Office Solutions

With the emergence of new technology the workforce is evolving into a mobile population. The new tools available today enable you to work in the most efficient location whether that’s your home, office, or a customer location. Better yet, there are no longer as many communication barriers thanks to laptops, smartphones, tablets and wireless internet. IDC predicts by the year 2013 that more than 75% of the U.S. workforce representing 119.7 million workers will be mobile.

How does this growing mobility affect small and medium businesses? It puts added pressure on them to keep information safe and secure and to do so at an affordable price. Most small businesses do not have the same resources large enterprises do to build a business-ready mobile infrastructure. Small businesses are more likely to have employees using their personal smartphone or tablet for work which makes maintaining security and synergies with the business network more difficult. Printing from these mobile devices can be a huge frustration since they are not connected to the business network.

A tool that can help… Xerox PrintBack. This mobile printing app is free and will work with both iOS- or Android-based smartphones and tablets.  PrintBack enables your mobile workforce to print office documents, photos and web pages from anywhere to the default printer they already use. And the app works on any manufacturer’s network printer or multifunction printer.

Check out the app and let me know what you think. Do you also have ideas on how we can help mobile workers? You can share these too in the comments below.

Productivity is a complex term.

In the world of “bean counters” and investors it means cost reduction. But in the world of the office or workplace – the word takes a different meaning. Being productive is fundamental to business success as well as personal satisfaction.

What is the proper meaning of productivity? It depends on how you measure productivity.

Productivity is a measure of the efficiency of production. However you need to be careful in defining how you measure productivity. All myths of productivity emanate from wrong measurement metrics. Doing things faster is a typical example of productivity. Speed may indicate higher productivity. But in reality the end results may be disappointing if the focus is wrong.

Take reading as an example.

By the measure of faster reading can we say a person is productive? Obviously not. When it comes to reading, comprehension is more important than speed. While speed is easy to measure, comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading.

The correlation between productivity and reading are strong. In an office or workplace, thoughtful actions in solving business problems require reading, learning and collaboration. Reading and learning are the fundamental pillars of individual productivity. Read well, learn well – you are off to a great start in being productive at your workplace.

Speaking of reading comprehension… is reading on the screen better or worse than reading from a printed page? Obviously with tremendous improvements in digital technologies in recent years, reading on the screen has grown leaps and bounds. It seems as easy as reading from printed pages. Has digital media reached a point of replacing paper? The biophysicists and neuroscientists don’t think so.

In a New York Times online discussion between experts, Sandra Aamodt, former editor in chief of Nature Neuroscience and co-author of Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life writes, “To a great extent, the computer’s usefulness for serious reading depends on the user’s strength of character. Distractions abound on most people’s computer screens. ”

So, next time you come across documents that requires accurate response or better understanding – print first, read from paper and take action. If the document is a short text message or short email note, reading/responding on screen is a no brainer. With a proper first step, you are off to achieve greater productivity.

We’d like to hear from you. What do you do to increase productivity in your office or workplace? 

As offices small to large look for the next big thing in productivity and cost reduction, managed print services (MPS) is rising to the top of the list. So say experts like Angele Boyd, vice president, Imaging/Output Document Solutions and SMB, IDC who joined Xerox clients and thought leaders from across the Midwest at a recent “Focus Forward” event in Minneapolis. I listened as Angele shared her thoughts on the advantages of MPS and recommendations on implementation. You can see some of these in her IDC Insights Community blog post.

During the event, clients from Allina Hospitals and Clinics, Medtronics, and others shared experiences and best practices. Decision makers from IT and procurement – normally on opposite ends of the spectrum – joined panel discussions and actually agreed on something: managed print services uncovers untapped opportunities to better manage information and technology while increasing efficiency. Not surprisingly, office solutions like mobile printing and scanning also fit into the picture as MPS tools that speed business process and document workflows.

It was amazing to hear about the results that managed print services is driving at all kinds of organizations and industries, from government and education to health care and financial services. And when a crowd of clients and thought leaders got together in Minneapolis, the ideas and innovations started to flow. It was inspiring.

Join us for a Focus Forward event in a city near you. If you can’t attend in person, ask a question or leave a comment here. We’d love to hear from you. 

Have you noticed that when you make life changes to reduce your impact on the environment, it often takes more work? Whether it’s rinsing glass jars and plastic tubs before recycling, remembering your reusable shopping bags,  hang-drying your clothes, riding your bike rather than driving…it all takes more time and effort!

Thankfully, there are people willing to trade convenience for more environmental behaviors, but we could use more. Out of (perceived) necessity, convenience often rules our busy lives. Are there any ways to simplify AND be greener? When it comes to printing, the answer is YES!

Xerox Solid Ink printers and multifunction printers (MFPs) use cartridge-free ink sticks that are incredibly easy to load. Just insert the uniquely-shaped stick into the correct color slot and you’re done. And you can top off the ink at any time to ensure you don’t run out during a large print job. There are no big, bulky toner cartridges, fusers, or imaging units like you would find in a typical color laser printer. The single replaceable item is a cleaning unit that only needs to be replaced a few times throughout the life of your printer or MFP, and is simple to accomplish with no service call.

Ok, that explains how life gets easier, but what about greener? Well, Xerox Solid Ink printers and MFPs produce 90% less printing waste than comparable laser products due to their cartridge-free design. And their compact packaging means fewer delivery trucks on the road.

Additional ways that ColorQube Solid Ink products reduce environmental impact are that they’re ENERGY STAR qualified, they produce the same vibrant images on recycled paper as on high-quality paper, and the desktop printers and MFPs have a smaller carbon footprint over their entire lifecycle. In addition, all customers who are connected to a solid ink printer or MFP can download GreenPrint software for free, which avoids the printing of unwanted pages.

Back to the easy side of things, the new ColorQube 8700 and ColorQube 8900 boast a large colorful touch-screen user-interface that simplifies their many features, and even provides helpful videos. There’s a built-in “convenience stapler”, as well as a print-from/scan-to USB input right on front of the UI.

Finally, something that is easier and greener.  Oh, and did I mention that you can print color for the price of black-and-white?

Check out Solid Ink for yourself and tell us what you think in the comments below!

Like you, I think about prices all the time and not just when I am working to set a price on a new printer. Whether its breakfast cereal, cars, leisure items like golf clubs, an app for my smartphone, lunch – I evaluate the price of a wide range of goods and services every day.  

Pricing for your small business is a critical task – occupying a prominent seat at the marketing mix table along with the other members of the “four Ps” (product, place and promotion). Whether you offer a product or a service, you need to set a price that is fair and attractive to your customers while offering a profit to support your business.

When you work on pricing for your product or service, I recommend collecting as much information as you can in a couple key areas:

• Competitive Market – collect and analyze the competitive offerings available, how they are priced, and how customers are responding.
• Voice of Customer – I don’t care how you do it, include input from your customers in your pricing process. Pricing surveys are one way to collect the opinions of your prospective customers regarding how much they’ll pay for an offering like yours, and how they value specific features and capabilities.
• Costs – if you don’t fully understand the costs of your business, you won’t be able to analyze the effect of your pricing. Spending time here will help avoid unwelcome surprises later.

Once armed with this data, you can evaluate the different pricing options you have, and what you might expect will happen based on the option you choose as you zero in on what’s best for your small business.

These are just the high-level basics. There are many different strategies you can choose from when setting your pricing (cost-plus, market-based, etc) and considerations to take into account (is your industry growing? Mature? In decline? Are price promotions common-place? Do you sell direct to customer or through partners?). But spending the time to collect this base-level information is a solid first step in the right direction.

I’d love to hear how you approach pricing for your small business, or your thoughts on how you evaluate pricing either as a consumer or a professional. 

Whether you are a small business or a large enterprise considering a multifunction printer (MFP), the purchase conversation often turns to affordability, functionality, image quality, even sustainability. All critical features for sure, but one that can often be overlooked is MFP security. And while security elements may not be touted like color quality, or low ink prices or printer speed, they can be equally, if not more important.

We introduced the ColorQube 8700 and ColorQube 8900 color multifunction printers earlier this week, and quite simply, they were built with security top of mind. With more than 50,000 new security threats emerging each day, offering the highest level of protection to our customers isn’t just nice-to-do, it’s a requirement. The MFPs come equipped with world-class security features like secure print, password protection, common access card readers and encryption software. And they cover four major aspects of security – the document, MFP, access control, and network. Specifically:

• User Permissions improvements that provide the most network-friendly authentication and authorization capabilities from any manufacturer. In this iteration, authentication is based on role, either pre-defined or custom as specified by the customer. For example, a user’s permission to print can be controlled, and of course tracked and audited, making regulatory compliance with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act a snap.
• For scanning to email, SMTP over SSL is now available to protect the mail transport channel. For network scanning, PDF files can be password protected. Optical Character Recognition software comes standard on the high speed model.
• A new software verification feature provides the ability to remotely ensure the integrity of the multifunction printer’s installed software.

 Of particular interest in government settings:

• Within a Common Access Card (CAC) environment, encrypted email can be sent to others in the PKI that have entries in the public address book. Also new for both CAC and PIV is support for 144K cards, 2048-bit certificates and .P7B type certificates.
• Continued availability of Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2 validated crypto with upgraded minimum key lengths to meet new stricter National Institute of Standards and Technology requirements.

This laundry list of security features may not impact every customer. But increasingly, security concerns and features that minimize these risks are top of mind for businesses of all sizes, and we remain focused on staying one step ahead of vulnerabilities.

Do you have a question or need help with your MFP security? Let us know in the comments below. 

My 16-year-old daughter recently discovered Tiffany & Co. I can hear the sympathetic sigh of many fathers out there as they know exactly what that means. Small gifts with a big pricetag. She’ll look at me some days and say, “Dad, good things come in small packages” and I know she’s referring to that little blue box and the sparkling item inside.   

Yes – good things do come in small packages and I can say that about a couple of new color multifunction printers (MFPs) we introduced today. The ColorQube 8700 and ColorQube 8900 multifunction printers are small products but pack a big punch for businesses small to large. Not only are these MFPs small in comparision to larger copiers or MFPS, but the ink comes in tiny packages as well. 

That’s because it’s Solid Ink. No cartridges needed in this technology so the supply boxes are small. Gone are the days where you need an entire closet or room for your printer supplies, and because the ColorQube 8700 and ColorQube 8900 are compact, gone are the days of a dedicated copier room. With these multifunction printers, you not only get high performance in a small package, you also get the benefit of Solid Ink technology. 

Solid Ink was designed to have a smaller impact on the environment versus comparable laser products. Smaller means less to recycle, less to ship and that means less trucks on the road. You can also make a big impact on your office by consolidating a printer, scanner, fax machine and copier into a ColorQube 8700 or ColorQube 8900.

See for yourself all the good things these small boxes can bring to your office and tell us what you think. And if you like what you see, enter our “Rethink Your Ink” Twitter sweepstakes for a chance to win a ColorQube 8700. 

Color multifunction printers (MFPs) are designed to shoulder a heavy load in your small office – part marketing intern, part office manager and part administrative assistant.

They produce the materials you or your sales people use to dazzle your current customers and attract new ones. And they can help save time and money by printing only the documents you need, when you need them. 

They can improve internal communications, whether you’re reminding employees to bring their softball mitts to the company picnic or to establish objectives for next year’s growth plan. And according to a Harris Interactive survey, using color increases understanding and retention which is important for both customer-facing and internal communications.

But where color multifunction printers can really shine is document management and administration. The bundled software available with most MFPs can boost productivity and enable some interesting scenarios for modernizing your small office. If you already have one and haven’t tried its software, I’d highly recommend it.  Here are just a few examples:

• LAN Fax – faxing an electronic document? Chances are you’ve had to print a document just to run it through the fax machine with a cover letter. Save paper, skip the print, fax it directly from your computer by submitting it to your MFP just like a print job. The MFP will take it from there and fax the job.
• Optical Character Recognition (OCR) – scanning the document is step one, but how will you find it later? One way is through OCR, which can recognize the content of a PDF and make it more easily searchable. OCR software can also make it possible to edit scanned documents.
• Document Routing – have a structure in place for keeping scanned documents organized?  Your bundled scanning software can help you set up easy shortcuts to get scanned documents properly filed. 

Some color multifunction printers go even further, offering platforms for deeper integration with software packages that automate routing of documents for approval and handling of electronic forms.

This is by no means an exhaustive list – just a starting point if you’re thinking about ways to up the game in your office. If you’ve got your small office’s MFP doing any neat tricks, I’d love to hear about it!

Did you know that you have the power at-hand right now to lower your printing impact on the environment? That’s right. There’s no need to wait for IT to install a printer or multifunction printer (MFP) that consumes less energy. No need to wait until five printers are replaced by one networked MFP. No need to wait for anything…Just reduce paper waste!  

According to the European Union ENERGY STAR website, the amount of energy to create one sheet of paper is 50 times the amount of energy it takes for a typical 50 page per minute office copier to print it. 50 times!

Obviously, paper is necessary for printing and a printed page offers many benefits. But there are numerous ways to use less paper without sacrificing those benefits.

• Cut paper use up to half through two-sided printing and copying.

• Pack more on the page: Changing the default margins from 1.25 inches to 1 inch can reduce the amount of paper you use by up to eight percent!

• Eliminate unwanted pages (i.e. with minimal or no content), with software such as GreenPrint, which is available for free to those of you connected to a solid ink printer or MFP.

• Use N-up printing, which fits up to 8 originals on one or both sides of a page (a presentation can fit on 1/16 the number of pages!).

• Click on the Earth Smart Settings button in your Xerox driver and watch the “green printing gas gauge” grow as you set your default printing to two-sided, 2-up, turn off banner pages, etc.

• Hold/release print jobs using PIN codes. You just punch in a code to get your printer or MFP to print, a process that confirms whether you really wanted that document.

• Use the scan to e-mail capabilities of your multifunction printer to reduce the need to print and mail hardcopy documents.

• Use recycled paper, which requires approximately 70 percent the energy to produce as compared to virgin paper. Solid ink printers and MFPs produce the same vibrant print quality on recycled paper as they do on high quality papers!

Hopefully you’re now convinced that reducing paper waste is beneficial to the environment, and it’s really quite easy to print smarter with the tips above. But if you’re still not convinced…then consider the cost savings!

Do you have paper saving tips you use in your office? Share them below in the comments! 

With all the capabilities of today’s office multifunction printers (MFPs), I can guarantee there are some you’re not using. Some features you simply may not need and others you may not be aware of at all. One of the better known, and a personal favorite, is scan to e-mail.

The core functions of an MFP are print, copy, scan and fax and many products come with the ability to e-mail documents. These core functions should be easy to access and easy to use on any good multifunction printer. However, setting up these functions can be intimidating to a small business owner or someone without an IT background. Why is this you ask? Good question! The reason for that is simple; scan to e-mail accesses your network and a level of security is required. Striking that balance between making setup easy and keeping your network secure adds extra steps.

The bottom line is setting up the e-mail features of an MFP does require some knowledge of your network. If you find yourself without help from an IT person, Internet service provider, or a tech-savvy co-worker, here are a few things you will need to make the setup a little easier.

First you will need to answer some basic questions before you try to tackle the setup. You can get this information from the people who manage your network.

1)     What is the SMTP server address?

2)     What is the login name and password (if one is required)?

3)     What kind of authentication does it use?

4)     Does it require SSL?

With this information, you should be able to successfully navigate through the setup process for scan to e-mail with the assistance of your product’s User Guide or by navigating through the front panel of your multifunction printer.

The scan to e-mail feature is a quick way to distribute a printed page. When you utilize the product’s address book, you also save the time it takes to scan the document back to your desktop and send it out a separate e-mail. Taking a little time up front to setup scan to e-mail can save your small business a great deal of time on a daily basis. And remember to minimize your file size to keep from overloading the recipient’s in-box.

Do you have any scan to e-mail tips for small businesses? Share them in the comments below.