As much as we’d all like an end to the pandemic and a fresh start in the new year, serious challenges remain, from controlling the spread of COVID to reengineering tangled supply chains. And while many companies plan a return to the office, many people (including your customers) are still working from home. So brands of all kinds must continue to find new ways to engage and interact with customers while they also support their internal teams. The pandemic upended business as usual, but what it’s revealed – despite the continuing complexity – is that people want to be acknowledged for who they are and what’s important to them. Marketing has changed accordingly. (more…)

The print industry is evolving at an extremely fast pace. The demand for differentiation and efficiency continues to grow, while consumers are valuing the creative and sustainable approaches. Utilizing new technologies, print businesses can offer solutions that are more personalized, more interactive and create bigger and better overall experiences than ever before. The possibilities are truly endless to take on the market and win; we just need to know how to take advantage of them. (more…)

For my most recent birthday, my daughter bought me a great tee shirt. The caption, “Make it a Blockbuster Night,” accompanies an illustration of the storefront. Most of us remember the excitement of making a trip to pick up a movie… or three. Good times. Fast forward to 2007, Netflix introduces streaming services. What? So, now I can order movies and shows, and they are delivered over the internet? No trip to Blockbuster? What’s the fun in that?  Well, apparently people found it quite fun to push buttons and enjoy something immediately. Without the ability to quickly react to compete with this new ‘virtual’ interaction, Blockbuster declared bankruptcy in 2010, and closed all corporate-owned locations by 2014. (more…)

In an increasingly digital world, you have a tremendous opportunity to transform your operations. Many business owners struggle to organize a massive amount of documents while handling all the various tasks necessary for growing and sustaining a business. Through digitization, automation, machine-learning and business rules for access and accountability, your modernization efforts will provide more time for your team to think through the most important tasks. (more…)

Picture this. You’re an office manager, and you’re starting to see employees back in the office. It’s great! There’s energy all around, a low hum of chatter and the occasional beep from the printer in the corner – nothing to worry about. Well, time to take those rose-tinted glasses off.

Printers, as well as Multi-Function Peripherals (MFP), are an underestimated source for data breaches. Sure, when you think about a ‘hack attack,’ traditionally your mind would go to PCs, web applications, file servers, data centers, etc., because that’s where you can get access to file systems, credentials and crucial private information. A successful MFP breach can result in a hacker accessing all of the above. Your everyday office printer comes loaded with the ability to integrate with the corporate network to allow for scan to email and copy-and-scan accessibility. Most worryingly, breaches can happen without anyone knowing they have occurred. And a lack of MFP security and maintenance makes breaches even easier to execute.

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Data is the raw material that powers successful businesses. Data-driven organizations are investing in big data and data analytics to get the visibility they need to make smart decisions based on facts instead of opinion and guesswork. From doctors using data to accurately diagnose diseases, to credit card companies using big data to prevent fraudulent transactions, data is rapidly transforming what’s possible across many different industries. (more…)

When you work in a specific industry, you get immune to the abbreviations and various terms that are shorthand for the activities and capabilities of your business. Just ask a new employee at Konica Minolta how we bat around acronyms such as MIT, Op, PP, GCE, SSE, ECM, RPA, BPO, FM and MX. Well, our team is going to add one more acronym to the mix – IIM – which stands for Intelligent Information Management and how the practice will be referred to moving forward. IIM will replace the former term used to refer to the practice, ECM, or Enterprise Content Management. However, content management will still be one of the core solutions we provide to our customers.
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Spotify, Google Drive, LinkedIn, Instagram. Cloud computing is already engrained into your everyday life. And now, enhanced by the last year of remote work due to COVID-19, it’s taken over your work life too.

From servers to finances, eight out of ten businesses now expect more than half of their IT infrastructure to be cloud-based by the end of 2021, and 43% expect their entire IT infrastructure to be cloud-based. And why not? It’s quick, safe, cost-effective and efficient.

But despite such heralded benefits, many companies are still missing the critical final piece of the cloud computing puzzle: cloud printing. We’re here to explain why that’s happening, and why it shouldn’t happen to you.

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You don’t need me to tell you that the way we work has changed. The COVID-19 stay-at-home orders effectively created a mass experiment in remote work, one that many businesses and employees feel was – for most parts – a success. And as such, our return to work will no longer be as simple as going back to how we were. The office will no longer be the epicenter of all actions; instead it will become the central hub for a flexible, dispersed workforce who may only spend 50% of their time at a common physical location.

This hybrid working model sounds great in principle, but so far it’s only really been talked about in theory. So here are some practical tips on how to approach this for your business, and why it requires seamless connectivity coupled with access to the right digital tools to make it work long term.

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As entrepreneurs continue to create mind-blowing applications and services that have the power to transform our daily lives forever, it can be overwhelming to try to keep up with the impacts of technology on our lives, our psyches and our society.

In light of that, I’ve handpicked the following TED talks that focus on the future of work and what lessons we can take away from the pandemic to improve our work/life balance. Take some short breaks throughout your day to watch one or two, and equip yourself with wisdom that will carry you through the evolving world.

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