By: Mohan Mailvaganam – Director of Digital Process Automation at Xerox Canada
As the work world around us speeds into the digital age, more of us are beginning to feel printer’s remorse.
We get the email with a document attached from a colleague or a client. We open it and read it on our computer screen. And then — for a variety of reasons that usually can’t be justified — we hit print.
As the printer hums to life and spits out pages, the feelings of regret and doubt begin to sink in. Did I really need to make a hard copy of this? Did I just waste my time and my company’s resources? Chances are the answer is staring you right in the face from the recycling bin filled with pages that other colleagues have already read and discarded.
Even without seeing the hard numbers that prove how digitizing work processes and reducing our reliance on paper can save significant time and money, we get an inkling in our guts — all that paper shuffling from hand to hand must be lethal to efficiency and productivity.
But still, companies of all sizes — from small- and medium-sized businesses to large corporations — forge ahead and hit the print button far more than they should.
The recent findings from Xerox’s Digitization at Work report reveal that less than 50 percent of IT decision-makers currently use processes that are mostly or fully digitized.
With that in mind, here are five signs you aren’t doing enough to realize the benefits of going digital:
1) You have no idea how much paper you use on a daily basis, let alone why.
Without the right data in hand on print habits, it’s difficult to uncover the hidden opportunities for digitization. You’re stuck guessing on what might work, which is never as reliable as well-analyzed data. Armed with solid print analytics, company executives can then make informed decisions about optimizing or automating key processes.
2) You don’t understand the difference between bad and good paper.
“Good” paper refers to documents that have a valid reason to be in hard-copy form, such as documents that originate on paper, like customers’ handwritten letters or documents that require a “wet ink” signature.
“Bad” paper refers to documents that are in paper format, but without any compelling reason to be so. These could include documents that were printed from digital originals or documents that get shared, stored or transported using physical systems.
Understanding the distinction between them helps identify where you really need to use paper, and where you can get rid of it.
3) Your leadership and your workforce aren’t on the same page.
Going digital involves changing the way people work and how they think. People fear the unknown so communicating the reasons and benefits of change is crucial. By far, the greatest barrier to change is institutional culture. There has to be company-wide buy-in to effect real change.
4) You’re storing reams of documents because you ‘have to’.
Many organizations are required to retain a variety of documents for regulatory reasons. In the past, that used to mean banker’s boxes and multiple copies of the same paperwork. In many cases, government agencies and regulatory bodies now accept digital versions and electronic signatures.
5) Your company isn’t as competitive as you think it should be.
The weight of paper-based processes is holding many Canadian firms back from keeping up with competitors who have already made the digital transformation. Unnecessary paper use wastes resources, undermines productivity, bogs down workflow and prevents them from realizing advantages derived from becoming digital enterprises.
Keep an eye out for these tell-tale signs your ties to paper are too strong. Just recognizing you may have a problem is a good start that you need to get your digital house in order. And it’ll help you avoid those bad feelings you get waiting by the machine for those papers you never needed to print.
Guest Post: NordVPN Discusses The Latest Ransomware Attack & Steps to Protect Your System
Posted in Commentary with tags NordVPN on June 28, 2017 by itnerdAnother round of ransomware assault has just hit over 2,000 global targets, including Danish shipping company Maersk, US pharmaceutical company Merck, and many private and public institutions in Ukraine.
Unlike WannaCry attack that hit seven weeks ago, the latest attack seems to be more solid, without the previous design flaws. Security companies are confident the Petya ransomware uses the same software exploit in Microsoft products that WannaCry was able to exploit. Symantec says it has confirmed the ransomware is using the EternalBlue vulnerability that is believed to have been developed by the NSA.
Originally called Petya, the current ransomware emerged in 2016, and no re-appeared with upgrades, such as better encryption. Some call the new iteration “NotPetya” or “GoldenEye.”
“The latest ransomware assault seems to be particularly dangerous,” said Marty P. Kamden, CMO of NordVPN, “One of the best protection mechanisms are patches, but they might not always work with this new version of Petya. Another way to protect yourself is to disrupt a system before it boots, as the ransomware runs on boot. After the device gets infected with a ransomware, it will wait for about an hour until reboot. Reboot is required for a malware to encrypt the system, so in certain cases, if the device gets terminated in the encryption process, it gets disrupted and information can be saved.”
“Generally, system administrators are still not well-prepared to protect their networks, and these attacks will only keep getting worse,” he added.
Here is NordVPN’s advice about protecting a network from latest ransomware attack:
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