MFP Copier Blog

MSP & MSSP Industry Notes

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NEC Provides Secure Document Management and Sharing Service "Obbligato/Collaboration ...

• NEC Corporation announced the sales launch of a collaboration software as a service (SaaS) platform, the "Obbligato/Collaboration Platform," in China
• Enables central management of technical information for products, such as drawings, specifications, and bill of materials (BOM)
• NEC will promote sales among international manufacturers who are seeking to advance in the Chinese market

 Datto Acquires Gluh to Drive MSP Growth

• Announced its acquisition of Gluh Pty Ltd, an Australia-based company
• Gluh has a real-time platform that enables MSPs to simplify the procurement of IT products and services
• Gluh’s technology automates the processes of product selection, quoting, and sales of IT products and services for MSP clients
• Gluh is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia and will maintain its Melbourne operations

Hyland wins ECM contract

• Award from New Mexico Higher Education Department
• Implemented the OnBase ECM (electronic content management) solution including a no-
  code, digital student credentialing system using blockchain
• Will be used by
• Northern New Mexico College
• Santa Fe College
• Mesalands College
• San Juan College
• Ayurvedic College

Lightstream Launches Network Managed Services

• Announced the launch of Lightstream Network Managed Services(NMS)
• Customizable managed-services solution helps organizations of all sizes to better manage risk by improving their network's availability, efficiency and technology implementation as well as addressing overspending
• Lightstream NMS is delivered through two tiers of services via its 24/7/365 Network Operations Center
• MNP has grown to more than 85 locations and 5,500 employees coast-to-coast.

CyberSeek™ Data Confirms the Ever-Present Need to Expand Cybersecurity Talent Pipeline

• S. employers advertised nearly 508,000 job openings for cybersecurity workers between June 2019through May 2020
• Currently 922,720 workers employed in cybersecurity-related jobs in the same time period.
• Created in 2016, CyberSeek is a joint initiative between the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education(NICE), led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST); 

Datto Spotlights Partner Experience in SaaS Protection 2.5 Release

• Announced the availability of the next version of Datto SaaS Protection that improves the user experience by making it more intuitive to manage and easier to integrate into existing systems
• Datto’s 2020 Global State of the MSP Report, respondents said that 62% of their clients are currently using Microsoft365 cloud services and they expect that 70% will be using them within two years

          Key Datto SaaS Protection updates include:

• Streamlined Client Onboarding: Protect clients' critical cloud data in a matter of minutes with a simplified setup and an easy click-through onboarding process
• Flexible Retention: Users choose between settings that allow for infinite cloud retention and as well as time-based retention to provide flexibility in meeting the individual needs of each end client
• Intuitive, User-Friendly Management Portal: Quickly and easily determine the number of licenses in use, gauge profitability, and view clients’ backup status all from a single view

Open Systems is Among the First MSSPs Joining the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association as ...

• Announced that it, and its Born in the Cloud division, are among a select group of managed security service providers (MSSP) invited to join the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association (MISA) ecosystem in a pilot program
• Open Systems’ MDR services utilize the Microsoft Azure Sentinel cloud-native SIEM and SOAR solution

Apogee Managed Campus Services Help Colleges and Universities Meet Intensifying Connectivity ...

• State of Higher Education Strategic Planning Study conducted by Apogee suggests that higher education may not be technologically prepared for a rapid and dramatic shift to blended learning

Cybersecurity Update

• - IDG publishes result of survey showing that the most important tech project for CIO’s is Cybersecurity. Other projects of less importance included:
  o Business intelligence
  o Workflow automation
  o Artificial intelligence
  o Cloud
• 68% will be increasing their spend on cybersecurity in next 12 months
• Modern Healthcare published report that claims 744,500 patients had their PHI as a result of a breach in the month of June, 2020
• The U.S. is considering banning the TikTok app, as it is made by a Chinese company, and could be used by the Chinese government to surveil users and capture info on their mobile device.
• Sonic, the national fast food chain, lost an attempt to dismiss a negligence claim
  o Financial institutions are pursuing Sonic over a huge data breach in 2017 that
  exposed credit/debit card info from 325 locations
• Florida Orthopedic Institute is being sued for $99 million by patients after their PHI was exposed during recent breach.
• OpenClinic GA, which provides an open source integrated hospital information management system, notified its customers that it discovered 12 security vulnerabilities.
• Roseland Community Hospital of Chicago, IL reported that it lost Internet and phone system services for 24 hours after a car crash cut out services.
• Gemini Advisory reported that a hacking group named “Keeper” is exposing info on 184,000 customers stolen from 570 online stores.
• Agari Security published report that a Russian hacking group named “Cosmic Lynx” is targeting organizations in 46 countries with coronavirus themed email phishing attacks.
• The US Secret Service sent out a security alert that hackers have been attacking managed IT service providers in the U.S. Hackers gain access and then use a springboard to the internal networks of their customers.
• DXC Technology, a business process outsourcing company headquartered in Tysons, VA, notified an unknown number of its customers that its info may have been exposed after it was hit by ransomware.
• Digital Shadows published report stating that more than 15 billion username and password pairs are for sale on the Dark Web.
• The U.S. Department of Justice announced it has indicted Andrey Turchin of Kazakhstan for allegedly being a hacker named “fxmsp”, for stealing from 300 different organizations.
• Kaspersky Security reports that 14.8% of users of products running Android OS who were targeted by malware, were left with undeletable files.
  o “A system partition infection entails a high level of risk for the users of infected devices, as a security solution cannot access the system directories, meaning it cannot remove the malicious files”
• Pearson Education suffered a breach exposing info on 13,000 students.
• Malwarebytes is warning consumers that some smartphones running Android have unremovable malware bundled in the phone.
• Salinas Valley Memorial Health System of California notified an unknown number of patients that their PHI was exposed after an email phishing attack.
• Providence Health Plan of Oregon notified almost 50,000 patients that their PHI may have been exposed after hacking incident.
• Healthcare Fiscal Management Inc. of Wilmington, NC notified 58,000 patients that their PHI may have been exposed after ransomware attack.
• Friendship Community Care of Russellville, AR notified 9,745 patients that their PHI was exposed after email phishing attack.
• Independence Blue Cross of Philadelphia, PA notified an unknown number of patients that their PHI may have been exposed due to hacking incident.
• Hacker named Trorice Crawford of San Diego, CA was sentenced to 4 years in federal prison for stealing identities from U.S. service members and using them to steal millions of dollars from their bank accounts.

Today was one of the most interesting days I've had in quite some time.  Let's start off with a BANG!  I was able to connect with my net new prospect for a meeting in the AM.  This is the net new account for about $30K, this is account that I've lost twice and working a third time around.  Good news is that with a blind sampling of print quality my Ricoh device was picked as best quality 5 out of 5 times.  Competitors were Sharp and Canon on this one.  In a previous blog I spoke my travels to one of our offices to run the samples because I didn't want to lose control of making sure those samples were spot on.  Special thanx to Brian for working with me on this. 

Competition was fierce and all of the proposals were within a few dollars of each other.  Now for the other news, even though we won the coveted top spot for replacement of two competitive units the purchasing of the devices is now moved to December because of COVID19.  There as no overcoming the objection today. With only a few people in the office everyday and no guidance from the State of New Jersey as to when offices can go back to full staff the decision is to stay status quo for the rest of the year.

Yup, I was pretty bummed about that because how often do you win and lose in the same moment?  I did!

I was also able to finish up my proposal late in the day for the other net new account.  That proposal is for $60K, however I'm not sure what to expect for getting the order in for this month.  There is still 25% of the month left for me but pickings on slim since it seems most of the opportunities are in the weeds right now.

It was about 1PM when I acquired another net new win for about $7.5K, I didn't think this order was going to pop until the first week of our new month. I'm sure glad it did.  With a week left in the month almost all of the 25 (60 day) ops are moving to August. I have the one shot with the large net new but other than that pickings are slim.

Do you believe in fairy tales?  As we know many of the fairy tales are legends that are told and re-told over time.  There's one about a slumbering giant and I can't remember the name of it. It will come to me at some point in time. Well I'm going to be that slumbering giant for the next 90 days.  I pulled the trigger on the lead service today and even though it's going to cost $500 a month I think the investment will pan out with time.  If it doesn't then it's a good tax write off for 2021.  Invest in yourself.

As far as phone calls and emails today well I stunk, from the start of the day I wasn't feeling that well.  It may have been the over indulgence of jalapenos and tequila that I had last night.  Thus I opted to write some additional content for wide formats, which I posted in Jersey Plotters, Linkedin and then re-posted within some of the groups on Linkedin.  Writing content is similar to planting and seed and watching it grow.  Today I have almost 45 blogs posted on Jersey Plotters and most times I'm ranked on the first page or the secong page when someone is searching for plotters or wide format.

Tomorrow I'll concentrate on rolling through my CRM and making those calls.  

-=Good Selling-=

Plotters and Wide Format Printers

With summer brings the awful heat and humidity to New Jersey along with damp paper issues for plotters. Damp paper will cause print and copy quality issues because the toner and or ink doesn’t adhere to damp paper well. One of the ways to tell if the paper is damp is that the print of copy looks muddled or not a fully formed image. Our technicians refer to the issue as “blotching of the image”.

Extreme high and low humidity can cause print & copy quality issues. In most cases, keeping your office or company facility at a comfortable level of humidity will solve or mitigate such problems.

The good news is that there's a variety of fixes that can be installed to prevent your plotter paper from getting damp.

Fixing Damp Paper Issues

1. Each roll of paper is sealed in a plastic bag. Leave the roll of paper in the plastic until it’s needed. If the paper in the plotter is damp then replace with a fresh roll.
2. Many toner based wide format plotters (printers) have a drum dry switch that can be turned on or turned off. In some cases turning on the drum dry switch can help with damp paper
3. Purchase Silica Gel Desiccant packs and then place one pack in each of the roll feeders. I recommend the 1lb packs because they should last the entire summer. Replacement of those bags should be when we turn the clocks ahead for daylight savings time
4. Partial paper rolls should be store in plastic when not in use and the addition of a Silica Gel pack will drain the moisture out of the paper.
5. If you have a dedicated room for the wide format printers/plotter you may want to consider adding a de-humidifier

It’s my belief that the best course of action is the silica gel packs because they are a quick fix and inexpensive.

Jersey Plotters has been helping client with wide format printers and plotters for the last 25 years in New Jersey. We offer discounts for trade ins along with maintenance and supply agreements for new Ricoh and Epson wide format plotter/printers.

-=Greetings from Sandy Hook, NJ=-

I had no intention of writing a blog tonight.  Last I wrote on Wednesday was to look for another blog in this series for Wednesday night.  This morning I received the email below from a long time Print4Pay Hotel member.

Art, I love reading your stuff and sharing some with our 15 sales reps. You have inspired them and me many times. We are all working from home here in the Midwest at Sumnerone. We just finished up an $850,000 hardware June which was good and 75% were new accounts. We think July will be better. Our folks are working hard and we never closed at all. We are supporting our clients and we think of them as friends and their families mean a lot to us so we check on them. And they check on us as well. 

By Michael Vosnos, ARCOA – Businesses today face numerous options and decisions in the acquisition phase of their IT assets’ lifecycle.  Myriad factors such as business requirements, the decision to lease or buy, support costs and budgetary constraints all impact a business’ decision whether to extend or shrink their overall IT refresh cycle.  Effective IT asset management is often an afterthought.  However, having a firm grasp on the real total cost of ownership over the life IT assets can yield significant cost savings and increased operational efficiency.

One of the first questions decision makers need to ask themselves is, does it make more sense to lease or buy?  Leasing is attractive to many as it offers the advantage of lower initial capital output, and often maintenance support can be included in the lease agreement.  However, the longer the lease term, the more a business will typically spend versus purchasing the equipment outright.

Purchasing comes with the advantage of ownership and the associated tax benefits of having a fixed asset as outlined in section 179 of the US tax code.  In addition to the benefits that come with capital expenditures on equipment, the depreciation of that equipment can provide significant tax savings over its life.  The downside to ownership is that businesses own the maintenance and repairs as well as their hardware.

A study done by Huntington Technology Finance examined the total cost of ownership throughout a typical three year and five year refresh cycle.  Taking into account the cost of maintenance to include software upgrades and patches, break/fix support, software development costs to support legacy systems, lost productivity when units require repair, drives become corrupted, and systems accumulate layers of software and security updates that require additional system resources and take up more drive space, the difference in total cost of ownership between a three year and a five year refresh are significant.  By hanging on to IT equipment beyond three years, where repair/upgrade costs begin to factor in on top of regular maintenance costs, businesses can end up paying for their equipment twice and by year five, these costs typically exceed the initial hardware costs.

In addition to maintenance associated savings, the study found that the typical PC laptop retained approximately 25 percent of its original value at the 36 month mark.  This residual value, if captured through a reliable ITAD vendor, can be applied to defray the cost of new hardware acquisition.  A case study based on 2,000 laptops compared the total cost of ownership between the same devices over a 36 month and 60 month period.  Over a 60 month period, the total cost of ownership for a business on a 36 month refresh cycle was $5,492,000 or $2,746 per device.  Conversely, the total cost of ownership for the business with the same devices on a 60 month refresh cycle was $6,886,000 over 60 months or $3,443 per device.

Each business will have its own unique factors and considerations that will feed into its acquisition decision making process.  However, as demonstrated above, simply “hanging on” to older equipment might not only not be in the best interest of a company in terms of operability and typically do not present the cost savings that many decision makers imagine.  It is imperative to examine the total lifecycle costs and to integrate a robust asset management plan into the decision making process that will minimize maintenance costs and capture the maximum residual value of assets.

"Those who Continue To Fool themselves will Remain Foolishly Confident In their Continued Relevance." 

I have and continue to vocalize that human capital adjustments must be part of the Document Imaging Channel's prescription to keep in relevance. I am defining these human capital adjustments as the need for new blood, over merely changing the titles of those currently in charge. This article will highlight those thoughts.

Here's my thinking; if the current leaders were going where the customers were going, they would have already changed their titles on the way there. Leaders don't wait for directions; they create the directions others will follow. Changing the title to include the word digital won't cause digital disruption. Which frankly is already long over-due inside the Document Imaging Channel.  

When this pandemic started, I said that the SMB print equipment customer would increase their digitalization speed by five years. This thinking was not of a crystal ball; most realistic businesspeople have also come to that conclusion. Over the last six months, we are all watching the world's businesses scurry towards digitalization.

For the first time, the Channel's end-users are asking tougher and new questions of themselves and their providers concerning the need for printed documents. The industry's fate resides in these new questions and those who provide relevant answers.

"As an industry's relevance faces challenges, its leaders have no choice other than to create the new relevance." 

Clarification for my friends selling and servicing print equipment is this. Digitalization won't eliminate print; it will merely rapidly decrease the need for many of the A3 MFP equipment's applications. Some say, and I agree volumes will also reduce by at least 10-12 percent per year. 

Those decreasing volume percentages and diminishing needs of equipment's applications will cause opportunities for outsiders to change the industry's business model; The how print equipment is delivered, supplied and serviced is extremely ripe for disruption to a massive percentage of the Document Imaging Channel's end-users. As the pandemic exposed, many businesses could function without going down the hallway and retrieving the sets of stapled documents for the weekly management meeting. Or printed reports to handoff from one person to another.

Today, most agree that the need to modify the decades-old deliverable of print equipment and its services is past due. However, some are not entirely in-line with the realities of what's needed to make those transitions successfully.

The Document Imaging Channel has been behind on many fronts. The Channel's obsession in saving its nostalgia and this pandemic was not the beginning of the industry's challenges. It does seem as many out-dated deliverables are now blaming the pandemic for their rapidly fading relevance. In the case of the Document Imaging Channel, its end-users have been leaving the Channel's preverbal stores for over a decade.

The obsessions for the manufacturers and the dealers who represent them to insist on every transaction being a contractual agreement forced many of their customers to seek alternatives—these alternatives aligned with the market's realities.

I predict that history will reveal that the Document Imaging Channel's obsession with controlling every printer, its services, and supplies in a managed print agreement within the SMB sector cost the Channel's dealers and those manufacturers with direct operations billions in revenues. As those end-users who wanted to buy without restraints went to alternative sources. The industry's dealers and many manufacturers made and continue making the means of getting print equipment way too complicated.

In that complication, the SMB end-users flocked to Amazon, IT Service Vars, and the Office Product Reseller's Channel. These organizations welcomed the Document Imaging Channel's customers to their customer roles with more straightforward programs such as e-commerce platforms where one can click buy now. These alternative options provide a business model that is void the complications of the Document Imaging Channel's contractual leases and MPS models. 

Even as data showed from all DCAs that there are 5-7 devices not under contract for every device under an agreement, the Channel refused to modify. Those non-contracted devices are A4, and the Imaging Channel's end-users are buying them, servicing them, and supplying them from outside the Channel's borders. These end-users will soon look for more advanced A4 MFPs as they will determine A3 and its complicated contracts are out of alignment with the new relevance the pandemic exposed.

Six Months in a Pandemic, What's changed? Hopefully, more than titles.

Today the Channel's leaders will not be able to pivot just because they got a new title. Unless these re-tilted leaders were already outspoken, determined, and already presenting arguments for changes before the pandemic. If not, the question to ask - is, why or how will they now?

The Channel needs to bring in the human capital, which understands the realities of today's buyers. The dysfunctions of the Document Imaging Channel's deliverable are clearly being exposed. A decade of some denials, and believing the comfort of current circumstances got in the way of bold action.

Still their are significant dysfunctions much of the industry continues ignoring. Even after six months as a global pandemic, brought a new awareness to both the Channel's end-users and all the actors who service and support them. 

The Channel still struggles in selling with modern billing arrangements such as iDaaS meter-less billing or subscription-based billing. Subscription-Based billing is how nearly every other component of technology and its services is transacted. 

The Channel is still ignoring data, data that has and continues to emphasize deep-rooted issues pertaining to the services model and its cost misalignments. 

The Channel is still without digital engagement (E-Commerce) The in-ability for the Channel's end-users to purchase online is extremely contrary to the buyer's desires and marketplace realities. 

The Channel is still discussing Managed Print Services for the SMB end-users like its 2000. This out-dated MPS talk track has misled the Channel's actors. After nearly two decades, does anyone believe the SMB customers want contracts to manage print?

What customers want is printed or copied pages when they need them. It is safe to say that most print end-users know that tomorrow they will print less than today. These end-users have long ago stopped in the policing of print. 

The Channel's Dealers and Manufacturer's Direct operations are still over-spec'ing A3. Regardless of what data is telling them. The reason, many in the Channel saw no threat from outside competitors regarding the delivery of A3 equipment. What the Channel's Actors miscalculated was the outsiders had no intention of selling A3. After-all the end-users were moving towards A4, these outsiders knew that in time the A3 customers would increase in their movement to A4, and as they do they will welcome them through a much better delivery means. 

The Channel has still not diversified Into Managed IT Services past 30% of its core print revenues. They continue focusing on products first and services as a function of the product. This product's first mindset is contrary to the Managed IT Services business model. Thereby explaining the lack of diversity. 

The Channel is still attempting to close new and upgrade existing businesses by lowering out-put service costs as the out-put itself is declining. The reason they do this is to inflate the lease dollars dedicated to hardware. The business model of compensating sales on hardware revenue and profits has nearly destroyed the service profitability of the entire Document Imaging Channel Industry.  

The Channel has still not ended the lunacy of prematurely renewing leases in desperation to increase declining revenues. As deliverable increases in its commoditization along with marketplace's competitiveness. The ability to sell, supply and service in the Channel's outdated model is playing havoc on its revenues and its profits. I fear post-pandemic. We will see some very questionable deals that were written in desperation to increase Dealer or Manufacturer's cash flows over any value to the actual end-users or real profitable value to either the dealer or manufacturer. 

The Channel is still promoting the glories of production-print. However, they do not address how a 2% marketplace of production-print, which is extremely out of alignment with excessive supply versus demand, can honestly be a worthwhile endeavor. Many Dealers and Manufacturers are currently hiding the profitability of production-print. Either through unawareness or ignoring the awareness, however, as their massive customer bases of non-production print customers move from A3 to A4, Along with declining print volumes, all the misunderstanding or mismanagement of production print's losses will painfully surface. 

Unfortunately, some of the Document Imaging Channel's actors are not in-line with the skills needed to respond to their quickly changing end-users as these end-users align their print equipment needs with today's reality. It's those competitive alternative platforms residing on the Channel's border, which will continue gaining momentum as the end-users' needs and the advancements of A4 move closer and closer together.

The time for providing the needed talent for transformation is now. That transformation won't come from business card promotions. Attempting to replace one's out-dated skills with new titles such as Digital Transformationist or other buzz words without executing the needed skills the titled describes will lead to defeat.

"During evolutionary events - on the job training will not align favorably with the speed of disruption the event is causing." 

If those charged with leading digital transformation are ill-equipped, they must surround themselves with those equipped. Sadly, during times of unprecedented disruptions, egos can highjack good intentions. The Document Imaging Channel has been going through disruption for at least a decade. Many of its leaders remained silent or ill-equipped to navigate diversification and align to market realities. Pandemics don't create one's skills. However, they do expose the skills missing and the skills needed.

The Document Imaging Channel has an excellent opportunity for those willing to align with market realities regardless of its pain. Of course, those believing everything will continue as it was or are being fooled as temporally still does - have already lost. 

The Document Imaging Channel's future will result from their actions so, as the digitalization continues to challenge yesterday's deliverables. The Channel's leaders must look to their borders and welcome those who already live where their past customers went, and more and more current customers will continue heading.

The arguments are not about print going away; the arguments are about the evolutionary improvements of A4 print equipment and the evolution of end-users' awareness. As those two things continue evolving, they will align and create a massive disruption to the circumstances of The Document Imaging Channel's out-dated Business Model. 

"Status quo is the killer of all that will be invented." 

If not already Let's connect here on Linkedin and I welcome everyone to subscribe to my YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channe...A?view_as=subscriber

CEO/Founder TEASRA, The Innovation Channel, and Host of The End of The Day With Ray! https://www.endofthedaywithray.com/

Ray Stasieczko  

Only 5 more days for four full months of selling days that I've been working remote.

You may have noticed that I've been skipping a couple of days here and there with blogging on this series.  I had no idea that Covid19 would last in to the summer and usually my summers mean less posting of blogs and more time spent enjoying the great weather.

Just a short recap for Friday. I was able to secure two orders for two net new companies.  However the revenue fell short of what I was hoping for. With less than two weeks left in my month I'm starting to feel the pressure of hitting my monthly goal.

Today was spent  traveling to two accounts which were at opposite ends of the state.  One in lower Monmouth and the other in North Jersey.  I'm thinking I logged close to 200 miles of driving today.  By the time I got back to my office office it was 2:30PM and I needed a short break for lunch. 

By 3PM I was able to start making some dents into the early morning emails and within an hour I had those cleared up.  The last part of the day was spent with my third appointment of the day for a tele chat.

That last appointment was interesting to say the least.  The company is a consulting group in the healthcare industry.  For years they've been using an hi-speed color A3 Ricoh and now that device is approaching seven years of age.  Seven years is a long time and since it was a purchase there is no trigger for the upgrade.  Print volumes during COVID for them are down big time! In fact over the last five months the print volume is next to nothing.  But as we've learned to adapt during COVID this client has also redefined their process with printing.  More virtual meetings mean less print, less print will mean a smaller color device in the future.  This is our new world for many accounts.

One of my other net new prospects is suppose to be making a decision tomorrow on which vendor they will choose.  Four years ago I was second and second sucks. I found out on our last meeting then that I was the first choice four years ago. However one of the VP's did not want training outside of their office.  This lead to the client staying with their current vendor for another 4 years.  With this account this is the third time that I've been in the mix and just praying that the third time is the charm with this account.

So far July is sucking wind, I need one of my big hits to come through or it's going to **** show of smaller deals.  Look for another blog on Wednesday of this week.

-=Good Selling=-

The Week in Copiers 15 Years Ago This Week 2005

I remember when digital duplicators were an import part of my prospecting efforts.  Fifteen years later I'm lucky if I sell two per year.  There was a time when I would sell one or two each month.  Those duplicator sales usually went to print shops, and fifteen years later there aren't as many of those either.  Change, be prepared, see the future and change.

Enjoy these threads from 15 years ago this week!