Print.IT Reseller - issue 53

01732 759725 4 BULLETIN UK needs to catch up The UK lags behind in the shift to flexible and remote working, putting more emphasis on effective meetings to coordinate scattered teams, a new report, ‘The Modern Workplace 2018: People, Places & Technology’ by software company Condeco has found. In two fifths of businesses surveyed, the majority of staff work flexibly at least some of the time. This figure is higher in the US (52%) and Australia (43%). In the UK, the figure is 37% and 10% of companies don’t offer flexible working at all. Of those that do, 30% said that fewer than a quarter of their staff work flexibly, compared with 21% globally. www.condecosoftware.com MSPs seeking European expansion Managed services’ success depends on both scale and maintaining ongoing customer relationships, an aspect of the IT business which some traditional resellers find hard to accommodate. The European Managed Services and Hosting Summit 2018, which took place in Amsterdam on 29 May, provided a forum for discussing some of these issues around customer engagement and as a meeting place for MSPs across Europe. The agenda for the day revealed a wide- ranging set of topics, with keynotes from Gartner on how MSPs increasingly need to differentiate to succeed, from legal experts Sorainen on the impact of a rising tide of compliance above and beyond GDPR, and from Technology M&A experts Hampleton Partners’ experts on how to succeed in the merger and acquisition market. www.mshsummit.com/amsterdam The Print Coach to deliver keynote at The Print Show Nick Devine, aka The Print Coach, has been named as a keynote speaker for The Print Show 2018 which takes place from September 18 to 20 at the NEC in Birmingham. Devine has a 35-year background in sales, sales management and business management. Having worked in four countries across 14 different industries, he has amassed an impressive knowledge of sales and the most effective selling techniques. Organisers have also confirmed a host of new additions to the exhibitor list at the fourth edition of the UK’s leading print event. Xeretec (Xerox), Xeikon, printMAX, X-Press OnDemand, Blackman and White, Rollem, Nova Chrome, Inno Printer, Stanford Marsh Group and Wildcard Software are all among the latest companies to sign up. In addition Duplo has agreed to take a stand more than double the size of last year’s to ensure it can show a good representation of the categories and brands it represents in the UK. www.theprintshow.co.uk Winners and losers The Office Supplier Insight Report, produced by digital marketing specialists Inside Online, ranks 48 of the leading websites within the office supplies market according to their online performance. Following a 1% increase in their visibility over the past year, Staples remains top. Six of the top 10 saw a rise in their visibility year-on-year. UK Office Direct and Euroffice recorded the most significant increases among the top 10, while Office Team moved into 9th spot from 13th. The social score considers followers and engaged conversations on all major social platforms. Lyreco has the highest brand search with 74,000; however, this hasn’t translated to its owned social score [10], which explains why they rank only fifth overall. Similarly, however, Commercial and Office Supplies had high brand searches [each 22,000] but recorded an owned score of below 5, while Euroffice recorded 12,100 against an owned score of 14 and Caboodle 3,600 against 0. www.insideonline.co.uk Enabling easy access to documents is key IBM recently announced that it is banning its employees globally from using USB sticks and removable storage devices of all types due to security risks. However, according to M-Files, dependency amongst staff towards removable devices is likely to stem from persistent document management challenges notably towards flexible and remote working. Employees opt to use external storage devices as searching for information across a company network can often be a trying exercise. Evidence to support this comes from research conducted by the company which revealed that from a sample of 250 IT decision-makers, 90% revealed it to be somewhat challenging when searching and accessing documents while working remotely. TimWaterton, Director of UK Business at M-Files says that in the wake of GDPR and as companies tighten up their control of information management, we could see other firms follow the example set by IBM and ban external storage devices. “If this does happen organisations need to have an alternative method for accessing information in place that supports flexible and remote working, is easy to use, but doesn’t compromise on security,” he warned. www.m-files.com Celebrating innovation, creativity and excellence Winners of the 2018 Stationers’ Company Innovation Excellence Awards for the UK Communications and Content industries will be announced at an Awards luncheon to celebrate innovation, creativity, and excellence on 26 June at Stationers’ Hall, London. This year’s awards attracted 43 entries, an increase of 34% from last year. Jonathan Drori, Chairman of the Stationers’ Company Innovation Excellence Awards, said: “The panel has been particularly pleased to see such an exciting and diverse set of entries. There have been impressive developments in printing and packaging, in environmental improvements, in the latest augmented and virtual reality, in education and training and even in entire business models.” www.stationers.org