Here’s something that might surprise you: Most digital copiers made over the past decade contain their own hard drives that work similarly to the hard drive in your computer. Copiers with hard drives can store an image of every document that has been scanned, copied, or emailed from the machine.

Plus, many copiers are leased and returned repeatedly; or leased, returned, and sold secondhand. Which means that it’s likely that someone else will ultimately have access to your copier … and possibly all the company information stored on it.

In other words, it’s essential to your company’s security, your employees’ security, and your customers’ security that you know whether your copier stores digital information, how to secure the data in your copier, and what to do before returning a leased copier or selling a copier that you own.
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As a small business professional – amateur or veteran – you have many questions. In every blog post, we strive to answer those questions for you – from technology to finance, we are happy to be a source of information for you each and every day.

So, we decided to round up the most visited posts of the quarter, just in case you missed them the first time around! Read the full entry

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Our everyday lives have never been more connected and managed through software. Programs not only power our gadgets but drive our daily routines and ensure the world around us keeps on ticking over.

The services we rely upon exist at the mercy of human error, design oversights and security flaws; clumsy coding typos can bring institutions to their knees and unseen bugs can be catastrophic. Quality assurance testing has never been more important. Read the full entry

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700,000 apps reside in both the Apple and Android app store – but are any of them yours?

Businesses develop mobile apps to directly generate income (through sales of the app, or the app facilitating product sales) or for the purposes of marketing, branding, and customer service. If your business is interested in utilizing a mobile app in order to increase customer loyalty, you have two options: to build a custom app, or to make use of existing apps through a third-party provider. Read the full entry

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The thinking around management and leadership techniques has changed over the generations. If you are over 50 you will definitely remember the autocratic style of managers whose philosophy was, ‘Do it my way or the highway!’

Although we still come across some managers that are like this, luckily they are few and far between. So, what is the modern way of managing? We look at a few key techniques that make you a modern manager. How do you stack up? Read the full entry

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Flattening business hierarchies and removing layers of management is a hot topic in the business sphere, with staunch proponents on either side of the debate. In an article from LinkedIn, the issue is clearly defined:

“Too many employees work for their boss rather than their company or their clients. Businesses these days are filled with multiple layers of management, and employees often find themselves playing politics and focusing on tasks to make their boss happy.

At the end of the day, the company quickly forgets what their goals are and what they are in business to do — and everyone is focusing on the task at hand with little sense of how it fits into the bigger picture.” Read the full entry

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Everything from the cloud to social media to the proliferation of mobile technology has dramatically changed the way call centers operate in recent years.

In an effort to be more efficient and effective, expect contact centers to adopt systems that enable them to reach customers on multiple platforms — from traditional calls to Facebook.

And, as more customers turn to the web to vent their frustrations or seek help with a product, expect to see more industry-wide consolidation of call centers, even as more jobs return stateside as companies hope to win back frustrated customers after the big outsourcing experiment. Read the full entry

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Entrepreneur is defined as, “A person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on financial risk to do so.”

Being an entrepreneur requires you to take risks in your personal and professional life by creating your own path. However, there are a number of resources that you should keep in your backpack as you travel into the wide blue yonder of online entrepreneurship. Read the full entry

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Content helps persuade and motivate customers; it also has the benefit of letting search engines know what you’re about.

Unfortunately, many people write copy that is too focused on keywords while forgetting about the user experience.

With Google making changes at every turn, it’s imperative that you focus on writing quality content that is valuable to your customers; it should be both valuable and act as link bait. Read the full entry

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The long-time social question: What social network should my business be on? While having a presence on the right social networks can make all the difference, engaging with your customers in the right way is even more important.

By getting social, businesses often have one or more of the following goals in mind: customer engagement, lead generation, and thought leadership. Small businesses that are looking to stand out from the crowd should spend some time analyzing which customers are the best for their business, but more importantly, what is going to engage them. Read the full entry

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