Lexmark’s DNA Tests The Market

Lexmark, trying to move on its blueprint for a document and workflow consulting business, is offering solution providers an assessment tool to evaluate customers’ production costs.

The Lexington, Ky.-based maker of printers and multifunction products said its Document Needs Assessment (DNA) consulting tool, which was rolled out earlier this year, is available to partners who complete online training and want a new assessment offering to their lineup.

“It’s a partner-led, professional services offering,” said John Linton, vice president of solution provider channels at Lexmark. “We give them all the tools, [and] we provide them all the experience we have in a vertical market.”

The DNA offering assesses document workflow costs in a variety of vertical markets. Lexmark said earlier this year it would work with VARs in the lucrative and emerging space for document consulting, where it will compete with Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, Calif., and Xerox, Stamford, Conn.

“The output [of the assessment tool] is a customer-focused document,” Linton said. “It’s a document for the end customer that would show the customer what their current [document workflow] environment is, and costs associated with their current output environment.”

Mike King, a sales manager at Dove Data, a Florence, S.C.-based Lexmark partner, said his company took part in the pilot program. The DNA tool, he said, worked so well it helped his company close one deal with an Atlanta-based health-care provider for between 17 and 35 new units. The assessment report is essentially a plug-and-play data analysis tool that provides a clean, understandable report after clients are asked a series of questions, he said.

“It was a great opportunity, and a tool that could be used by just about everybody,” King said. While Linton said the DNA tool is such that solution providers can perform an assessment and consulting service, as well as add billable hours, King said he will employ it as a means of winning over clients. “This will be more of a tool to help me close business.”