Managed Print Services and the benefits of embracing MPS

Managed Print Services (MPS) is no longer about managing print output but about managing information.

In today’s business climate, reducing and controlling costs is more important than ever. When a business is preparing its strategies to increase revenues or improve business processes, it may not integrate its document management costs.

Companies that embrace a Managed Print Services (MPS) approach and implement a comprehensive output management strategy can realise substantial benefits such as:

• Decreased document-related expenses
• Controlled expenditures
• Increased employee productivity
• Eliminated or significantly reduced waste
• Continuous improvement with document life cycles
• Greener corporate citizen status

Digicom’s Managed Document Services reaches far beyond the realm of print. Our focus on end-users and incorporating change management to engage employees means we can make long-term improvements to your document processing and business efficiency. Through on-site and off-site services, our consultants and project managers learn about your needs. And when we evaluate your unique needs, we always consider the most critical component of continuing success – your employees.

As a consequence, we help manage your entire document environment, and you benefit from just one point of contact. Our size and position enables business expansion by adapting solutions from local to global coverage, from Distributed Print Services to Central Reprographics Departments. So you get more benefits than ever before and continue to achieve your goals.

Call for an appointment with one of our experts to discover the latest best practise in managing your documents and information: 1850 DIGICOM

Dublin Chamber of Commerce President’s Annual Dinner Speech – Greg Clarke

At the 2015 Dublin Chamber of Commerce annual dinner were: Greg Clarke, president of the chamber, Bernard Byrne, chief executive of AIB, Gina Quin, chief executive of the chamber and Jo Malone, the perfume entrepreneur. Photograph: Conor McCabe Photography

“It’s been a Great Year… For me within Chamber, on the road and in my business.

And it’s also been a great year for Dublin, and for Ireland …

Tonight on my left: the 6 Nations Trophy and to my even greater joy the Sam Maguire back safely to the Dubs! So we are in good Company …

And our companies and country are doing better than they have been for many years.

Private sector has put over 130,000 people back to work since our employment low point

We’ve grown our economy faster than any other European Union country.

We’ve cut our deficit faster than any other European Union country.

And, we’ve cut our debt faster than any other European Union country.

Yet we’re not in the shape we should be yet, but we can get there.

Let’s first welcome  An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, our Guest Speaker Jo Malone, and of course distinguished Guests. We are represented here tonight by all sectors including the Professional Services, Finance, Born on the Internet, Food Sector, Retail, Education, Telecoms and of course the many SMEs in the Room tonight and again I want to welcome you all.

Over the last few days as I considered my thoughts for tonight’s speech… many ideas came to mind but I felt it best to speak to you using my approach to coaching sports and my prep for cycling …
And that is the concept of Fit, Fast and Strong.  If we apply this thinking to our City and Businesses … what’s the outcome?

As a City are we fit, fit for purpose?

Just over 100 years ago, 13% of the world’s population lived in Cities, today 54% do and by 2030 70% will. So with this massive shift to city living, the question is what City will our children choose to live in? Will it be Dublin, or London, or Barcelona? I for one want to ensure my teenagers who are here tonight not only call Dublin their home but want to make it their home.

So to that point do we have a Strategic Plan for our City? With the resources to make things happen with a logical leader who will join the dots?

It appears not and this is why we as a Chamber are calling for a plan out to 2065 with 5 year milestones.

In Business are we fit? 

I find it interesting that up until a business trip to the US I considered myself a business owner but over there I was called a Founder, and then approximately 2 years ago I found myself described as an entrepreneur, which I naturally liked as it sounds sophisticated!

Today, the term Entrepreneur has gone mainstream. In fact 2015  appears to me to be the Year of the Entrepreneur.   We need to encourage more entrepreneurs, more start ups … they create jobs and wealth. Two thirds of new jobs come from start ups. The Entrepreneurial mind-set is one of optimism, hard working ethos, Doers that make things happen. Not afraid of risk or failure…

Last year alone we had over 20,000 people start new businesses

According to the Central Bank, younger firms are the largest contributors of new jobs due to the inverse relationship between growth and size.
So we must incentivise this Entrepreneurial behaviour and activity …  back these brave individuals …these job creators

I believe we need an entrepreneurial Flagship Policy that sends out the same message as our 12.5% Corporation Tax Rate. Just like David Cameron said he was ‘rolling out the red carpet for business’ we must do the same Taoiseach.  I think reducing the Capital Gains Tax from 33% to the 10% for entrepreneurs as in the UK would be an excellent first step.

But we need to do this as part of Budget 2016 so we do not lose any more momentum to the UK.

Next is our city Fast?

Well in 1971 the Dart Underground was first mooted, the 2nd Source of water for Dublin in 1996, the waste to energy in 1997 and the Children’s Hospital in 1993.

So it is clear we are not Fast! And I know in my World as I am sure in yours that if you know, really really know, that something is fundamental to your success – you will focus and make it happen, somehow. No action has social and economic effects.

And in terms of Housing I want to say 2 things –   Firstly Employers are increasingly worried about where their workforce are going to live and how much they have to pay to live.

In the Greater Dublin Area about 8,000 houses a year are needed; at present we are building less than half this number.

And secondly in terms of social housing we see a critical and immediate need … we clearly do not have the appropriate supports to cope with our homelessness in Dublin and it is unprecedented. I support the call of the Chamber’s charity of year Peter McVerry Trust to see quick delivery of the modular home solution. But we need to also address the housing problem to help those that want to work here but no place to stay. The impact is social and economic.

Hopefully this can be achieved quickly. We need to make sure that Dublin can act quickly in this and the other issues. As a Chamber we’ve a responsibility to continually play our part and keep focus on what this City needs to succeed.

We need joined up thinking and improved coordination by our leaders.

Is business Fast?

Are we nimble and able to scale businesses quickly?

Well, two-thirds of businesses are stuck and never go past having 10 staff…

I remember vividly in early days Digicom the concern and angst over taking on employee number 2 and the 3 and then 4 and then 5 etc. It is a very difficult time and delicate time for all fledgeling businesses.

So why are their additional tax barriers to hiring and growing businesses? If we remove the employers PRSI for new hires in small businesses we can grow companies, grow jobs and – yes – grow the overall tax take!

Finally, are we strong as a City?

Well the good news is that we now have our M50, our Terminal 2, our Port Tunnel, our Cross City Luas line and of course this lovely Convention Centre.

All very positive pieces of necessary infrastructure! But, they are all nearing capacity already.
So the question is, do we have the social and physical infrastructures in place to see our City into the future. The answer is no unfortunately.

We will have 400,000 extra people living in Dublin by 2030 and the lowest capital investment per capita of any region in Ireland is Dublin! Fact!

We must triple our investment to build the infrastructure needed for strength. Doing this by the way only will help us keep pace with our neighbours in the UK and other cities around the globe!
Last week’s announced capital programme offers hope that there is an appreciation of the need to invest. But the time frames still leave me worried for such strategic projects are 20 to 30 years away.

Is business strong?

We’ve a strong business community but often we don’t see those businesses growing to the global scale that they could achieve.

We need to remain ambitious, with a strong entrepreneurial mind-set and work harder to make business grow, Growth in business means jobs …

Here is the double benefit of the Capital Gain Tax change I mentioned that would help startups, if we do this right we’ll get successful business owners to re-invest in another Irish business and help mentor the next generation. As a business community, we can make a difference for each other and for the people of Ireland.

To conclude

A lot of the ingredients are finally coming together …

Our city is a lot fitter …

And of course let’s not forget that Dublin’s culture is absolutely unique and It is what gives this City its Character and it’s distinctive identity in our Globalised World.

Dublin is providing over half of the total tax revenue and the place of work for more than 2 in 5 workers in Ireland.

But It is clear we are not fast and this must be addressed – faster decisions, faster actions with regards our infrastructure improvements, education, health systems and business support structures are required….in order to continue the momentum.

We may be strong now in 2015, but have we invested enough so We will be strong in 2020 and 2025 and 2030?

I am not so sure.

Over the coming months we will be faced with a General Election, so we need to pick the partners for our Team!

This is probably the most important Election in the last 25 years. Will these partners make the Strategic Plan happen, create a Flagship policy to demonstrate we are pro business and pro small business, will they make the long term decisions necessary for our future and our kids and their kids future.

That decision is in our hands by encouraging everyone we know to exercise their right and get out and vote!

The narrative for 2016 should not just be about remembering our Forefathers and their bravery but capturing the spirit of hope and willingness to do …

And as your President I am asking us all to take action so that tomorrow can be better than today.”

Business Leaders Get On Their Bikes to Help Homelessness

Dublin Chamber of Commerce President and Digicom Managing Director Greg Clarke lead a group of 30 Irish business people on a five-day 800km cycle from San Sebastian to Barcelona in a bid to raise more than €30,000 for the Peter McVerry Homeless Charity Trust.

The group, which is also includes Liam Kavanagh, Managing Director of the Irish Times, Mick Sweeney, Director of Customer, Insurance & Investment Businesses at Bank of Ireland, Brendan Foster, Partner, Grant Thornton, set off on the cycle on Sunday morning and arrived at their destination in Barcelona on Thursday. All 30 cyclists participated at their own expense meaning that all money raised will go directly to the Peter McVerry Trust.

Pictured (l-r) were Adrian McGennis (Sigmar), Kieran Garry (Gordon MRM), Pat Doyle, CEO, Peter McVerry Trust, Niall Hayes (Contracting Plus), Dublin Chamber of Commerce President and Managing Director, Digicom Greg Clarke, Fr Peter McVerry, Kathryn O’Connor, Kevin James (Gardiner & Theobold), Simon Horsley (Bentley Systems). Picture Conor McCabe Photography.

Top 10 Reasons to use PaperCut MF

PaperCut MF is the easy way to automatically monitor and manage copying and printing in your organisation, giving you control over your costs and environmental impact. PaperCut MF intercepts print jobs on the print server and analyses them, applying rules to enforce your print policies.

Digicom are of one Ireland’s leading re-sellers for PaperCut MF. We are currently running a PaperCut MF special offer, please get in touch with us for further information.

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Greg Clarke – President’s Speech | Dublin Chamber

Dublin Chamber’s AGM Dinner 2015, which was kindly sponsored by Bank of Ireland, heard from Greg Clarke in his inaugural address as Dublin Chamber President and Mark Roden, founder of Ding.com and winner of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2014.

Greg spoke of his background and driving vision for the Chamber for 2015, speaking particularly of the need for greater support for building the entrepreneurial culture in Dublin and Ireland. Read Greg’s speech in full below:

[gview file=”http://digicomold.local/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Greg-Clarke-–-THE-PRESIDENTS-SPEECH-–-DUBLIN-CHAMBER-OF-COMMERCE-1.pdf”]

ISE 2015 Review

ISE 2015 was certainly a spectacle to behold, there were several hundred exhibitors showcasing the latest and greatest on offer.

Cisco had a very impressive magician at their stand drawing the crowds toward the new sleek MX series products, I kept hearing the same tag line from Cisco reps around the stand “they are now just big phones”.  You order one part code and parachute it in.

Maybe not quite as simple as that but it’s certainly getting there with the integration of the Cisco Be6K which allows phones and VC systems to seamlessly operate within the Cisco environment.

The real magic however came from a smaller stand behind, and they were creating quite a stir.

Pexip makes a virtualized software infrastructure which transcodes communication types and lets everybody meet in the middle. It can be deployed on premise, or run in a private or public cloud, and even supports connecting the two if you require scale and flexibility.

To date it was able to take feeds from traditional video conferencing units, soft clients, Lync, Web RTC through your browser or traditional phones and because everybody is meeting in the cloud you are not as worried about firewall traversal.

The Pexip team were showing off some new releases which will allow users to integrate Skype, yes Skype! Not just Skype for business/Lync and the new release also allows a very cool feature where you can leverage your existing video conferencing systems and make a live broadcast through YouTube.

Image: Crowd getting treated to some slight of hand.

Conor O’Neill, Digicom Audio Visual Consultant

How to Make Friends and Influence End-Users

The classroom was abuzz with discussion on the best questions to ask in the interview process, and how to elicit ideas and needs from potential clients. In general, InfoComm training at ISE is a tremendous draw, particularly for Peter Fox, sales director of Digicom in Dublin, Ireland. “I come to this event for the learning, to learn more about the industry and the happenings within the industry. I concentrate more on attending classes than going to stands,” he said, adding, “I’m basically in these classrooms or in one of the show-floor Unified Communications or Commercial Solutions Theatres all day.”

By Kirsten Nelson, www.avnetwork.com

HDBaseT Alliance – The Standard of the Future, Today.

Defining the standard of the future

The HDBaseT Alliance advances and promotes the adoption of HDBaseT technology as the global standard for high definition, digital connectivity. Since its founding in 2010 by LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Valens, the Alliance has brought together the leading names in the Consumer Electronics and .Professional AV manufacturers, and it counts today with more than 100 members and hundreds of products

Enabling 5Play over a single cable

HDBaseT technology has become the new standard for home and professional networking. It brings a rich feature ,TMset, increased reach, and better performance than existing solutions. The cornerstone of the technology is 5Play the converged delivery of uncompressed high-definition digital video, high-quality audio, Ethernet, up to 100 W .power, and various control signals, through a single LAN cable.

Coming to a home near you

With the recently released HDBaseT 2.0 specification, the Alliance is now enabling the development of consumer .electronics devices to better address the needs of the connected home HDBaseT 2.0 brings the quality of pro-AV to the cost-conscious consumer electronics market, for an unparalleled user ,experience. From simple point-to-point applications and up to the most cutting-edge multimedia home solutions. HDBaseT 2.0 delivers the 5Play feature set, from any source to any display around the house, using a simple control app.

Via: www.hdbaset.org

Future Trends in Audio Visual – Destination 2020

Brad Grimes chaired an interesting panel discussion with knowledge experts, from within the industry at this years ISE Trade Show in Amsterdam. The internet of things or the automation of internet things, will be the most influential change in our lives in the coming years. We will track the behaviour of users of Audio Visual and automate it. Smart technology will be the unique buying trigger to decide what technology will be procured by organisations.

 The technology will always be evolving and adapt to people’s behaviour, in many cases, without them even noticing. Currently the industry is guilty of building silo’s. IoT will change this with presence and intelligence, that will end integrators building dumb rooms.

 With the ongoing integration of IT and the presence of Cisco and Microsoft at this years event, the panel described how important it will be for integrators to build their eco systems around their platforms. They are the largest enterprise platforms in B2B offices now.

 So, as a result the top 5 trends to watch for by the panel are:

1. Intelligent Devices
2. IP Version VII on the 5G Network.
3. Remote engagement
4. Software as a service, cloud based technology. Particularly in the video area. And oh, finally
5. Watch your teenager. Their behaviour with technology is naturally collaborating and multi tasking. Observe it and see the future in the enterprise space.

So the future of Audio Visual is challenging, as we learn to stay expert in this exciting industry.  

Is 4k here to stay?

With so many manufacturers pushing the latest and greatest in 4k or ultra HD, it can quite confusing on what it actually is. 4k technology is generally referred to as 4x times the quality of Full HD or 4x 1080p. Simple right….unfortunately not..

There are 3 things that make up picture quality. The first of these are the number of pixels. So having 4x the amount of pixels is a good start.

The second of these is the frame rate or hertz. This is the number of frames per second, so the higher the frame rate the smoother the picture quality.

Finally the colour sampling or chroma sub sampling is the final component that makes up the picture quality. This refers to the amount of true colour shown on screen at one time. Unsampled colour is referred to as 4:4:4 while it is often sampled at 4:2:2. This reduces the bandwidth required by a third without effecting the visual quality of the image.

So, now that we know what makes a high quality image, how do we get all of on the screen. Easier said than done.

Display port is capable of carrying 4k at 60 fames per second with a colour sampling of 4:4:4. As is HDMI 2.0, which has taken over from HDMI 1.4 as the new standard of HDMI as of 2014. So unless you have a source device with a DisplayPort output or HDMI2.0 chipset you will end up with 4k at 24-30 FPS. This will greatly reduce the quality of the image and a better picture would be achieved at 1080p instead of 4k.

So we have the cable and we have the TV’s that can produce a 4k image. The problem comes in when you try to switch 4k video. Currently there is little or no way of switching true 4k due to the large bandwidth required. Many of the switchers use colour sampling of 4:0:0 to reduce the bandwidth. This becomes noticeable especially on the larger 4k screens.

The other factor and probably the most important component that currently posses a major roadblock to the success of 4k is content. With no standards set for a 4k video player currently on the market and with HD TV currently being broadcast at only 720p it is hard to see 4k being available to every household. There also remains the fact that there is very little content out there recorded in 4k

On the other hand streaming services such as Netflix are starting to release content in 4k as a premium service. Using Netflix as a native application built into the display eliminates the transmission issues inherent with 4k. On the downside it is recommend to have a 25mb/sec broadband speed and unlimited data allowance to watch 4k.

While there are a number of issues currently stopping 4k from being readily available, there is no doubt that the incredible picture quality offered by 4k means it is here to stay unlike 3D which proved to be little more than a gimmick.

Ciarán McGrath, Audio Visual Consultant (Digicom)