Staples announced the launch of a new business-to-business division focused on supplying services to organizations of all sizes–from small and medium businesses up to the enterprise. For the most part, these services are focused on the small and medium business problems, although in some areas (like printer fleet management) they will play in the enterprise space. IBM Global Services and HP‘s EDS unit are under no immediate threat, for now anyways.

Staples already has a great brand and reputation in the industry and probably already has some type of contract with, or does business with, a large portion of SMBs so this extension to offer additional services seems like a natural progression. I anticipate that most customers will at least to them and consider this offering. As long as the offering isn’t “high touch”–something that the business considers too important to outsource–many will consider it. Also, given that many organizations responded to last year’s economic situation by reducing staff, those same organizations may now require assistance to upgrade or maintain their IT environment. The Staples services are not internally developed “geek squads” on steroids, but rather the division is made up of several companies it acquired–each with defined and mature processes, methodologies, and a strong history of execution. Now they have the backing and support of a major organization like Staples to stand behind them.

Given that the US Census information indicates there are almost one million (993,000) companies with 20 to 499 employees and over 6 million companies with fewer than 20 employees, the opportunity is enormous. How much Staples is able to capture depends on how well it leverages its brand and executes.

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