Posted by Tom Callinan on Monday, April 2, 2012
If there was a single area I find most entrepreneurs spend too little time on, it's planning. Because they don’t spend the time on planning they spend even less time on research, a necessity of planning. The fact that prints are declining across the business segments of the industry is no surprise to anybody at this point. I’ve been speaking about it for four years now. Some providers have entered the MPS space, albeit with limited success.
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Posted by Tom Callinan on Monday, November 28, 2011
Nations are in the news: Greece, Portugal, Italy, and soon maybe even France. Greece has a debt to GDP ratio of approximately 150%, Portugal’s ratio is 93% and Italy is 120%. The good old US is right around 100%. How did these countries dig themselves such a large hole that they subsequently crawled into? I realize any easy answer will be an over simplification, but in my mind the answer is by not acting on good data.
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Posted by Tom Callinan on Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Last week ECi announced the acquisition of the last independent industry specific ERP, Digital Gateway (DGI). It appears as if this acquisition has caught many by surprise as DGI’s outspoken CEO, Jim Phillips, has told anybody who would listen that he would never sell out (That infamous “read my lips” mantra that seems to be followed in history by the exact opposite event). Jim’s reasoning seemed to be founded on his belief that being an independent software provider was good for the independent dealer.
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Posted by Tom Callinan on Friday, September 9, 2011
It started out as just another Tuesday; I had my reservation at the Times Square Hilton and I was on the bus from South Jersey to Manhattan. For the last three years I had been commuting into Manhattan to my job as president of IKON’s NYC Marketplace. I was fortunate; IKON had agreed to foot the bill for me to stay in the city whenever I wanted, so I didn’t need to endure the four-hour daily commute like most on the bus. Unless you’ve experienced the bus commute to Manhattan you’d never be able to imagine that it is actually a community unto itself.
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Posted by Tom Callinan on Tuesday, May 10, 2011
From May 10 – 12, Strategy Development is hosting a client symposium in Las Vegas. May 10 kicks off with a full-day seminar on building dynamic teams facilitated by Dr. Rod Napier. Dr Napier is an instructor at The University of Pennsylvania in their Masters of Organizational Dynamics program and has instructed at the Wharton School, including leading the popular Executive Team Dynamics course. Dr.
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Posted by Tom Callinan on Monday, May 2, 2011
Many of you want to speak to the “C” level so you had better know what they think about. In a recent issue of CFO Magazine (yes, I read that too…..holdover from my time in CFO role) poll results detailed the top five concerns of CFOs. There are actually eight due to ties. Who ever said CFOs could count!
#1 Ability to maintain margins
#2 Ability to forecast results
Cost of healthcare
&
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Posted by Tom Callinan on Wednesday, April 27, 2011
I am using the title from the article in the April 25, 2011 issue of Information Week, one of my favorite IT magazines, and I am going to borrow literally from the information contained in that article. If you are in the MPS or MS space I strongly recommend you get yourself a subscription to Information Week. It’s free to qualified requests—that would be you—and it has good content.
You are trying to sell managed print services (MPS) or managed services (MS) so you probably want to know what the CIO thinks about outsourcing, correct? Let’s cover some key parts of t
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Posted by Tom Callinan on Monday, April 25, 2011
When speaking at shows to dealer principals I am often asked about our fee structure. At the end of the explanation I frequently hear “You are expensive.” None of our clients—the dealers that actually pay us—feel this way, and I certainly don’t feel like the service of the SD team are expensive.
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Posted by Tom Callinan on Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Want to start a riot at an MPS event? Mention MPS, TCO, and CPP in the same sentence. I realize MPS has attracted practitioners from many, formerly different, business models: supply companies, printer service companies, VARs/resellers, managed services company, printer and copier OEMs, and BTA dealers.
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