Over the past decade, the demands on IT Departments within Companies to do more and cut costs have increased dramatically. This necessitates thinking outside the box. How can you be expected to do more with fewer resources; spend less money and be involved in more important initiatives? There are numerous requests for your IT time and budget. How do you find that extra time and money? You need an extension of your IT group; a trusted advisor and support system. That is where the Taylor Made Business Systems Power Center – 9 Points of Differentiation comes to your aide with Document Management and Printer Fleet support. Read on to see what sets TMBS above the rest in Document and Print Management.

Taylor Made Business Systems’ is designed specifically around managed print and document services. Our primary intent is to help companies identify, proactively control, & manage document output & distribution, while freeing up valuable IT resources.

Taylor Made’s 9 Point Differentiators

1. Service is part of our brand and it equals Proactive Customer Care.

2. With unique remote monitoring software we proactively manage your print fleet & document management with service, supplies, technology leadership.

3. Average tenure of our Field Support Reps is 20 years; bringing with it vast knowledge and technical expertise.

4. National service coverage allows us to reach out to every location of your company.

5. We work for you, our customer. We are unencumbered by manufacturer’s demands.

a) Independent solution recommendations

b) Service most brands and models

6. Planned Quarterly Reviews enhance productivity and continued ROI with technology.

7. A single source for your entire document needs – TMBS is only a click or call away.

8. Faster decision making process is possible with the TMBS management structure.

9. 40 years helping companies navigate the technology landscape and achieve Digital Fitness.

Contact us today to begin your no cost assessment. Or call us at (855) 575-8627.  If we cannot save you time and money at the very least you will have a new insight into the world of Print and Document management. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

LOOKING for an easier way to reduce expenses while significantly increasing your company’s productivity? Taylor Made Business Systems’ PowerDoc, the premier document management program offers tools and technology to maximize your document output and usage, improve your organization’s efficiency, free up office space, and decrease your operational costs. Taylor Made’s PowerDocsolutions are designed to manage a document’s entire lifecycle, from creation to disposal, with Proven Leadership. Powerful Results.

• Efficiently scan, index, and store documents
• Retrieve documents by keyword search
• All documents are stored electronically in a safe, secure location
• Securely access documents from anywhere via the Internet

To learn more about how PowerDoc solutions will have a positive impact on your business call (855) 575-8627
or register for a free analysis

While you are at it check out Taylor Made Business Systems’ PowerPrint Program. PowerPrint is designed to ensure you always have the necessary supplies to keep your office equipment operating at peak efficiency. Our office supplies are competitively priced and next-day delivery is guaranteed. It is also designed to remotely scan your printers for service alerts and we are often on our way to you before you know your device needs a call.

· Easy online ordering system

· Eco-friendly products

· Guaranteed contracted supplies in-stock

· Smart Phone dispatched technicians and support.

One Vendor, One Contact, One Answer – Taylor Made Business Systems is your partner in promoting your company’s Digitial Fitness.

To learn more about how PowerPrint solutions will have a positive impact on your business call (855) 575-8627
or register for a free analysis

Here is how it begins:

· Understanding your current environment

· Getting it under management.

· Finding ways to optimize the environment with the information Taylor Made provides

· Reducing costs and the environmental impact.

The following is a strategy that can be

leveraged to achieve these benefits:

Postpone Buying New Equipment

When it comes to managing your expenses, the first thing some hardware sales people recommend  is buying newer equipment. The 1^st  step should be to hold off on buying new equipment until you fully understand what you have.  Chances are you already have more equipment than you really need!  Despite the “advice” of hardware vendors that want to sell devices, the solution to your problems does not necessarily begin with buying new equipment.

Discover What you Have

The next step is to uncover your current situation.

• What devices do you have? What are the redundancies?
• What are your current print volumes and usage patterns?
• What is the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of your printing infrastructure?

Rapid assessment technologies streamline this process. Our non-invasive print assessment software scans your network, finding your printers & gathering useful information from each device. This         information is compiled, creating a report detailing your current device fleet, usage patterns and TCO.

Outsource Printer Management

With an understanding of the current volumes, usage patterns and costs, the next logical step is to implement a Taylor Made Management Strategy for your printer fleet. Taylor Made  Business Systems will manage your fleet of printers on a usage-based model which includes ALL you need: supplies, service and support. This type of program typically does not require capital expenditures, because it involves managing the printers that you already have.

Optimize Your Fleet

With your printers now under management, Taylor Made Business Systems will work with you on a quarterly basis to review your actual usage and implement recommendations to further optimize your printing infrastructure. This may include technology upgrades, re-deployment of existing devices, or implementing state of the art Print Solutions specific to your business applications.

Call us today to find out more!

Marsha Dohrmann

Business Development Manager

925-510-9106

mdohrmann@tmbs.net

Simplify deployment and reduce complexity using systems integrated with expertise.

As information technology moves to the strategic center of business, organizations can no longer ignore the inefficiencies in today’s approach to computing:

●● On average, more than 70 percent of IT budgets are spent on operations and maintenance.

●● Two-thirds of companies go over schedule on their project deployments.

And as Gary Barnett notes in the Bathwick Group report The road to Smarter Computing, “… our IT systems have become complex and difficult to manage.

Taylor Made Business Systems is a company built from the ground up around managed print and document services.  Our primary goal is to help companies identify, control, and manage document output and distribution as well as freeing up valuable IT resources for vital corporate initiatives.

When it comes to ALL of your documents, what could you outsource instead of do?

What if you could manage your core infrastructure instead of spending time doing the maintenance, break/fix, moves/adds/changes and educating your users on its every function?

If it’s not your bread and butter, taking care of your own infrastructure is a waste of your time and resources. Instead, you could maximize your resources by managing your organization’s infrastructure.

If you could leverage a relationship with a partner who knows the technology and expertise to make your document management and print fleet management infrastructure hum, you would be able to focus on the “meat” or core initiatives while still delivering the end result “sizzle” to your business users.

In order to deliver the results that keep your company both happy and competitive, you need to have two things:

1. A strong core infrastructure of essential (commodity) functions that just works

2. IT strategic initiatives that will improve business processes to give your business a competitive advantage

You’re expected to deliver both sides of the coin, the steak and the sizzle, yet we both realize you don’t have time to do it all. Things get missed and there is money being lost and IT time being miss used.

It doesn’t have to be an either/or situation. We don’t want you to choose between the steak, the strategic initiatives that differentiate your business, and the sizzle, the functions that the business users just expect. Deliver the best of both worlds to your company, but you have to start managing.

Menu of sizzling document functions:

· Print Fleet Management

· E-Mail Systems

· Authentication and Authorization

· Document Management Systems

· Fax Servers

Managing these functions will free up your time and be more cost effective than trying to hire and train staff to keep infrastructure expertise in house. By managing the commodities, you can quickly deliver the sizzle to your users while taking care of the steak.

Outsource the chores.

Chores are essential to the foundation of your core business processes, but aren’t functions that define your business. In fact, they are a contributing factor to the perception that IT is a roadblock! The role of technology is not to build networks. It is to make the business healthier and faster.

We can be a part of how you get your business plan accomplished. Utilizing Document Management services will allow you to focus on assessing business processes and developing long-term strategies so you can switch your mentality from needing to meet these business user expectations to having the ability to create business opportunities for your company.

That is what separates the best from the rest.

We put together a checklist that will help you identify what is strategic to your company.

Leverage infrastructure technology expertise to deliver the sizzle to your users so you can stay focused on the steak. Our team of experts is dedicated to monitoring and managing your technologies so that your core infrastructure just works. Don’t choose between delivering the sizzle and delivering the steak! You can have both.

Remember: Your chores are our core. Document and Print Fleet Management will give you the time needed to move your business forward.

Change is the only constant, especially when it comes to technology.

Stop bracing yourself and start embracing the pace of change.

Taylor Made Business Systems core business is to help your enterprise manage documents, whether, printing, scanning, emailing, faxing, or storage and retrieval. With business success at stake, leaders are aggressively seeking ways to transform their business to maintain a competitive edge.

Today’s IT infrastructure outsourcing is all about meeting business needs that benefit the whole organization. The current economy, rate of change, and new technological needs, are leading more businesses to migrate to outsourced non-strategic functions.

Managed Document outsourcing means sourcing technical expertise to deliver greater results for your organization, so your business can concentrate on the field you are the experts in.

Forrester’s Survey shows many businesses are taking full advantage of strategic IT outsourcing to successfully meet their business needs.

3 Key Advantages to Outsourcing.

1. Business transformation through continuous innovation.

Many organizations simply do not have sufficient change management competency and resources required. Your IT infrastructure has to be more responsive to the ongoing changing business processes, emerging technology, and workers’ needs to maintain a competitive edge. Leveraging outsourcing provides the expertise to provide a proactively managed IT infrastructure and a more agile and flexible foundation, empowering a flexible operating model to aid in achieving operational excellence.

Increasingly, businesses are turning to IT outsourcing to maximize their ability to capitalize on the strategic importance of their IT organization. If your business is devoting a lot of attention to non-strategic operational IT issues, that can hinder the focus on things that really matter.

Today’s competitive market requires a rigorous focus on your core business, and IT outsourcing enables business’ to apply scarce talent and energy to develop the necessary capabilities to be competitive. Outsourcing enables continuous strategic change and operation of the organization’s business processes to deliver faster, more successful and long-term business transformation.

Putting in place a flexible IT infrastructure is necessary to accommodate a rapidly changing business environment, and improves your organization’s ability to introduce new products and services faster and with greater success. Outsourcing can result in real flexibility in terms of scaling your IT organization and allow you to focus on expanding into new markets and gaining new customers.

2. Improved customer and employee satisfaction.

Outsourcing enables businesses to transform by automating and re-engineering processes for improved productivity, quality and customer experience. By increasing agility through an adaptable IT infrastructure, your organization becomes more responsive to provide customers with optimum service. Eliminating wasteful processes and leveraging effective use of technology to support your processes will increase employee productivity and improve business performance.

3. Greater value for less money.

There is intense pressure to cut costs, stretch budgets and keep systems in compliance. Diminishing budgets make it harder to maintain service levels that meet or exceed business users’ needs and expectations. Rather than trying to keep up by investing scarce cash or operate at a competitive disadvantage, many outsource to partners whose core business is to provide these services who can share economies of scale with their customers. Many outsource vendors make capital expenditures to buy the latest technology and to employ the necessary people to serve customers and maintain their competitive edge.

Maximize your IT investment. Free up scarce cash for deployment elsewhere to focus on strategic initiatives. Through outsourcing, an organization’s money is freed up by a reduction in the amount invested in the business operation, and is accompanied by either a related reduction in service levels or making the remaining dollars invested more productive.

Outsourcing core UC and network infrastructure will allow organizations to deliver more without straining their internal resources.

Together, these benefits can help drive the competitive advantage that can make the difference between surviving and thriving in today’s economy

Call us today for your no-cost assessment.

(925) 521-9110

Forbes Magazine 09/20/3012

Bob Evans, Oracle

http://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2012/09/28/the-top-10-strategic-cio-issues-for-2013/

“Perhaps no C-level position has undergone as many changes in expectations, approaches, and philosophies during the past few decades as that of the Chief Information Officer,” he writes on Forbes.com.”

1) Simplify IT and Transform Your Spending: Kick the 80/20 Budget Habit.

2) Lead the Social Revolution: Drive the Social-Enabled Enterprise.

3) Unleash Your Company’s Intelligence: Create the Enterprise-Wide Opportunity Chain.

4) Embrace the Engagement Economy: Merge the Back Office and the Front Office into the Customer Office.

5) Future-Proof Your IT Architecture.

6) Upgrade “Cloud Strategy” to “Business Transformation Enabled by the Cloud.”

7) Transform Big Data into Big Insights, Big Vision, and Big Opportunities.

8) Preside over a Shotgun Wedding: Systems of Record Marry Systems of Engagement.

9) Lead with Speed: CIO as Chief Acceleration Officer.

10)Bend the Value Curve: More Innovation, Less Integration.

At Taylor Made Business Systems we know you have many important initiatives.  Let us take your Print Fleet under our wings.  We can save you precious IT time and money.  More importantly we can give you peace of mind.

Call us today at (925) 521-1100 for your 30 minute introduction to Taylor Made’s

Our Professional Managed Document ServicesTeam might just be the team member you are looking for to help manage your documents from creation, to storage, to retrieval.

^{Copyright Quocirca © 2013 Louella Fernandes Quocirca Ltd}

At Taylor Made your information security is as important to us as our own.  Call us today for help managing your print fleet and your secure print capabilities!

Few events can damage a company’s reputation and consumer trust more than the misuse or loss of sensitive personal data. As well as brand damage, data breach incidents can lead to substantial financial costs, including legal penalties.
Consequently, businesses are under intense pressure to protect the ever-growing volume of information that they store, but must enable a suitable level of access to employees, business partners and customers. Much of this information, at some stage in its lifecycle, resides on one of the least secure of media – the printed document.
As more businesses move to a shared networked multifunction peripheral (MFP) environment, left unprotected, it is all too easy for unclaimed confidential or sensitive information to fall into the wrong hands – either accidentally or intentionally.
Yet many businesses neglect to secure MFPs, with Quocirca research revealing that just 22% having implemented secure printing. This leaves businesses exposed to data losses; 63% of businesses admit they have experienced one or more print-related data breaches.
This paper discusses how secure printing technology can provide authentication, authorization and accounting capabilities, helping businesses improve document security and meet compliance regulations.
This paper presents new research carried out by Quocirca amongst 150 enterprises with over 1,000 employees in the UK, France and Germany.

Printing: a false sense of security?
Why businesses must secure printing to safeguard sensitive information
Many businesses are exposed to potential data breaches in their print environment by not implementing adequate security controls for networked printers and MFPs. Consequently, documents often remain unclaimed in output trays or may be picked up by an unauthorized individual. Given the financial and legal ramifications of a data breach, businesses cannot afford to be complacent. MFPs must be secured in order to safeguard sensitive information, employee and customer privacy and to meet regulatory compliance requirements. Fortunately, businesses can address potential data loss through MFPs by implementing secure printing technology.
MFPs and network printers are a potential security risk
MFPs have become widely used in offices, but many neglect this potential weak spot in their data security. Often located in public areas, MFPs are accessible by staff, contractors and visitors, so it is all too easy, and common, for unclaimed output to be exposed to prying eyes. With many data breaches being a result of employee negligence, printers and MFPs should be safeguarded to avoid them being another channel of data loss.
Businesses are leaving themselves open to data breaches
New Quocirca research1 shows that few businesses are concerned about the security of printed documents. Just 22% place a high importance on the security of printed documents – although there are distinct industry variations. Whilst the majority of financial service organisations place a high importance on document security, less than 10% of public sector respondents show the same level of concern. This is surprising, given the volume and sensitive nature of printed information handled.
Secure printing closes the print security gap
Secure printing, also known as pull printing, ensures that documents are only released upon user authentication, using a PIN code, smart card or biometric fingerprint recognition. Secure pull printing also reduces waste by eliminating unclaimed documents from ever being printed in the first place and provides convenient printing for mobile users, enabling print jobs to be released at any MFP across the network.
Audited MFP usage supports compliance needs
Many secure printing tools offer audit and reporting capabilities to track print, copy, scan and fax usage. User authentication enables businesses to monitor who printed what document at what time and on which device. This provides an audit trail and enables patterns of misuse and/or waste to be identified.
Vendor-agnostic products are suited to mixed fleet environments
Many enterprises have complex printing needs that require a range of devices from workgroup to high-end production devices, often sourced from different manufacturers. Third-party products provide a vendor-independent approach to print security, ensuring that the use of mixed fleets can be secured and monitored.
Print security must be part of a wider information security strategy
To get print security right, it needs to be considered as part of a wider information security strategy that controls and classifies confidential information. While technology such as pull printing is a step in the right direction, overall data security also relies on employees being educated and accountable.

Conclusion
With reported data breaches on the rise and increasing regulatory requirements around information security, businesses may suffer financial and reputational damage if they ignore the risks of unsecured printing. Given that employees are often the cause of many data breaches and businesses are processing more valuable information than ever, it is essential that organizations understand the important role that printing plays in the data security chain.

Call Taylor Made today for your free PowerCenter Assessment.  Let us take the worry out of your print security.  (925) 521-9110 and ask for Victoria or Marsha.

At Taylor Made Business Systems we work closely with IT to regain the hours lost to printing concerns.  You can give us that “Printer Project” to manage and get back to more important agendas.

This is a white paper from Global Knowledge.  It will be the first of a 10 part series I am posting for our IT Professional Network.

Introduction

Ever hear someone say this?

“Everything is going just fine… And as far as we can tell… we’re on schedule, on budget, and everybody’s happy… Why would you ever want to go and CHANGE ANYTHING???”

Ever hear anyone say these?

“We’ve never done it THAT way before…”, or “We’ve always done it THIS Way… and besides… we prefer to believe what we prefer to believe.” “And we believe it’s” working…”

So the question I’d like to ask is this one: Is it really working? Do your IT projects seem to be working out as you had planned? Do you have a plan? Could it be that there might just be a better way? A better approach, a different method, something that’s been proven to be useful, proven to be successful, and proven to be repeatable?

Current studies by the Standish Group indicate that 32 percent of IT projects are successful, 44 percent conclude being somewhat challenged, and 24 percent completely fail. It looks like there’s still room for improvement.

The question is what will help us to improve our IT endeavors?

A study of project management would seem to be helpful for any IT professional.

Okay, good enough. But how does that help an IT professional in their daily work? Why should an IT professional bother to learn the discipline of project management? What is the draw? What are the benefits? How can project management help you with the daily obstacles you are facing, and what is the return on the investment for your organization, and for you both personally and professionally?

1. Greater Ability to Deal with Increases in Speed, Velocity, and Change

Does the following seem to describe you? At work, you are being required to “do more, with less, and at a faster pace than ever before.” Sound familiar? If so, what seems to be driving this?

Bill Gates has spoken about this. In his book, Business @ the Speed of Thought , he indicated that:

• The 1980s were about quality

• The 1990s were about re-engineering

• The “New Century” will be about velocity, about speed 1

One part of the “velocity and speed” aspect is that things seem to be happening at a faster pace than ever before. This is especially true of change. We see this all around us – the rapid pace of change. The question eventually becomes why? Why the rapid pace of change? I believe there are several reasons. Here are just a few.

• Rapid growth in many sectors

• Increased amounts of competition

• Increased amounts of Innovation and creativity

• Exponential increases in the economic forces pushing down on all of our organizations

• The rapid pace of change,

• Short technological life-cycles,

• Rapid execution and development

• Quick time to market

“The rapid growth of the 1960s and 1970s led to the re-engineering of the 1980s, which led to the ’new era’ of the 1990s. The new era ended suddenly when the dot com crash arrived in 2000. Expectations of rapid corporate growth have been replaced with an emphasis on core competencies and a focus on team productivity. Markets are saturated, competition is fierce, and money is tight. Corporations and organizations of every type are trying to do more with less.” (Egan, Brian Dennis, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making, 2005 Global Knowledge Network).

Increased amounts of competition come about not only locally but globally. Technology itself is both the driver and enabler of this. Organizations must beat their competition to the marketplace with products and services that are created at a fast pace with limited resources of every kind.

One common scenario I have seen goes something like this:

Being in reaction mode, those at the top of an organization call on those below to pick up the pace, “get it done” faster than before. In an effort to also squeeze out a bit of profit, they also require those doing the work to get even more done with fewer resources, and in an attempt to beat the competition to the marketplace, they need it done even faster than ever before. The effect this has on quality is a subject for another time, but should also never be far from our minds.

How will we ever get an ever increasing amount of work accomplished at a faster pace than ever before with fewer resources available? All of this is either a recipe for disaster and increased amounts of stress, or an opportunity for organized project management.

About the Author
Tim McClintock, PMP is a Senior Instructor and course director with Global Knowledge. He has over 20 years of experience in Fortune 500 Companies in the IT, banking, and service sectors, and has consulted with organizations such as Nortel, Cisco, SBC, Verizon, CitiGroup, Exxon Mobil, NSA, DISA, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Schlumberger, and the United States Military. He provides management and technical consulting and training to all levels of professionals in both established businesses and new business ventures.

The Potential For Innovation Makes IT Not Just Relevant Again, But Important To The Success of the Company. One of the biggest barriers to IT innovation is talent. On the bright side, the jobs picture is healthy.

Seventeen percent of CIOs said they plan to expand their IT departments in the first quarter of 2013, which is nearly double the number (9%) who were planning increases in the fourth quarter of 2012, reports Robert Half Technology.

Companies have resumed hiring and expanding their workforces as the economy has shown signs of improving, but the mood remains one of cautious optimism, says Jack Cullen, president of IT staffing specialist Modis.

The biggest issue is how the tax burden for companies might change this year. But that uncertainty, while a concern, so far isn’t halting hiring. Companies need to continue to hire. There’s still a backlog.

Finding the talent remains a challenge, however. More than half (63%) of the CIOs polled by Robert Half said it’s challenging to find skilled professionals today. The skill sets in greatest demand are: database management, cited by 48% of CIOs, network administration (47%), and web development/website design (33%).

Hiring was been a challenge in 2012, especially in virtualization, SAN and programming. There is a focus on hiring self-motivated employees who are strong problem solvers. If they’re not quite where we want them to be technically, many companies will invest in training to get the right person prepared for the job.

The hiring picture is also complicated by the imperative to transform IT. In the search for candidates, business acumen has become as important as technical skills. Confidence is another necessity.

Is IT ready to be innovative?

Business knowledge is essential. Top-performing CIOs take the time to meet key customers and suppliers, they know their competitors, and they know the agendas of their peers in the C-suite because they talk continuously. They must be conversant in the language of the industry, not just in technical terms. CIOs expect the same of the IT leaders reporting to them and evaluate them on business understanding.

IT needs buy-in from the CEO, Iyer says. The CEO needs to reinforce that IT is a critical function, and insist that IT play a role in driving business growth.

For years IT has wallowed in the shadow of Nicolas Carr’s divisive 2003 Harvard Business Review article, “IT Doesn’t Matter,” which, in asserting that IT investments fail to provide companies with a strategic advantage, seemed to diminish the talents of IT.

Today, there’s an opportunity for IT to reclaim its role as a trusted adviser on technology and play an active role in driving innovation, Mann says. Just about every business today depends greatly on technology, and if a company isn’t getting the most out of technology, it won’t succeed. Technologies such as cloud, mobile and social can highlight IT’s potential for innovation and this makes IT not just relevant again, but important.