Originally posted on www.collabrance.com on September 16th, 2021 Cyber-attacks and threats to cybersecurity are nothing new, but the vulnerability seems to loom larger with each passing week. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are typically hit the hardest; per Forbes, nearly 60% of attacks are targeted at SMBs, and the Datto 2019 Global State of the Channel Ransomware Report listed 85% of MSPs having reported ransomware attacks against their clients within the last two years. Those percentages are staggering, and they’re predicted to remain steady—or worsen. So, as the refrain often goes, it’s not a matter of IF, but WHEN your business will experience an incident.
Between low consumer confidence, fear of investing working capital into technology, and supply chain challenges, it’s become more important than ever to explore options that drive profitability - both for you and for your customers.
One of my first jobs out of college was selling DVDs over fax machines. We would receive orders through the fax machine and ship them out to customers. Although this was done through mail order, this sort of selling is the same concept as ecommerce, just transitioned to an electronic environment. Isn’t it amazing how far we’ve come since then? Now we have instant streaming with just a few clicks and buyers have grown accustomed to instant gratification.
You’ve set up the job posting, recruited, interviewed, narrowed down your list of applicants, and have finally extended an accepted offer to your top-rated candidate. The hard part should be over, right?
What did we learn from the pandemic? It’s hard enough to turn a buck under ideal circumstances, let alone during the middle of a pandemic. Results were mixed for solution providers within the printer/copier channel in 2020. But what we have learned is that there were far more businesses that suffered double-digit losses than those who experienced double-digit gains. As a senior analyst for BPO Media, I’ve been watching performance trends throughout the pandemic. The solution providers that thrived were less reliant on print/copy revenues and tended to offer major application software and/or consulting, imaging capture, security, and managed IT services. Businesses that were more reliant on print/copy revenues and used click-based billing approaches had a rougher time of it.
