Whitepapers

Securing MFPs in a CAC Environment: Today and Tomorrow: Critical Considerations

securingMFP thumbnail Today’s sophisticated network copiers or multifunctional products (MFPs),integrate copier, scanner, printer and facsimile functionality into a single platform, with the added capability of network-based document capture, storage and distribution. A primary on-ramp to the government’s network, these devices can convert hardcopy documents into easily shared digital files.

As a centralized network document processing hub, MFPs can also pose a potential risk to mission-critical information and applications. Theft or redirection of data is a danger when anonymous walk-up usage is possible. With an expanding MFP installed base deploying safeguards that ensure that only authorized users gain access to the device is not only a best practices imperative, but a federal mandate.

Integrating paper-based information for Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 compliance: The eCopy™ solution for document imaging

<p><a href="http://www.officeproductnews.net/files/paperthumbnail.jpg"><img title="paper thumbnail" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="242" alt="paper thumbnail" src="http://www.officeproductnews.net/files/paperthumbnail_thumb.jpg" width="190" align="left" border="0" /></a> The major corporate governance issue for publicly traded US companies today <br />is compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). Although the SEC has recently <br />extended the compliance deadlines for Section 404 of SOX, this doesn’t mean the regulation is going away.</p> <p>Under the new compliance schedule, for companies with a market capitalization over $75 million and at least one annual report filing with the SEC, the deadline to begin to comply with the 404 requirements has moved out from June 15, 2004 to November 15, 2004. For all other issuers, Section 404 compliance is required for fiscal year ending on or after July 15, 2005, as opposed to the original date of <br />April 15, 2005.</p>

Out-of-the-box Integration

<p><a href="http://www.officeproductnews.net/files/Out-of-the-box_Integration.pdf" target="_blank"><img title="Out-of-the-box Integration" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="215" alt="Out-of-the-box Integration" src="http://www.officeproductnews.net/files/image_3_124.png" width="170" align="left" border="0" /></a> Introduction <br />The purpose of this paper is to discuss how it is possible for small and medium-sized firms (SMB’s) to achieve levels of application integration historically reserved for large enterprises with deep IT pockets. Specifically, how an Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) can be integrated with other core business applications to drive efficiency and manage IT costs.</p> <p>One of the bigger problems small enterprises face is the need to enter the same data more than once to satisfy the requirements of different software applications such as a customer relationship management system (CRM) or an accounting software package. Frequently these applications do not communicate data with each other. As a result, data is entered twice, increasing possibility of data entry error. Another significant problem is learning new software applications. Most small enterprises find it difficult to spare employee time to learn new software applications.. CNG has developed two modules, Synchronizer and Retriever, which address both of these problems and provide the advantages of using an EDMS. In addition, Synchronizer and Retriever reduce the amount of time necessary to integrate software applications from weeks to less than a day. By solving these three problems, Synchronizer and Retriever make the investment in a document management solution easy to justify versus deploying a non-integrated document management solution.</p>

Cutting Costs and Maximizing the Return on Your Imaging and Output Assets

<p><a href="http://www.officeproductnews.net/files/IDC_whitepaper.pdf" target="_blank"><img title="Cutting Costs and Maximizing the Return on Your Imaging and Output Assets" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="216" alt="Cutting Costs and Maximizing the Return on Your Imaging and Output Assets" src="http://www.officeproductnews.net/files/image_3_123.png" width="170" align="left" border="0" /></a> EXECUTIVE SUMMARY <br />New, powerful document distribution and management advances place imaging and output resources in an important role within critical business processes. These processes may be vertical, such as brokerage accounts, insurance claims, and FDA drug applications, or horizontal, such as invoicing and HR documentation. As a result of these trends, imaging and output resources are now being included in efforts to align business goals with IT and in efforts to maximize the return on all IT resources.</p> <p>The process of optimizing the imaging and output infrastructure inevitably reveals unnecessarily high costs and underutilized assets. Indeed, for this White Paper we studied nine large enterprises in the United States, Europe, and Asia and found the majority of organizations studied reported major problems related to overall cost awareness of their imaging hardware, their ability to assess device utilization, and high costs of maintaining an often aged and out-of-date fleet of printers, copiers, and multifunction devices. Based on the experiences of these nine companies and other IDC research, this White Paper looks at the unnecessary costs and inefficiencies that typically exist within these resources and the significant opportunities to achieve cost savings, boost employee productivity, and speed up core business processes from tighter integration between the document advances of hardcopy devices and business process workflows.</p>

A business case for taking a hard look at aging printing and imaging technology

<p><a href="http://www.officeproductnews.net/files/HP_Not_Broke.pdf" target="_blank"><img title="A business case for taking a hard look at aging printing and imaging technology" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="214" alt="A business case for taking a hard look at aging printing and imaging technology" src="http://www.officeproductnews.net/files/image_3_122.png" width="170" align="left" border="0" /></a> There has been a significant shift in the way organizations think about the cost and value associated with printing and imaging. In view of the findings of leading industry analysts such as Gartner and IDC (see Fast Facts on page 4), organizations are eager to trim document output costs, which are now estimated at between one and three percent of revenue. Productivity expenditures are thought to be even greater, with IT professionals typically spending up to 15 percent of their time on printing and related issues. These experts and others suggest that savings of as much as 30 percent of overall printing costs can be obtained through active management of the document output environment.</p> <p>Because it pays to get rightsizing right <br />A growing majority of companies are turning to rightsizing as a strategy to optimize their document output fleet. It’s a move that is beginning to have a significant impact on fleet size. Yet smaller fleets do not automatically add up to lower management and support costs. The failure lies not in rightsizing as a strategy, but rather in the mistaken way some companies approach its implementation. Lacking a sound life-cycle management plan, such companies steadfastly hang on to document output devices until they are completely inoperable rather than invest in newer technology. Today it is not uncommon to find that as much as 50 percent of the devices in an organization’s printer fleet are more than five years old. Considering that supply costs for older workgroup printers can be as much as twice those for today’s multifunction printers (MFPs), this effort to stretch initial capital investment, and thereby maximize ROI, leaves many organizations spending more, not less. Thanks to recent technological advances, many newer output devices now offer significant savings in supplies and energy costs while enhancing productivity.</p>

How to Build a Cost-Effective Print, Copy and Fax Solution

How to Build a Cost-Effective Print, Copy and Fax Solution Think about it
An important shift is occurring in the way organizations work with information. To understand the impact of this change we need only to look at our own work habits. When was the last time you printed a document, made a large number of copies of it to share with your colleagues and then filed the original in a filing cabinet? While these practices are not unheard of, they are becoming increasingly uncommon. These days it is far more likely that the business information we require comes to us electronically to be printed and stored as needed. Since it is generally more convenient (and just as economical) to print a smaller number of originals than it is to make copies of a single original, many of us often choose printing over copying.

There is no question that working people are changing their print, copy and fax behaviors. Yet in many organizations the hardware infrastructure that enables these workflows is not keeping pace with the change. For example, if your organization’s printers can’t support regular, small print runs, but you have a high-speed copier that no one is using, it is likely that you are spending too much on copier maintenance and overtaxing your printers.

Communicating Better with Color

<p><a href="http://www.officeproductnews.net/files/Comm_Color.pdf" target="_blank"><img title="Communicating Better with Color" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="214" alt="Communicating Better with Color" src="http://www.officeproductnews.net/files/image_3_120.png" width="170" align="left" border="0" /></a> Did you hear the one a few years back about the intern who faxed some charts to a team of reviewers in advance of a meeting—with a cover note directing their attention to the figures in green? Quite a faux pas in the days before color faxes. But it’s no joke: Color can be one of the most powerful tools at an organization’s disposal when it comes to organizing information, increasing understanding, and making people and operations more productive and efficient. And today, the technology for color printing to help achieve these ends is more advanced, accessible and affordable than ever.</p> <p>“If you want to understand how color impacts us, next time you get in the car, take note of how you stop at red and go on green. Color plays a big role in persuasion. We should understand its value.”</p> <p>–Bryan Eisenberg, ”The Color of Money,” ClickZ Network</p>

"Managed print services" may help companies rein in an insidious expense

"Managed print services" may help companies rein in an insidious expense Making copies isn't brain surgery, but at Florida's Health First chain of hospitals it had become what chief information officer Richard Rogers describes as a "convoluted mess." Nursing stations were overrun by copiers, fax machines, and printers, taking up precious counter space and impeding day-to-day operations.

If getting to (or away from) the machines was a chore, so too was keeping them running. There was no consistent process for ordering toner — departments purchased from a range of suppliers, sometimes buying poor-quality reconditioned cartridges. Some nursing units stocked up on a year's supply at a time, others bought on a more ad hoc basis, and no one knew what anyone else had on hand.

Rogers sought a cure in so-called managed print services, a form of outsourcing that addresses the rationalization of office equipment and its maintenance. Lexmark International won the bid, and its consultants set about analyzing document output patterns throughout the company. They replaced many single-function machines with strategically placed multifunction devices that print, copy, scan, and fax. They also rolled out a system that automatically reorders supplies when needed with no hospital-staff involvement. As a result, Rogers says that hard costs alone have dropped from 3.1 cents per image to 1.4 cents per image.

Managing Security Through Services Process Leadership

<p><a href="http://www.officeproductnews.net/files/cert_managing_security_through_se... target="_blank"><img title="Managing Security Through Services Process Leadership" style="border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; border-right-width: 0px" height="170" alt="Managing Security Through Services Process Leadership" src="http://www.officeproductnews.net/files/image_3_80.png" width="215" align="left" border="0" /></a> The Xerox Support Organization, Xerox Services, is comprised of Technical Services, Professional Services and Managed Services</p> <p>With over 50,000,000 touch points each year, our customers interact with Xerox and experience our capabilities in three ways: <br />Online: with easy, flexible instant access <br />On-Call: responsive, live call support, 24/7 <br />On-Site: proactive, highly trained, certified professionals</p> <p>Xerox Services provides coverage that is second to none. We have over 14,000 highly skilled support personnel who know Xerox products and are dedicated to servicing them</p> <p>Providing the highest levels of support for every Xerox solution – support that’s convenient, fast, responsive and reliable; dedicated to protecting our customer’s investments, maximizing their performance and giving them peace of mind – that’s the Xerox commitment</p>

Security in the Office

Security in the Office In today’s office, multifunction devices can print, copy, scan to network destinations, send email attachments, and handle incoming and outgoing fax transmissions. If everyone has access to your multifunction printer, that means just about anyone can launch attacks against the network and network resources ranging from simple (picking up documents left in the output tray) to complex (distributing documents over the network or accessing confidential information).

Xerox is committed to helping you secure your environment and achieve your regulatory compliance objectives through systems, software and services designed to provide security that assures the confidentiality, integrity and availability of critical document and network assets.

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