Michelle Ryder caught up with Catherine Kennedy, Sales and Marketing Director at Intuitive, to find out more about how channel partners can help customers make sense of their data, leverage print analytics as a sales tool, and the launch of IntuitiveDX dashboards.
Michelle Ryder (MR): Business intelligence is critical in today’s data- heavy world, but making sense of the data to inform decision-making is often challenging. Your offering is designed to simplify and improve the process
of delivering relevant and valuable information, can you explain your ‘data made clear’ approach?
Catherine Kennedy (CK): You’re absolutely right. Everybody is overwhelmed with data. But actually, making sense of that data to help decision-making can be challenging. There’s lots of talk around big data and data lakes, but at the end of the day, it boils down to the fact that there is a data overload. When we started back in 2011, we set out to create something that made it quick and easy for people to visualise the data within their business, to see at a glance what’s going on, and highlight which areas they need to focus on because there’s an issue there.
Our goal was to enable anybody to build a dashboard, get the data
and share it with stakeholders (via a web browser) so it could shape future decision-making. Another key point was to enable users to personalise actionable data, so for example, a CEO will require a top level overview/summary, whereas a team leader for a particular department may well want specific detail around their team’s activities.
MR: How and when did you begin to develop solutions for the print sector? CK: In 2016, one of our long standing partners were acquired by Konica Minolta, who had a vision of using data to enhance the service they were offering their customers.
The goal was to gain insight into a customer’s print infrastructure, for example to analyse service levels and how they are delivering against SLAs, or to identify any particular machines or types of machines that are creating issues. Our dashboards provide the high level information, but users can also click through into the detail very quickly as well – that helps to then drill right down to the root cause of a particular issue such as if one device breaks down frequently or is subject to more than average service call-outs for example.
What started out as an ad-hoc project quickly gained momentum, and we then proceeded to build BI solutions for PaperCut and SafeQ which firmly positioned us in the print sector.
MR: Can you explain how Intuitive dashboards can help resellers to increase the value of the data held in their systems.
CK: First and foremost, our dashboards provide channel partners with a powerful value-add upsell opportunity. If they’re already selling print management software such as PaperCut, it’s an easy add-on which provides customers with a much deeper understanding of how their printers and MFPs are being used, they can see where print demand is coming from, personalise reporting for different departments, budget holders or stakeholders, and more.
Additionally, what we are seeing more and more is that tenders are specifying management information as one of the core requirements,
so resellers have to make sure that capability is included in their proposals. The good thing about our dashboards is that they don’t demand expertise in data analytics, With traditional BI tools such as Microsoft Power BI, you have to build your own dashboards, which is time-consuming and does require a level of expertise that may be outside of print resellers’ skillset, with Intuitive – all of the data they need can be delivered out-of-the-box.
MR: Tell me more about Intuitive for PaperCut dashboards in particular.
CK: Intuitive for PaperCut MF dashboards enable customers or channel partners to harness the data stored within PaperCut MF print management software to manage and control print usage
and spending. The dashboards are pre-integrated, so there’s no long and complicated set-up involved.
Intuitive for PaperCut sits on the same server as the print management software, and it just works out-of-the- box. We’ve already done the hard work – in terms of the journey to deliver what information users need – including the views that different users will want to see, which metrics are important etc. so it is literally ready to go.
And that’s the value-add for channel partners, it’s something they can include in an MPS engagement upfront, at any point throughout the contract term, or on renewal. Introducing it as a new solution can present an opportunity to re-engage with an existing customer, and it can also be a differentiator in new business as well. Additionally, we have developed a solution for SAFE Q which works in the same way.
MR: You also offer solutions for business processes such as accounts payable automation, human resources, and finance budget management. Do these work in a similar way?
CK: Yes. When integrated with document management and
workflow automation software, such as DocuWare, Intuitive’s business
tools add a layer of transparency to automated processes, arming users with the visibility they need to uncover unknowns, prevent costly errors, and pre-empt bottlenecks.
Intuitive for DocuWare offers in- depth reporting on DocuWare’s end-to- end AP automation solution, in the form of three out-of-the-box dashboards. These pre-built, customisable dashboards give accounts payable teams the full picture of the invoice approval process, including workflow status updates and alerts, and access to invaluable data on staff and supplier performance. These powerful insights are displayed in user-friendly, visual dashboard reports which have been designed with the specific requirements of AP professionals in mind.
MR: Can dealers customise dashboards to fit individual customers’ requirements or are they all delivered out-of-the-box?
CK: Every solution comes with a designer licence. So, if a partner wants to do something else with their print data, for example, they’ve got a different view they want to see they can absolutely do that. We do have partners with professional services teams who tailor Intuitive dashboards as part of their customer engagements.
We offer online technical and sales training to get people up and running on our partner portal. But we can offer more deep dive technical training if partners really want to get more into the detail. Our accounts payable automation, human resources, and finance budget management solutions can also be further customised to customer requirements as part of the installation and scoping process. Outside of the print channel, we do have other resellers that have built dashboards and embedded them within their own solutions in areas such as property management, survey organisations and student services for example.
MR: You have just introduced Intuitive DX. Can you tell us more about that and how it can help resellers to differentiate their MPS offerings?
CK: We have seen an ongoing decline in print volumes and with hybrid
working here to stay, it’s becoming more challenging to maintain profitability in traditional print contracts. So, we developed our new dashboards for digital transformation – Intuitive DX – which enable channel partners to use customers’ data to sell new growth solutions around ECM and digital workflows.
With Intuitive DX our goal was to provide channel partners with a new way to navigate through a customer’s print and scan data and achieve a more powerful and deeper analysis of user behaviour.
Speaking to our partners we often find that once they’ve installed devices on say a three-year lease, other than service calls there are few openings to re-engage with customers until contract renewal time – and there will be other IT service providers in that account trying to spot opportunities.
Print and scan data can be a goldmine, and essentially, Intuitive DX can help partners differentiate and increase customer stickiness
by leveraging the data to open up new conversations around digital transformation and sell new solutions that will streamline customers’ business processes.
MR: What’s next for Intuitive?
CK: What’s next is Intuitive in the cloud. Currently we have dashboards for PaperCut MF and SAFEQ which are both on-premise.
We have dashboards for PaperCut Hive running in beta at the moment
and we’re planning to launch that offering commercially in September.
It will be a full multi-tenant cloud solution. We are also extending our working relationship with Y Soft to take advantage of some of their new cloud- based products following the acquisition of EveryonePrint.
Our other key focus area is developing a broader suite of solutions around DocuWare applications. https://weareintuitive.com
