Why are copier companies offering IT services now?

Declining print volumes and leveling equipment sales have pushed office technology dealers to diversify into adjacent revenue streams. Industry data shows a large majority of office technology dealers have already expanded into services like managed IT as a way to offset the shrinking print business.

Is it safe to get IT support from a copier company?

It depends on how the dealer built its IT offering. Some office equipment companies have made a genuine, sustained investment in dedicated network and security staff. Others offer a thinner version, either using existing print technicians for IT tickets or subcontracting monitoring and support to a third-party platform under their own branding. Asking direct questions about staffing, response times, and security depth is the best way to find out which applies.

What questions should I ask before trusting a vendor with my company's IT?

Ask whether IT support is their core business or an add-on, who actually monitors the network and answers support calls, what their documented response time commitment is, what security tools are included beyond basic antivirus, how often backups are tested with an actual restore, and whether they have direct experience handling a live security incident.

What is commonly missing when IT support is a secondary offering from another type of business?

Common gaps include vague or undocumented response time commitments, thin security coverage beyond basic antivirus, backups that are never actually tested with a restore, and limited firsthand experience handling live incidents such as ransomware or business email compromise.

Advanced IT Support • Managed IT Services • Jacksonville, FL

Why Your Copier Company Shouldn’t Be Your IT Company

Print vendors and dedicated IT providers solve very different problems, even when they’re selling under the same invoice

Quick AnswerMany copier and office equipment dealers have added managed IT services to their offerings as print volumes decline, with industry data showing a large majority of dealers have already expanded into adjacent services. The problem is that cybersecurity, backup management, and network monitoring require dedicated expertise a business built around copier leases and toner contracts often can’t provide at the same depth as a company whose entire focus is IT.

A lot of businesses are paying their copier company for IT support without ever having made that decision on purpose. It happened gradually: the same rep who sold the copier lease mentioned they could handle your network too, it seemed convenient to consolidate vendors, and now your cybersecurity is riding along with your toner contract. This post covers why that’s worth a second look, and what actually separates a real managed IT provider from a print vendor offering IT as a bolt-on.

This isn’t a claim that every office equipment dealer offering IT services does a bad job. Some run genuinely capable, well-staffed IT divisions. But there’s a structural reason to be cautious about the arrangement, and it’s worth understanding before your network security ends up being a side offering from a business built around something else entirely.

Why Copier Companies Are Selling IT Services Now

The office equipment industry has a straightforward business problem: print volume keeps declining as offices go digital, and equipment sales have leveled off. The traditional model of placing more copiers and billing for pages printed has a shrinking ceiling. Managed IT services looked like a natural way to diversify into a new, growing revenue stream, and industry-wide, dealers have moved into it at scale.

72% of office technology dealers have expanded into adjacent markets like IT services

$54B+ size of the managed print services market in 2026, pushing dealers to diversify further

None of that is inherently a problem. Businesses adapt to changing markets all the time. But it matters how a company got into IT services, because it shapes what they actually invested in to do it well.

IT Security Isn’t a Bolt-On

A copier technician is trained to service printers, copiers, and multifunction devices. That’s a real, specific skill set built over years of working with that equipment. It is not the same skill set required to monitor a network for intrusion attempts, configure endpoint detection, respond to a ransomware incident, or manage backup verification across a business’s entire environment.

When a print-focused company adds “managed IT” to its service menu, one of two things typically happens. Either the company makes a serious, sustained investment in hiring dedicated network and security engineers and builds a genuine IT division, which some larger dealers have done. Or the IT offering gets built more thinly: existing technicians get some additional training and start fielding IT tickets alongside their print service calls, or the actual monitoring and help desk work gets quietly subcontracted to a third-party platform and sold under the dealer’s own branding.

Worth asking directly

If your copier company handles your IT, ask who’s actually monitoring your network and answering your support calls. In some arrangements, it’s an in-house team the dealer built and trained. In others, it’s a subcontracted platform operating behind the dealer’s name, with the dealer sales rep somewhere between you and whoever is actually watching your systems. Neither answer is automatically disqualifying, but you should know which one you’re getting.

What Tends to Get Missed

When IT is a secondary offering rather than the core business, a few things consistently show up as gaps.

Response time commitments are vague. A copier service call being a day or two out is a minor inconvenience. The same delay for a network outage or a suspected security incident is a business emergency. A company whose service culture was built around print maintenance timelines doesn’t always translate that urgency correctly to IT issues.

Security depth is thin. Basic antivirus and a firewall might be included, but layered protection, endpoint detection and response, email filtering built for business email compromise, dark web credential monitoring, requires ongoing investment and expertise that a bolt-on IT division may not have prioritized.

Backup verification gets skipped. Setting up a backup is easy. Verifying it actually restores, on a schedule, is where a lot of thinner IT offerings fall short, because it requires ongoing attention rather than a one-time setup.

Incident response experience is limited. Handling a live ransomware attack or a business email compromise incident requires having actually done it before. A team whose primary daily work is print equipment and basic help desk tickets often hasn’t built that specific experience.

Related: What Your IT Company Should Be Doing (But Probably Isn’t) Proactive monitoring, documented SLAs, and layered security are the baseline for any IT provider, regardless of what else they sell. This checklist covers what to expect and the questions worth asking. Read the full checklist here.

Questions Worth Asking Before You Trust Anyone With Your Network

Is IT support your core business, or is it something added alongside another product line?
Who specifically monitors our network and answers support calls, your own team or a subcontracted platform?
What’s your documented response time for a critical issue, in writing?
Can you walk us through your security stack beyond basic antivirus, including endpoint detection, email filtering, and MFA?
How often are our backups tested with an actual restore, not just confirmed as running?
Have you personally handled a live ransomware or business email compromise incident, and what did that look like?

None of these questions are unfair to ask any provider, including a copier company offering IT services. How comfortably and specifically they answer tells you a lot about whether IT is a genuine core competency or a convenient add-on to a different business.

Related: Locally Owned, Not Venture-Backed: What That Actually Means for Your IT Support This is part of a broader theme worth understanding before choosing any IT provider: what a company’s core business and ownership structure actually mean for the support you’ll receive. Read the full piece here.

Consolidating Vendors Is Convenient. Convenience Isn’t the Right Test.

The appeal of a bundled arrangement is obvious: one invoice, one relationship, one fewer vendor to manage. That convenience is real, and for very small, low-risk environments it may be a reasonable tradeoff. But for most businesses, the actual test shouldn’t be how many vendors you can consolidate onto one bill. It should be whether the company protecting your network and your data does that as their primary, dedicated focus, staffed and built for it specifically, rather than as a secondary offering riding alongside a different core business.

Your copier company being good at copiers doesn’t tell you anything about whether they’re good at stopping ransomware. Those are separate questions, and they deserve separate answers.