From reactive support to smart services

As print infrastructure extends across multiple sites, home offices, and hybrid workplaces, maintaining oversight of device fleets has become significantly more complex. Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are under growing pressure to deliver reliable support while controlling costs and maintaining service quality.

At the same time, organizations are under pressure to monitor and secure expanding device networks against a backdrop of rising cyber threats. Recent research highlights the scale of this challenge, with 56% of organizations reporting a print-related data breach in 2024-2025.

Without timely insight into device health and performance, IT teams are forced into a reactive approach, responding to faults only after they disrupt workflows, and requiring engineer visits that could potentially have been avoided.

These pressures have accelerated the shift towards smart services. By combining intelligent monitoring, predictive insights, and AI-powered capabilities, partners can identify and resolve issues earlier, improve fleet reliability, strengthen security, and provide customers with greater visibility and control across increasingly complex print environments.

Why reactive support is no longer enough

Historically, service success was often measured by how quickly someone could arrive on-site to resolve an issue, with engineers responding when faults are reported and once disruption has already occurred.

These traditional service models built around reactive intervention are struggling to keep pace with how organizations operate today. Now, customers expect issues to be resolved quickly with minimal disruption and downtime, and for every connected device to be properly maintained to avoid faults in the first place.

For MSPs, relying solely on reactive intervention makes it more difficult to scale operations efficiently, maximize engineering resources, and maintain healthy service margins. Instead, long-term value increasingly depends on proactive service models that keep print ecosystems online.

For channel partners, the challenge is adapting.

How smart services are transforming support

Importantly, proactive smart services are not about removing engineers entirely from the process.

Across the channel, condition monitoring and remote access are allowing service teams to assess whether issues can be resolved remotely before allocating resources, while predictive monitoring helps identify components that are likely to fail, enabling preventative maintenance before disruption occurs.

The result is improved first-time fix outcomes, increased operational efficiency through greater uptime, and fewer unnecessary on-site visits, allowing engineering resources to be deployed more effectively.

For partners, this is enabling a shift from interrogating the customer to interrogating the device, ensuring partner-customer relationships are maintained, and ensuring engineers have the time to focus on resolving more complex issues and delivering effective long-term support.

Creating long-term value through smart services

Across the print channel, value is increasingly being demonstrated through services rather than hardware alone. The strength of a partner relationship is not defined by technology alone, but by the trust and expertise that support it over time.

As AI moves from experimentation to application, the real opportunity lies in practical deployment. The focus shifts from headline innovation to operational value that helps partners support customers more effectively.

Smart services are intended to sit within that space. Not as a silver bullet, and not as a standalone answer, but as a structured approach to making device support more intelligent, more connected, and more aligned with how businesses now operate.

In a market that is becoming more connected and more demanding by default, expanding customer relationships beyond reactive support is central for partners to strengthen long-term customer relationships and create sustainable recurring revenue opportunities through higher-value services.