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Last month in Shanghai, HP held a news conference to unveil its latest line of imaging and printing solutions - one of its broadest product launches ever into the Asia-Pacific market. These solutions, which include multifunctional printers, scanners and ancillary products like toners and photo paper, are geared to help large enterprise customers and small to medium-sized business (SMB) customers compete cost-effectively on quality.

While the new hardware grabbed much of the media headlines, the big news, the company says, was HP's emerging role as not only a manufacturer of innovative printing devices but also as an "innovative solutions partner" that can deliver tangible bottom line results.

This expanded role was conceived under a strategic vision HP launched last year dubbed "Print 2.0," targeted at corporate enterprise customers and SMBs. The objective of this strategy is to partner with customers to ensure they achieved maximum benefits not only from their printing equipment, but more importantly from their entire printing process.

"As market leader, HP is continuing to drive innovation across its core printing business in addition to providing greater value beyond the device. This ultimately allows SMB customers to improve their marketing effectiveness, increase productivity and better manage their business," said Herbert Koeck, vice president, commercial printing, imaging and printing group, HP Asia Pacific.

For SMBs, the company says the benefits of Print 2.0 include improved work flows, reduced costs and more professional in-house marketing.

"Our product innovations are targeted at managing cost and simultaneously improving quality," said Koeck. "We work with our customers to define and fill their needs, not just provide printing equipment."

During the Shanghai news conference, HP introduced more than 25 imaging and printing devices targeted at the SMB market segment, including new web-based printing tools, "dazzling" colour printers and an array of multifunctional printers aimed at producing affordable, professional marketing materials. The products were accompanied with demonstrations of how they benefited customers.

For the bigger corporate customers in HP's enterprise portfolio, Print 2.0 strategy means helping them gain the most benefit from the entire printing process over the lifecycle of the printers, rather than simply providing competitively priced printers and service contracts.

This involves "re-engineering" the printing process, where HP works with customers to design and manage the most cost-effective system of processing and printing information to meet their needs. First, HP begins by defining a customer's needs and auditing existing equipment. Next, it creates the most efficient, streamlined process to produce results. Finally HP recommends only the most suitable imaging and printing equipment. In the enhanced process, quality of output and speed of execution are enhanced.

How well is HP's Print 2.0 strategy working with enterprise customers?

Just ask Paul White, IT Print Services manager for 3M Company in Minneapolis Minnesota. Three years ago, 3M launched a process improvement program with HP to raise quality and cut costs of the office printing equipment worldwide. Within two years, 3M had reduced the number of printing devices by 47 per cent globally and saved more than $3 million (Bt100 million) in the US alone. No doubt these savings will rise as the programme expands globally.

"HP's expertise in defining our needs and evaluating the effectiveness of our current inventory or printers was invaluable," said White. "They were really experts in finding the opportunities to save costs and improve productivity."

Once HP had assessed 3M's current printing environment, they evaluated how it could be reconfigured to produce more cost-effective systems while enhancing performance and quality output.

Today, the consolidation of printers and simplification of printing process has eased the complexity and cost of equipment maintenance. And according to White, cost per printed page has decreased a dramatic 90 per cent from what 3M had been paying before.

Partnering with HP has been a "win-win" for both parties, said White. "There is nothing but up-side when we partner with vendors to achieve the same objective."

Larry Chao is the managing director of the Chao Group, a strategic organisation change and training boutique based in New York and Bangkok. (www.chaogroup.com)