The Datamax Thinking Blog

There have been many advancements in office printing equipment in recent years. With advancements in affordable color printing technology, as well as affordable multifunction devices, there has never been a better time than now to make the switch to multifunction printing technology. Whether you are looking to equip your office with multiple multifunction devices or are simply looking to supplement your current arsenal of copiers and printers with a single multifunction device, Datamax has a solution for you!

It is very important to understand the way that documents flow throughout your organization. This is also known as your workflow. By taking the necessary steps to understand your workflow, you can make the changes necessary to optimize your workflow efficiency. One such change includes automating the flow of documents throughout your business. This helps to eliminate unnecessary steps and inherent redundancies within the system, ensuring that the workflow takes the most direct path while always getting to everyone it needs to.

In business today, the way that we manage and handle documents has a significant effect on the way that a business operations as a whole. Traditionally, businesses used physical storage, such as filing cabinets, for their document storage methods. If not properly maintained, it is very easy for these filing systems to get out of hand, which lead to a reduction in the useable storage space in your office. Also, physical documents have significant limitations when it comes to office productivity, as employees must spend time hunting down documents, which can significantly reduce productivity.

If you want to improve your office efficiencies, especially in the area of managing content, you have likely consider implementing an electronic document or content management system.

Steve Kass, the president of ChannelMarketPartners and an AIIM member has put together a good checklist for getting started with an ECM Project.

Here is a summary of the steps he highlights:

Proposing an ECM system

Project charter

System scope

System requirements

ROI analysis

Statement of work

Project plan

RFP

RFP evaluation

Execution and control



If you would like to read the entire report, down load his 10 Steps pdf.

The ScanGuru has an article about Gramm-Leach-Bliley and how it relates to Document Management  and Compliance. If you are looking to integrate an electronic document management solution into your organization, this is definitely a law that you must understand. It was put into place for the banking industry, but may have some implications in the way you do business.


From the ScanGuru's site:


The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, or GLBA, was put into place to allow consolidation in the banking industry. It provided rules for the combining of Commercial and Investment Banking. The main crux of the Act are provisions to protect the private financial information of consumers. The two main regulations governing the protection are the Financial Privacy Rule and the Safeguards Rule. The regulations apply to many different types of financial institutions, including: securities firms, insurance companies, brokerages and banks.


Compliance with GLBA is mandatory, and below is a summary of the two main regulations:


Financial Privacy Rule


The Privacy Rule governs the disclosure and collection of private financial information. It requires Privacy Notifications be submitted to the consumer that discloses how information will be used and/or shared. The consumer has the right to opt out and not provide the required information.


Safeguards Rule


The Safeguards Rule requires a written plan to protect and secure the private information held by an institution. The plan requires overall management of the safeguards through organizational structure, risk management plans for each department that handles the private information, plans for monitoring and auditing compliance and the ability to manage the overall collection, usage, storage, and distribution.


So how do Electronic Document Management Systems or Electronic Content Management Systems help with this daunting task?


EDMS or ECM systems can provide the oversight for managing private information through:


Enhanced Security and Access Controls


Centralized auditing


Centralized, rather than distributed storage


The ability to control usage and distribution


If you are interested in reading more, he has some additional links on his site at Gramm Leach Bliley (GLBA) Document Management Compliance Links

by Susan Twombly

When it comes to energy efficiency, it's not only about cutting costs. It's about making smarter moves towards limiting the environmental impact of your business.

HP makes it easier to do with innovative and practical solutions that help you reduce energy consumption and costs. Read on to learn how you can expand energy efficiency across your company, from PCs, workstations and displays to notebooks, servers and printers.


Print responsibly

HP LaserJet printers and new HP Inkjet printers automatically reduce power consumption after a set period of inactivity. With HP Web Jetadmin, you can remotely schedule sleep/wake-up modes or automatically turn off devices on nights and weekends.

You can also set duplexing as a default via Web Jetadmin and HP Universal Print Driver to consume up to 25 percent less paper.

Most HP LaserJet products require no more than 1 watt of power in off mode. And, by using HP printers with Instant-On Technology (IOT), you can get up to 50 percent energy savings over traditional fusing technology. The savings enabled by IOT since 1993 is the equivalet of removing 1.1 million cars from the road for one year — more than 5.25 million tons of CO2.

For graphic arts, the HP Scitex printer and ink technology can deliver reduced energy consumption through UV-cured printing, versus dryers used in solvent-based printing.


Power savings for personal systems

Desktops

In May, HP Power Manager will be available as a free option on select configurations of HP desktop PCs. With it, users can be personally invested in reducing energy by custom-tailoring their PC power settings and viewing the estimated savings in real-world ways — such as with a comparison with CO2 emissions of a typical mid-size car.

HP business desktops also feature the latest energy-efficient processors. Many come pre-loaded with Verdiem SURVEYOR remote power management software(1) for centralized control over networked PC power settings.

Optional 80 PLUS power supplies available with many desktops extend energy efficiency further. Additionally, some models of 7000 series PCs have a solid-state hard drive. With no moving parts, that helps reduce energy consumption and cooling costs.

Further, HP thin clients can be up to 80 percent more power efficient than traditional desktop PCs with similar capabilities.(2)

Notebooks

By Andrea Orr

Four times a year, Gartner and a host of other technology research firms issue updated surveys on the printing business—looking at total units shipped and breaking out market-share.

Because of HP's longstanding dominance in printing, these surveys can often read like a report on how far the number two and number three players are behind HP.

In its most current survey, for instance, Gartner shows that HP held the leading market-share in page printers, inkjet printers and inkjet MFPs (multifunction printers), the all-in-one machines that combine printing, copying, faxing and scanning functions, and are currently one of the growth engines of the printing business.

So great is HP's lead in the inkjet MFP market, for example, that as of the third quarter of 2007 (the latest period for which data is available), it held a 51 percent share of the market, while its nearest competitor, Lexmark, had just a 20 percent market-share. The number three player, Canon, had just 9 percent of the market.

HP's dominance tends to overshadow the more incremental progress of smaller companies, such as Lexmark, which grew its share of the inkjet all-in-one printer market to 20 percent by the third quarter of 2007, up from 17 percent in 2006. Canon also boosted its share of the key inkjet all-in-one printer market, to 9 percent in the third quarter of 2007, from 8 percent in 2006, according to the Gartner numbers.

"HP is running over everybody," says Jeff Embersits, an analyst with Shareholder Value Management. "I would not want to be another player in that market right now."

The printing industry is in a state of flux these days as consumers and businesses seek better, more efficient ways to print real-time and personalized materials and neither HP nor any of its smaller rivals expect the status quo to continue for long.

HP, whose printing business once focused on the sale of printing machines and ink cartridges, is increasingly working to integrate software and services into the business to help create new ways to sell to customers who are no longer satisfied with a 5 x 7 glossy image, but want that image embossed on a holiday card or small business marketing material that looks professionally produced.

Some of HP's smallest competitors, meanwhile, see the shifting industry trends as an opportunity to reinvent the wheel and offer consumers better ways to do their basic printing.

Last year, while HP forged deeper into printing software and services, Eastman Kodak announced that it would enter the inkjet printer business for the first time with a new model—with ink cartridges that Kodak claims will cost less than half of what bigger players like HP charge. Ink cartridges are the proverbial razor blades of the printer business that reliably generate revenue long after the printer itself is sold.

Kodak's claims can be hard to prove since a printer cartridge lasts for shorter or longer periods of time depending on the materials being printed and the type of paper that is used. Kodak's early results show that consumers are intrigued though. The company sold out of all the new printers it had available during the fourth quarter.

Are consumers tired of the old "cheap printer, expensive cartridge" model? "I think they are," says Robert Toomey, an analyst with E.K. Riley Investments in Seattle.

Likely a bigger key to future leadership in the printing business will be the introduction of new digital printing technologies, which currently encompass just 10 percent of the printing business in the United States. These technologies are critical to printing the sort of personalized and on-demand materials that are driving so much printing today.

HP says a deeper push into digital printing is central to its overall printing strategy, as well as its strategy for retaining a lead over the competition.

--

This article was originally posted at eWeek.com. eWeek.com maintains the copyright of this article.

By Corey Smith

Last year AIIM released the Records Management Report.

One of the questions that was asked was why people would consider implementing an electronic content (record) management system (often we simply call it document management). I find the results very interesting, but not surprising.

The two most important reasons that companies want to implement an electronic document management system are (1) efficiency and productivity and (2) compliance to legal regulations (FACTA, SOX, HIPPA, etc).


But, what I think I find even more interesting is what was left off the answers. That was, reduced paper in the workplace.

I find that especially interesting because when I talk to people, the most common thing I hear is when I ask people why they want to scan all of their documents is, "I just want to get rid of my file cabinets." I think that it is admirable to get rid of file cabinets. Heaven knows that I would love to see all of our file cabinets go away, but does that really help us?

Just because our file cabinets go away, do we really increase our efficiency and productivity? Just because our file cabinets go away, do we really become more compliant with regulatory requirements?

The answer is... maybe.

If all we want to do is remove paper from our office, we may not need a document management database. Oh, there are plenty of "document management specialists" or "imaging specialists" that will tell you that their $10K + system is exactly what you need, but with the proper scanning system, we find that there are a lot of things we can do with document management that many people may never consider.

That is why it is so important to work with someone that understands document systems from start to finish.

Corey Smith is editor-in-chief for OfficeProductNews.net and provides a common sense approach to business and technology in his blog.

from ScanGuru

The Business World is a rapidly changing entity, and technology helps adapt to these changes quickly and will help a company keep its competitive advantage. Paper has always been an inefficient medium for conducting business processes, and recently has become a key focus for Business Process Improvement (BPI) initiatives. So what are the main reasons for a company or organization to move towards the paperless environment?

Below are the two main categories:

Operation Efficiency and Business Process Improvement

Through the use of a DM/ECM system, operational costs can be reduced. A primary example of this is floor space. A 4 drawer file cabinet takes up about 8 square feet of floor space. Multiply this by the number of cabinets and what you pay per square foot on a lease, and this can be a significant waste of dollars. Along this same vein we can examine the costs of handling and process paper documents. It is estimated that a single file folder can cost $25-50 to create, and that a lost file has a cost of $125 – 300 (depending on the cost of the employee time and recreation costs). This is a small sampling of how Operational costs can be reduced.
 Using a digital repository can improve productivity. This is an obvious benefit. Any time you can reduce the time required to perform a required task, that time can be applied elsewhere. A basic online search for a customer file requires about 5 seconds. To accomplish the same information lookup with a physical file cabinet can take 10 – 25 minutes, or perhaps even days if the file is held in offsite storage. This is just for basic lookups, and not complex searches, which could take weeks if performed through the physical file system.
 A DM/ECM system can provide improved customer service. Take for example a large HMO Claims Department. Members call with questions about claims, and with the old paper system, they were put on hold until the physical claim could be retrieved. Now, it is viewed instantly, and information passed within minutes.
-Managing customer documents efficiently can lead to improved customer retention and acquisition. The ability to manage contracts, expiration dates, equipment lists, etc. quickly and easily, along with improved customer service, will ultimately result in enhanced retention and acquisition if managed correctly.
All of the above will result in improved operating margins, and ultimately, increased profits.

Risk Reduction

DM/ECM systems are imperative to those organizations subject that are subject to compliance laws and regulations. The ability to produce records, provide documentation during audits, track access to documents, and track transactions is now required in certain business verticals. Financial Firms, Non-profits, Healthcare, Government and others are now required by law to fully manage and track many operations within their business. ECM/DM system vendors have focused on these requirements and the law to ensure compliance when it comes to retaining and tracking documentation and access to records.
 A document repository can reduce litigation exposure for an organization. The ability to retain and recall documentation and records at a moments notice can be imperative in any legal situation.
 Document Security is often an overlooked area within an organization’s security plan. An online system gives the ability to track access, changes, additions, deletions, etc.
 An ECM/DM system allows for the backup of critical files. What would happen to an organization if their file room was destroyed by a fire or flood? Business Continuity Planning is a critical theme today, allowing an organization to insure that a disaster of any kind will not bring business to a halt. Scanning paper files provides the ability to backup and restore key business documentation.
 

This article is reposted from ScanGuru.

By Corey Smith

Every six months or so, comes a concern via the media that the MFP, or multifunction printer, is not secure and causes security holes on your network. When considering security on your network, there are some common sense approaches to ensuring you are protected from harm.

At eWeek, Rosen Sharma wrote a very simple article on securing your MFP. The article opens with the following:

Think you’ve plugged all of the vulnerabilities in your enterprise network? How about that multifunction printer over there in the sales department? As Dr. Rosen Sharma, president and CTO of Solidcore Systems explains, these devices frequently contain operating systems that are just as vulnerable to malware as your desktop computers.


While I think that this statement is a little sensational, I think that there are some underlying issues that need to be addressed. Fortunately, there are a few simple things that can be done. He lists three ways to ensure security of your mfp. Here are the two that I think that you can do right now that are simple and any network admin can do this.

Lock down and control access to the system Apply patches on a schedule

They aren't revolutionary as they are the same types of things that you should do with your desktops and servers, but knowing the risk gets you closer to gaining security.

If you are interested in the full article, go to eWeek.

Corey Smith is editor-in-chief for OfficeProductNews.net and provides a common sense approach to business and technology in his blog.