A little more than a year ago, I interviewed Deb Stranaghan who had joined Kodak from Accenture to evolve Kodak’s MarketMover beyond the deployment of NexPress digital presses and directly-associated business development services. Now it seems that Kodak is retrenching, refocusing its efforts on selling, servicing and supporting its digital printing engines. At the same time, its Rochester competitor Xerox continues to beef up its services offerings while still indicating that there is no intent to abandon its equipment business.

I found this reported shift in strategy interesting, especially in light of the fact that as our market continues to evolve and consolidate, print service providers of all types find themselves seeking revenue streams to augment print, and many of them are turning to professional and data-related services as a higher margin, increased value-add option for growing customer loyalty, as a door-opener for acquiring new customers, and more. In fact, many printers I have spoken to have indicated that they no longer lead with print, but point out that these services, in addition to differentiating them in the market, draw print revenue along with them.

As of this writing, Kodak has declined to be interviewed for this article.