(Las Vegas, NV) October 4, 2018

BPO Media and The Data Spa are conducting a study to help distributors and their vendor partners move from siloed business systems and “spreadmarts” that provide simple descriptive analytics to a modern business intelligence infrastructure capable of generating advanced analytics and fundamental competitive advantages.

The study will examine advanced data collection, management, and analytics opportunities for dealers and their vendors across four key areas:

  • Sales & marketing
  • Support & field/managed services
  • Procurement & inventory
  • Customer workflow & usage

The office technology and managed services industry is entering an era where data-driven insights will be the foundation for competitive advantage. While dealers and MSPs have an unprecedented amount of data about their operations and customers, most of these distributors are lagging in their data management and analytics capabilities.

“Dealers and MSPs are sitting on a wealth of data that is growing every day,” noted Patricia Ames, president of BPO Media, “but they often don’t have the strategy, tools, and resources to generate deep insights and tap the value of their data.”

Common issues at most dealers and MSPs include:

  • Legacy business systems with incomplete, inconsistent, and unconnected data
  • Backward looking management reports based on spreadsheets with limited interactivity for filtering and drilling down to understand root causes
  • Generic industry benchmarks that don’t represent local market conditions or have accurate predictive power
  • No strategy or staff for developing and embedding advanced analytics into key business processes and customer relationships

Jeff Hayes, president of The Data Spa, commented, “In many cases it’s like management dashboards are stuck in the 1990s despite the fact we have smarter devices, access to cheap and essentially limitless storage and processing, and powerful business intelligence platforms and machine learning algorithms. Too many dealers and MSPs are unprepared and vulnerable.”

The study will also help vendors (including equipment OEMs, workflow ISVs and managed services platform providers, ERP and CRM vendors, and third-party supplies and financing companies) that sell to and through B2B distributors. The research will benchmark dealers, profile current data and insight tools and services, and describe opportunities for vendors to improve data collection and analysis capabilities in their products and reseller marketing, support, and training programs.

“The vendors can and should play a big role in helping their resellers generate data-driven insights to improve sales, margins, and customer services,” stated Ames. “We think it will become a critical function that dealers judge their strategic partners on.”

For more information on the study Data Management & Advanced Analytics: Creating Channel Advantages, contact [email protected] or [email protected].

About BPO Media

BPO Media is a publishing, research and marketing firm founded by industry veterans with decades of experience in the office technology and publishing industry. BPO Media’s arms include BPO Research, providing market research and consulting services; BPO Marketing, providing industry marketing solutions; and the Office Technology Group, which produces leading trade publications The Imaging Channel and Workflow. Find us at www.theimagingchannel.com and www.workflowotg.com.

About The Data Spa

Jeff Hayes is the co-founder and former President of InfoTrends (now Keypoint Intelligence). He has over 30 years of experience providing market research and strategy consulting for technology vendors, distributors, and service providers. He now leads The Data Spa, a data services agency that works with B2B vendors and distributors with complex, data-intensive operations. Find us at www.thedataspa.com.