Getting Inside the Mind of Your Target Market

In reality, that there are only a few people who need to know about your business. Your target market needs to know who you are, what you do and how they can benefit.

In the case of a Managed Print Services business, the targets you are after are not a secret. Your target is the top financial decision maker in companies with 50+ printers, or 50+ employees. The top financial decision maker in a company of this size is typically the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). If the company does not have a CFO, other similar positions could include: Vice President of Finance, Controller or Finance Manager.

As we think about attacking this target market, the important question becomes: “What is important to a CFO?

What Makes a CFO Tick?
While CEO’s and Presidents tend to lean toward driving more revenue, CFO’s are typically concerned about protecting the revenue that comes into the company. As such, they see themselves as the guardians of expenses.

CFO’s face a tremendous amount of pressure to control overhead expenses. With a competitive market place putting strains on gross profits, a company must control their overhead to be able to bring results to the bottom line. Add to that the growing costs as the impact of high energy costs ripples through the economy with higher shipping, increased travel and overall inflation and you begin to realize that CFO’s face a tremendous challenge.

Strategic Cost-Reduction Initiatives
It is important to consider how CFO’s go about reducing costs. They look for strategic initiatives to make big-picture impact on the cost structure of their organization. Unlike the purchasing function that lives based on the lowest price, most CFO’s realize that expense reduction goes beyond the lowest cost. Often thinking more strategically, CFO’s consider the impact of a change on the total system.

Following are a few ways that a CFO could think about cost reduction that go beyond just a lower price.

Vendor Consolidation
The more vendors and organization has, the more costs they incur in managing vendor relationships and processing invoices. Vendor consolidation is a common strategy to streamline the accounts payable function. Your HP IPG value proposition is a strong play into vendor consolidation since you offer the best single source for printers and multifunction systems.

• Outsourcing
  The most expensive component of any business is human resources. Companies do not want to add people if they do not need to. A CFO will only want to approve a new position if it is directly related to the core functions of the company. If something is not related to the core functions of the company they will want to find a partner to outsource the work to. Most companies outsource non-core functions like janitorial services, delivery or benefits. A managed print services relationship allows them to outsource the management of output devices. This frees up their IT staff to focus on core initiatives and may keep them from needing to add more personnel in the IT department.
   
• Process Improvement
  Paper and digital documents are the key vehicles by which information flows through business processes. When you can streamline the flow of information you make a company’s core processes more efficient. This automation results in lower costs. Working in the financial world, most CFO’s realize the drag of outdated, paper-intensive processes. When you can show them how your HP solutions can help integrate paper into their workflow, you demonstrate your ability to help strategically reduce costs.
   
• Access Control/Management
  A common saying by CFO’s is “If it can’t be measured, it can’t be managed.” When it comes to printing and copying, most companies have no control over usage. This becomes even more of a problem as color usage becomes more common. CFO’s like the ability to monitor and manage expenses and will be open to color cost control strategies.

Strategic Risk-Reduction Initiatives
While CFO’s care about cost, they are also care about risk. As you sell and market to CFO’s, here are are a few ways that you can bring risk-reduction into the conversation.

Compliance
If the company is publicly traded, they fall under the oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Sarbanes Oxley (SOX). Intended to curb corporate accounting scandals, SOX requires that CFO’s personally sign off on their company’s financial statements. They can be held personally liable for errors. This is driving companies to make sure they are keeping accurate records of each transaction. The scanning features on HP MFP’s and the associated document capture solutions provide a critical component to bring this information into searchable archives.

• Audits
  Similar to SOX compliance issues, most CFO’s are audited by some external organization. Auditors are typically looking for information. When you can help a company create a searchable archive of their scanned paper information you help streamline the audit process and reduce the risk that information cannot be found.
   
• Security
  Information security is important to CFO’s that realize the value of corporate secrets. While much attention is paid to network security, most organizations have no way to control what is printed or copied. Since most information thefts come through internal employees, this is a problem. You can help a CFO enhance the security of their information by providing a secure printing and copying environment.
  
  
• Legal Risk Reduction
  Businesses often loose lawsuits because the cannot produce information to substantiate their innocence. New Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) also mandate that organizations be able to produce electronic records in a lawsuit. You can help a CFO reduce legal risks by creating an electronic document management system to store their critical information in a format that can be easily recalled during a lawsuit.