ACDI’s and PSIGEN’s Leaders Discuss Impact of Partnership on Dealer Channel
Top: Josh Lane and Glenn Johnson celebrate their new partnership together at The Cannata Report’s 33rd Annual Awards and Charities Dinner last month in the New York Metropolitan area.
With the “Best Software & Services Provider” Frank Award in hand, Lane, along with Hart, celebrates his team’s third consecutive victory back at the PSIGEN table.
On August 28, 2018, ACDI and PSIGEN Software, Inc. signed a distribution agreement for ACDI to distribute PSIGEN’s software solutions, including its flagship document management and capture product PSIcapture. Considering ACDI’s success distributing Papercut software, this seemed like a good move for both companies, and by all accounts, so far so good.
Recently, The Cannata Report connected with Glenn Johnson, president of PSIGEN Software and Josh Lane, president of ACDI to gain a better understanding of what this means to ACDI and PSIGEN, but even more importantly, what it means to the independent dealer channel.
Johnson makes a strong case for why PSIGEN is partnering with ACDI, part of his argument buoyed by personal experience.
“I’ve known these people,” he said. “I used to buy Papercut through them and they do very clean, ethical business. For me the decision was simple because of the integrity of the company.”
He also views the PSIGEN products, particularly PSIcapture as complementary to Papercut, a solution that tracks prints and allows users to reduce their print volumes.
“When Papercut is installed, people are saving money by reducing the prints, or at least knowing what they spend [on prints], explained Johnson. “In my world I’m successful when organizations reallocate that money to other technologies such as capture or document management. [Those technologies] flow very well together.”
ACDI’s extensive dealer network is another plus.
“We expect greater exposure because the dealer market is in every vertical you could imagine,” stated Johnson.
Because of that, PSIGEN can now potentially expand the number of SLA’s (software license agreements) for its products while dealers now have access to another revenue stream. As Johnson explained, this new revenue stream can either be recurring or the dealer can finance the software. Dealers also benefit from the maintenance agreement on the software, which Johnson noted is highly profitable.
For ACDI this partnership allows the company to leverage its strengths as a distributor with PSiGEN’s strengths as a software developer.
“We’re good at sales and service and when we looked at potential capture and document management products, we wanted a partner that was very intelligent, and that designed sophisticated, smart, applicable solutions that fit our channel. Compared to some of the other [companies] we spoke with, PSIGEN was more technical and has the infrastructure to support a channel as wide as ours.”
ACDI distributes Papercut in the U.S., Canada, and Latin America and PSIGEN’s products will be available in all those markets via ACDI.
Unlike Papercut, which is more plug and play, PSIGEN’s solutions require a certain level of expertise to use, install, and service, which is another benefit of partnering with ACDI because ACDI has that technical expertise.
“Whether it’s PSIcapture or Papercut, within our professional services team, we have the capability to deploy that whether it’s an enterprise or SMB deal,” said Lane who also noted that ACDI is a PSIGEN user and will be using that first-hand user experience when making case in the field for PSIcapture.
Johnson touts PSIGEN’s cost-plus model for its software.
“There is no MSRP,” said Johnson. “Whatever a customer is willing to pay in New Jersey to solve a business problem may be very different from what they’re willing to pay in Phoenix, Arizona. Unlike the copier model, where it’s a retail minus mentality, software is a cost-plus mentality and that’s appealing to ACDI.”
Whether it’s replacing an existing document management/capture program a dealer is selling, offering an additional option with capture, or bringing a document management/capture solution to a dealer for the first time, Lane sees a boatload of opportunity.
“It’s not just document management,” he explained. “If you want an electronic file you can probably get that anywhere. We’re leading with capture, and PSIcapture connects to almost any document repository our industry is used to. It’s completely agnostic. That’s going to be a differentiator from many of the other capture products.”
ACDI’s existing relationships with dealers and the trust it has within the channel is something that Lane views as an asset as well. “That’s what we want to apply with this product and integrate it further with Papercut. We’ve got the input and output covered with the two products.”
The plan is to create a product suite for dealers to help their end customers move from paper to digital.
Lane acknowledged that some dealers are working with one vendor for document management and one for capture.
“We can potentially become the provider of choice and consolidate that,” said Lane. “Now they become more streamlined, more consistent in pricing, quoting, assisting, and configuring.”
At press time the partnership was only into its third month and Lane reported that much of this time has been spent on joint training sessions and jointly attending industry events. There’s also been a few early sales with the two organizations jointly onboarding dealers who have taken on the product.
Both companies will be highly visible at industry events in 2019, including ITEX, AIIM, the Microsoft SharePoint Conference, and maybe even some of the BTA regional events that ACDI participates in.
The agreement with ACDI is for 18 months but both Johnson and Lane emphasized this is only the beginning of what portends to be a long and fruitful relationship.
“It’s a very pleasant relationship and we expect it to continue for a long, long time because the synergies fit together real well,” said Johnson.
“I am very optimistic about the opportunity and if we could provide a complex product in a simple way that serves the needs of end customers and gives our dealers the ability to win more business, we should do okay,” added Lane. “We want to be the customer facing aspect for PSIGEN and back their support up as far as the implementation, the training, and configuration. That’s where our team excels, and this allows us to have another product that can not only be standalone but complement our flagship product Papercut.”
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