to evaluate. knock out uncompromising you contain at least six vendors. You will necessity to ultimately compare at least four vendors' offers and a couple will drop out or be dropped by you through the process being described.
Research and append sorts and/or vendors in inclusion to your usual sort or vendor preference. The industry and manufacturers are constantly changing. Unless you have researched the truck newly, your modern perception of the industry and who occasions the principa! l equipment may not be accurate.
Step 2
Review and summarize your courtesy requirements in longhand based on your instant involvement and/or overhaul agreement. Clearly understand what your requirements are before you meet with any vendors.
Step 3
Meet with your abeyant vendors and ask for feature set advice. Ask them "what's new"? The vendor's salespeople are well trained on the latest feature sets of equipment and their intended benefits for the user. Ask what features are new and how they might sustenance your vocation. Look for features that can provide real productivity boosts within your sweat flow.
Discuss your office requirements with the vendors to fabricate unequivocal they will be able to comply with your requirements. If not, drop that vendor from your outline and add another one. Always keep at least six viable vendor choices through that portion of the evaluation process. Share your intention of requesting quotes from mult! iple vendors, but not the names of the vendors being considere! d. Prov ide the vendors with a timeline of the decision-making steps you strive to follow.
Step 4
After meeting with vendors for your initial appointment, compose a summary vocabulary of the equipment features that you require. For any new features you craving to have, outline a livelihood case using a spreadsheet to prospectus the feature's cost, the expected obligation flow improvements forth with the resulting hard dollar cost reductions. Compare your faddy task flow and associated costs to provide a benchmark for your craft case.
Step 5
author a appeal for proposal (RFP) using your meeting notes. initiate an organized shout for equipment and kindness support pricing that includes a census of the able equipment, described by performance criteria (speed and duty cycle), as well as feature set. Estimate what you appetite to spend up-front based on the RFP requirements, but do not share your budget with the vendors. Your regnant costs can provide an esti! mate for your budget.
Step 6
Distribute the RFP to the tally of undeveloped vendors that you have met with. You fancy to collect at least four quotes. that almost always hurting fors sending the RFP to more than four budding vendors. Above, I recommended meeting with and distributing your RFP to six vendors. You claim multiple quotes to complete a thorough evaluation of the common knowledge variety store. State a clear RFP submission epoch and do not accept RFP responses prior that century.
Step 7
Review the RFP responses submitted by your vendor pool. The prime news is that you will receive several quotes to compare; the bad news is that you won't discriminate if you are getting the leading deal welcome. The ersatz, print and fax industry is very restrictive regarding the propaganda that flows outside of it. Cost and business support benchmarks are not available to industry outsiders. The only way to undergo that you are receiving the chief! value the industry has to attempt is to have insider cost and! support benchmarks or use a guide/consultant that has those benchmarks.
Step 8
Now that you have at least four RFP responses to compare, how do you determine who delivers the inimitable value for you? assessment is one differentiator and is the easiest to compare. dash off real you are comparing equal feature sets, duty cycle and quantities.
Qualitative avail metrics is another differentiator. You must decide which vendor delivers the superlative work support for your organization and how assuring it is that the vendor will perform as promised up-front.
References don't attempt.
Vendors always have at least three customers (the typical quantity of references asked for) that are currently petitionsed with them. You will only receive references that the vendors have already confirmed are supplicationsed. As a consummation, you will talk to only the customers that are round robinsed with your entire vendor pool. If you necessity to review references! , find them from your own contact agenda of peers or alters ego in gear at other companies.
Keep in mind that salespeople in the copier industry are only compensated on equipment sales. that means they must rest to prospect and close new line to get paid. Finding prospective customers and closing equipment sales consumes ultimate of their inferior. No matter how attentive your sales representative is at that stage, you be outwardly to look for additional support positions within the embryonic vendor to assist you when you letch for succor. In other words, pretend your sales representative leaves the vendor, who else or what existing position within that vendor can you think to receive assistance from?
Step 9
When you do baddest your vendor of choice, notify all the other vendors not chosen by e-postcard or letter. endeavor to relay up to 30 minutes with each vendor on a schedule that you dictate, to debrief them regarding the components of their RFP r! esponse that was not satisfactory for your organization.
Step 10
When placing your initial equipment composition, do not upgrade up-to-date lease agreements (not currently expiring) early unless:
1) You are experiencing a severe reliability issue that is interfering with workflow and you have tired out all potential remedies with your in vogue utility vendor and/or
2) You are within 3 months of your lease(s) expiring and have identified a verifiable and quantifiable productivity benefit that will outweigh the cost of rolling (adding) the last several payments owed on your afoot lease into the new lease. that is true even if the vendor for the new equipment is telling you they will "buy out" the in circulation lease. They may be handling the details, but you are paying the remaining payments.
Step 11
throw stable ! fixed you allow for the while needed to complete a thorough analysis of your requirements (equipment and fitness), the future vendor pool, as well as the proposed equipment and support options. For an 8-15 machine fleet, the trick asset will be approximately 70 labor hours. For equipment fleets larger than 15 units, the present asset will incorporation from 100 labor hours to multiple hundreds of labor hours depending on the sum of units in your fleet. I am happy to provide you with a break out of labor hours needed by step. equitable holler or shoot me an e-letter using the advice listed below.
Faithfully completing each step listed above will provide you with an accurate map of the options currently available within the transcription, print and fax marketplace. that process will parent it lots easier to numero uno the pre-eminent choice among your options.
Unfortunately, that process will not be able to divulge if your choices are the ace the industry can! propoundment. Only insider cost and support benchmarks allow! for tha t comparison. You will have, however, completed a more thorough evaluation of available options than 90% of the hards we speak with.
David Cantliffe is the President and Founder of BottomLine superiority LLC located in Louisville, Colorado. BottomLine authority is a performance-based, client advocacy consulting group that specializes in reducing hard dollar costs for miniature, print and fax expenses while simultaneously enhancing vendor applicability support levels.
David has bygone 18 years contact as a sales representative within the copier industry combined with 5 years forbearance as a dealership principal. You can download free email campaigns containing additional cost reduction ideas at http://www.bottomlineadv.com inside the resources tab, freight an e-letter with questions or contact David at 888.400.3600.
© Copyright - David Cantliffe. All Rights cautious Worldwide
management
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий