MFP Copier Blog

Sponsored by

December 13th, 2021

Arcoa Group

Why partnering with ARCOA makes sense
Electronics Recycling is an important and profitable part of the IT asset lifecycle, but it can be overwhelming with all you already do, varying state regulations, and the limited resources at hand. That’s where ARCOA comes in. When you partner with ARCOA, you get all the benefits of a big company without any of the capital investment. We’ve been doing this since 1989 and have the expertise, certifications, and nationwide resources to get the most for all your clients’ retired IT assets. Plus, positioning your clients as environmental stewards not only elevates their appeal to consumers, it meets government requirements and avoids fines.

What partnering with ARCOA looks like
Our role is to make it easy for you to bring more value to your clients. We work with you to help stretch your clients’ IT budget by reducing the total cost of ownership of their electronics. We’re experts at identifying and implementing the solutions your clients need for the end-of-use remarketing, recovery, and recycling of their technology assets. The sooner you involve ARCOA, the sooner you and your clients will see better results.

CSP Inc. Reports Fiscal 2021 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Results; Quarterly and Annual Gross Margin Continued to Expand

• services revenue grew 27%
• quarterly and annual gross margin of 41.7% and 32.8%, respectively
• year-end backlog reached $13 million demonstrating solid customer demand for products and services
• Recorded a one-time $465,000 gain in the fourth quarter from release of escrow money from the sale of our German subsidiary in 2018

Attain Technology Receives the 2021 Gold HIRE Vets Medallion Award

• HIRE Vets Gold Medallion Program is the only veteran employment award at the federal level
• Some of the criteria for being selected to receive the award include:
• Employer size
• Percentage of new hires that are veterans
• Percentage of veteran employees retained
• Percentage of employees who are veterans
• Provide new veteran employees assistance and work/life integration, including coaching and mentoring
• Programs to enhance the leadership skills of veteran employees during their employment

Cerberus Sentinel announces acquisition of Arkavia Networks

• Cerberus Cyber Sentinel Corporation a cybersecurity consulting and managed services firm based in Scottsdale, Ariz.
• Acquired Arkavia Networks SPA, a cybersecurity services provider based in Chile
• Arkavia will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Cerberus Sentinel
• South American headquarters for the company located in Santiago, Chile
• Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed

Aiven Announces Launch of Managed Services for Apache Flink

• announced the beta release of Aiven for Apache Flink
• Apache Flink is used for event-driven applications requiring real-time analytics or real-time Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) capabilities
• applications include
  • Fraud and anomaly detection
  • Real-time activity monitoring and alerting
  • Analytics dashboards
  • Continuous ETL in e-commerce
  • Real-time optimization of user experience

Introducing ElectroNeek's Winter '21 Release Products and Business Support for Managed ...

• Announced today the launch of ElectroNeek's Winter '21 product release
• Introduces new capabilities and features to their core products, as well as a new MSP Toolbox product
• What's new?
  • MSP Toolbox is a new product available for partners
  • Elevated security and compliance features
  • New multi-language UX support
  • Bot management with Tokens
  • Major automation tools updates

Denovo Achieves Industry Record NPS

• Announce achieving an IT Services industry record high Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 52
• Denovo Ventures, LLC (Denovo) is a full-service Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning hosting, cloud computing, application managed services, managed disaster recovery, and professional services firm

Introducing eighty8networks, a Next Generation Managed Security Transport ..

• eighty8networks is a next-generation managed security transport provider
• next generation managed security transport provider delivering access to an ecosystem of advanced technology services
• Co-founders, Keith Muller and John 'JP' Panzica launch next-generation managed services company, eight8networks

Ingram Micro Acquires Brlink, Strengthening Its Partner Ecosystem with New Managed Services

• completed the acquisition of BRLink, a leading managed services provider (MSP) in Brazil
• BRLink's suite of solutions gives Ingram Micro partners access to an even more complete portfolio of cloud services
• cloud market in Latin America
  • 52% of Brazilian companies already use some type of cloud as part of their digital infrastructure
  • 39% of Latin American CIOs interviewed by the consultancy said they would invest in cloud computing in 2021

Cybersecurity

• The IRS claims it still does not know who stole the tax return info on thousands of people in the U.S. and sent it to ProPublica, which publicized the info.
• Ubiquiti Corporation, headquartered in New York City, NY, announced that a former employee, named Nickolas Sharp, was arrested by FBI.
• Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles, CA has notified 400,000 patients that their PHI was exposed after ransomware attack.
• Medsurant Health, headquartered in Conshohoken, Massachusetts, notified an unknown number of patients that their PHI was exposed after ransomware attack.
• Pfizer Corp., headquartered in New York City, NY, filed legal action against former employee, Chun Xiao Li, allegedly she stole 12,000 confidential documents in order to sell to a competitor.
• Three Rivers Regional Commission of Griffin, Georgia notified 2,000 patients that their PHI was exposed after ransomware attack
• One Community Health of Oregon notified an unknown number of patients that their PHI was exposed after ransomware attack
• DNA Diagnostics Centers, headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, notified 2.1 million patients that their PHI was exposed after cyber attack
• Huntington Hospital, part of Northwell Health in New York, notified 13,000 patients that their PHI was illegally accessed by a former employee
• ACE Surgical Supply of Brockton, Massachusetts notified 12,122 patients that their PHI was exposed after cyberattack.
• Panasonic Corp. notified an unknown number of customers that their info was exposed after a cyber attack.
• Delta-Montrose Electric Association of Colorado notified an unknown number of customers that their info was exposed after cyberattack
• Armis Corp, a company that makes software to protect network endpoints, raised $300 million in funding and now has value of $3.4 billion
• Opeyemi Abidemi Adeoso and Benjamin Adeleke Ifebajo, both from Nigeria, were sentenced to 120-151 months in prison for their role in cyberattacking schemes
• The Riverhead Central School District of New York notified an unknown number of students that their info was exposed after ransomware attack
• Joshua Maywalt of Tampa, Florida, pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud, aggravated identity theft, and filing a false federal income tax return after stealing PHI while working for a medical billing company in Clearwater, FL.
• Sangamon County Animal Control (SCAC) in Springfield, IL notified an unknown number of citizens that it has inadvertently exposed their driver license info on the Internet
• Durrell Tyler and DeShawn Johnson of Atlanta, Georgia were sentenced to 3 years in prison for buying stolen identities on the Dark Web and using it to commit fraud and open credit card accounts
• Booz Allen Hamilton published article warning companies that Chinese government- backed hackers may try to steal encrypted data, and use quantum computers to crack it for use
• Mandiant Security published warning of new hacking group named “Sabbath” that is using the ROLLCOAST ransomware to target organizations in the U.S.
• Kaspersky Security Software published warning of new hacking group named “ScarCraft” that is using malware to attack Windows and Android devices
• 20/20 Eye Care Network, headquartered in Florida, notified an unknown number of patients that their PHI was exposed after cyber attack
• Broward County Public Schools of Florida notified 26,000 students and faculty that their info was exposed after ransomware attack
• The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet notified an unknown number of citizens that their info was exposed after security breach
• Bay Village High School of Ohio notified an unknown number of students that their info was exposed after an email breach
• Evanston Township High School of Illinois notified 1,100 students that their info was exposed after ransomware attack.
• Lewis and Clark Community College of Godfrey, Illinois notified an unknown number of students that their info was exposed after ransomware attack.
• Symantec published warning of new ransomware named “Yanluowang”, aimed at organizations in the U.S.
• Proofpoint published warning of new tool hackers may use where malware isembedded in RTF files
  • When user opens up the RTF attached using Microsoft Word, it launches the malware onto the network while user is reading the decoy Word document

see attached file

click image for web link

click image for web link

Click image for web link

This Week in the Copier Industry Five Years Ago

Second Week of December 2016

There's no doubt this time of year is very busy with family, web site and work.  It also never seems to fail that I'm always chasing something and guess that's why I got so good at chasing what I want.

Enjoy these great copier threads from 5 years ago!

"Leadership - leadership is about taking responsibility, not making excuses."

Mitt Romney

When it comes to leadership in sales, I first think of self-leadership, self-accountability and the willingness to remove all the excuses.

When you make excuses, you aren't giving yourself a shot to succeed.

What would happen if you stopped the excuses, the mental gymnastics and trained yourself to try new things?

What would you learn?

What would happen to your sales results?

What would happen to your professional growth?

One of my favorite quotes is by Craig Groeschel,

"We can make excuses, or we can make progress but we can't make both."

There has been countless articles and comparisons between professional athletics and sales.

Let's just all stop for a moment and reflect upon the following...

Can you imagine a professional athlete operating with a sales reps mindset?

Once asked why he was so successful on the basketball court, Kobe Bryant looked right at a reporter and said: “Have you seen Los Angeles at 4am? I see it often because that’s when I start training.”

It can sometimes be difficult to find differences in top athletes which are noticeable. Their level of physical imbalance is minuscule.

What separates the good from the great? What separated Kobe Bryant from good athletes?

Top athletes are finely tuned machines. They spend their lives perfecting their craft as they look to gain every conceivable physical and mental advantage over their opponents.

Success as a professional athlete or as a sales professional is simply a consequence of practice and repetition. There are no shortcuts. It's based on pushing yourself to do better and better.

Sales professionals remove the word excuse out of their vocabulary.

Sales reps consistently talk about their work ethic as most enjoy puffing the chest BUT are they really committed to it? Does the walk match the talk when it comes too putting in the necessary work? Where's the consistency and discipline?

WHAT ARE EXCUSES, REALLY?

“An excuse is a way of promising ourselves that we will have the same issue again.”

Henry Cloud

Excuses stunt sales growth. Excuses stunt relational growth. They are invented reasons we create to defend our behavior, to postpone taking action or simply as a means of neglecting responsibility.

Excuses are mainly a means of placing the blame of an internal problem on an external condition.

“Excuses are tools of incompetence used to build bridges to nowhere and monuments of nothingness, and those who use them seldom specialize in anything else.”

Vernon Brundage Jr.

There are numerous reasons why people make excuses.

Let's look at a few...

• Fear of failure
• Fear of success
• Fear of change
• Fear of uncertainty
• Fear of what others may have to say

The roadmap to success for a sales professional is based upon disciplined work, personal ownership and practice. They hold themselves accountable to a process and they just do it!

Why do sales reps have difficulties doing what sales professionals do?

How willing, able and committed are you to practicing, planning and preparation?

This is what sales professionals hold themselves accountable to do every single day!

NO EXCUSE MENTALITY

Sales reps with an excuse mentality fear negative outcomes and make excuses to avoid responsibility.

Sales professionals hold themselves personally accountable. They hold themselves to a higher degree of standards than sales reps. They have a no excuse mentality and they don't point fingers when they fail to hit their sales plan.

They hold themselves accountable even if their manager doesn't.

Why do so many in sales reps accept excuses?

Sales reps love swimming in the sea of excuses. Many use excuses to rationalize their actions regarding the circumstances they've created for themselves such as... Why they didn't hit their sales plan, why they lost one of their best clients and why they don't have time to prospect.

One excuse follows another excuse which follows another excuse. You want to know what the real issue is here... lack of commitment!

When you only put half of yourself into something and then proceed to make excuses, you disrespect yourself, your manager and your company.

Half-ass efforts get you half-ass results

• How committed are you to the sales profession?
• How committed are you to practice?
• How committed are you to yourself?

HOW DO SALES PROFESSIONALS OPERATE?

A huge problem with salespeople today can be attributed to lack of consistency and discipline. Simply, doing the right things right.

Sales professionals do things differently than the sales reps. They practice with purpose, passion and pride.

GET REAL

Sales professionals set goals and invest the mental and physical energy towards achieving their goals. They equip themselves with an arsenal of effort, patience, and persistence as they understand their journey is difficult. They are realistically optimistic.

Can the same be said for sales reps?

BE THE BEST

Sales professionals understand, no matter what, there's always room to improve. This may involve learning a different technique, strategy, or even hiring a coach.

Can the same be said for sales reps?

CONSISTENCY

The success of sales professionals is built upon small sustainable changes. When those become second nature, they add in new challenges. Whatever their goal is they track their progress and are consistently consistent with practice.

Can the same be said for sales reps?

SALES REPS... THE TIME IS NOW

I encourage the self-centered and the "all about me" sales reps out there to kick your complacent mindset right in the ass.

Do you think a complacent mindset lands an elite athlete a new contract?

Sports athletes don’t come out of rookie training camp saying, “I’m shooting for average – average skills, average income and average performance.

Chew on this one for a moment...

When you started out in sales you didn't set out with the goal of hanging on, doing enough to just “get by”, or "winging it" by figuring out how to survive until you can inherit other sales reps accounts. Well, at least not in the beginning, correct?

You learned that mindset. You learned that behavior. You learned to settle. You failed to practice. You started to make excuses.

I'm positive the mind can be convinced of almost anything if you tell it the same story repeatedly.

So here lies the question to all of you in sales...

Are you happy with average results or have you just convinced yourself that’s the case?

Excuses stunt sales growth.

So-called being busy stunts sales growth.

Growth is uncomfortable!

“When you are good at making excuses, it is hard to excel at anything else.”

John L. Mason

I understand, I get where you all are coming from. Every day, I walk in your shoes. I am fully committed to helping your sales team integrate social aspects and heartfelt strategies into your current sales process to grow new business. I want you to get results. This is why I am passionate about doing this the right way, the genuine way, the authentic way! It's about understanding value before visibility.

Selling From the Heart is making a difference! I poured my heart into every page of this book and I think you're going to love it. You can find it on Amazon in paperback, kindle and in audio. You can click on the book image below and this will take you to Amazon.In a world full of empty suits, I'm passionate about helping sales reps succeed by getting valuable before they get visible. I help sales teams understand the true value they bring to the market.

In a world full of empty suits, I'm passionate about helping sales reps succeed by getting valuable before they get visible. I help sales teams understand the true value they bring to the market.

With great pride I transform, challenge, coach and inspire sales teams to grow new business by helping them share their story and how they communicate it out by integrating the use of social and Selling from the heart inside the sales process. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and on my podcast by clicking on Selling from the Heart.

DocuWare Launches New Business Solution for Vaccine & Testing Records Management

~DocuWare’s new solution digitizes the management of vaccination and testing records~

New Windsor NY, December 9, 2021 – In response to demand from its Partners and customers, DocuWare, provider of cloud solutions for document management and workflow automation, releases a timely new cloud-based* Preconfigured Solution called DocuWare for Vaccination & Testing Management.

DocuWare for Vaccination & Testing Management is a business solution built to assist HR professionals automate the collection and secure archiving of information pertaining to employee health and safety.

At a time when employers are considering how to manage vaccination and weekly testing records, the time-saving business value this free add-on solution** brings is how it streamlines and monitors the entire process, allowing for more efficient reporting. The easy-to-use web forms allow employees to upload proof of vaccination, testing or other documents, quickly and securely. Sensitive employee information is protected with restricted access rights and data encryption.

The solution allows HR professionals to:

• Quickly verify employee vaccination status
• Manage weekly testing requirements
• Automate email reminders and notifications when testing is due
• Maintain an accurate and secure record of vaccine exemptions
• Securely access complete reporting

Customers already using any other DocuWare Preconfigured Solution can easily add this to their current portfolio by contacting DocuWare or their local DocuWare Partner. It can also be used as a stand-alone product to securely manage only the employee records relating to vaccination and testing requirements.

Digitizing the process and removing paper-based processes enables employers to remain compliant with record keeping standards.

*This solution is also available for on-premises customers. Contact DocuWare or your DocuWare Partner for details.

** This solution is available immediately to all DocuWare version 7.5 customers.

* * * * * *

About DocuWare

Headquartered in Germany & the US, DocuWare provides document management and workflow automation solutions in the cloud. DocuWare has helped 15,000 customers across 100 countries simplify their work through digitizing, automating and transforming key processes.

click image for attached file