ManagedIT - issue 54

MANAGED.IT 15 COVER STORY www.managedITmag.co.uk Workplace Hub in action Workplace Hub is gaining traction within a number of different industry sectors and markets. n Education: Workplace Hub joins together technology (e.g. printing), EDU Apps and IT services, such as Wi-Fi access, back-up and patch management, in one place. This enables schools and other institutions to easily manage technology and create a better learning experience, whilst lowering the education cost per student. n Legal sector: One of the biggest challenges within law firms is how to manage documentation effectively, keep it secure and charge printing costs accurately. Workplace Hub provides an integrated solution across print and document management applications, faxing servers and digital assistants, making it easier for legal professionals to increase efficiency. n Healthcare: Healthcare facilities are looking to Workplace Hub as an effective solution to unify and automate workflow information. Dispatcher Phoenix technology, one of Konica Minolta’s software solutions, makes it easier to customise how and where sensitive patient data is gathered, distributed and printed, saving time and freeing up staff to focus less on admin and more on patient care. Workplace Hub, it’s easy to conduct everyday tasks, such as reviewing resource usage, managing user rights or infrastructure status, changing site support or adding and removing applications. Empowering collaboration and productivity Over one-third of SMBs polled in the survey cited increased costs, lower employee productivity and diminished quality of work as a direct result of downtime. Almost half (48%) said they would prefer to spend the time they waste on IT issues growing their business. The User Dashboard addresses this challenge. It brings together all the key productivity and collaboration tools needed to keep the workforce productive – from simple file sharing, printing and scanning to everyday work solutions – in a secure, fully managed virtualised environment. It also includes a new collaboration suite to empower individuals, teams and the business to work together. Workplace GO is a ready-made digital workplace that works on top of Microsoft Office 365 and brings together information, such as emails, meetings and tasks, alongside team projects and company-wide projects and information. Best-in-class security With cyber security a top priority for small and medium-sized businesses, this all-in-one scalable system provides a level of IT security and sophistication traditionally associated with large enterprises. Leveraging Sophos, a world leading security provider, customers benefit from the latest software, ensuring systems are constantly monitored, protected and managed against malicious attacks and other security threats. Enabling small businesses to innovate More than four out of five businesses surveyed (84%) feel positive about the impact of future technology on their business’s productivity. However, many are struggling to implement new IT solutions. Over half (56%) welcome the integration and adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning and believe these technologies presage an exciting future. Konica Minolta has been named a global top 100 IT vendor in Gartner’s recently published report, Market Insight: Gartner Global Top 100 IT Vendors in 2018 . By taking care of complex, critical and time-consuming IT tasks, Konica Minolta is already empowering SMB customers to focus on business growth, but helping them to innovate is where the company wants to make its mark. The Workplace Hub platform will see future integration of IoT, AI, Intelligent Edge and Decision Support capabilities as they become more central to the business environment of tomorrow. Adding this cognitive layer of organisational insight unleashes an intuitive understanding of the world that empowers people to collaborate better and to make smarter, data-driven decisions more effectively and in less time. “As a small business, we don’t have much space for IT equipment – but we rely on having a robust IT infrastructure to provide a high standard of accounting services. With Konica Minolta’s Workplace Hub, we now have a complete IT solution from the same space that used to be just a printer! Even better, is that the system integrated seamlessly with our existing virtual servers, to protect, secure and store all data.” Petr Mohyla, Owner, Mohyla Accountants www.konicaminolta.co.uk/workplace-hub [email protected]