Xerox as part of an effort to rely on partners to drive adoption of document management solutions that include output devices is gearing up to create turnkey application templates aimed at vertical industries for partners to sell.
Xerox has already developed a series of solution templates for the healthcare industry. In the coming year Xerox will expand that portfolio to target additional vertical industries, says Kevin Warren, the chief commercial officer for Xerox.
Over the past year, Xerox has been encouraging partners to develop workflow applications based on a set of open application programming interfaces (APIs) it has exposed around its devices. Thus far Xerox and its partners have developed 50 applications, which Warren says Xerox plans to make available to its channel partners via an online store.
“We compete with hardware,” says Warren. “But we win with apps.”
Those applications include a language translation service intended to facilitate international business. Also, Xerox has made available security products developed by McAfee and Cisco to better secure output devices to its partner base as well. Security is now a much bigger part of the buying criteria for output devices, adds Warren.
To that end, Xerox has also filed patents for a records system based on blockchain technologies that promise to provide better security for electronic documents.
Warren says Xerox has certified 64 partners to expand its footprint among small-to-medium businesses (SMB). Last year the company added 29 products to its portfolio that are specifically aimed at SMB customers.
Additionally, Warren notes Xerox expects those devices to drive up demand for managed document services among that class of customers as well. Demand for managed document services is increasing at a rate of six percent annually, which Warren says compares to a one percent growth rate in the enterprise. Obviously, Xerox has a much bigger installed base in the enterprise that is driven mainly by its direct sales force. But for the company to continue to meet aggressive growth targets expanding its reach into the SMB sector has become pivotal.
To facilitate that shift Warren says Xerox has been training partners on how to enable customers to build, deploy, and manage applications that help drive digital business transformation opportunities: such as converting paper-based forms into mobile applications. Xerox wants customers to start thinking about output devices as voice-enabled digital assistants, says Warren.
It’s unclear to what degree Xerox and its partners can drive digital business transformation. But given how much organizations still rely on paper-based processes devices, such as printers, it may turn out to be as good a place to start as any.
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