I’m going out on a limb to proclaim that the No. 1 industry buzz term for 2019 is partnerships. Sure, the year isn’t even 50 days old yet, but everywhere you read, businesses are extolling the virtues of partnerships as being essential to competing in today’s climate.
The office technology dealership space is certainly no exception, and as the movement away from copiers and MFPs as a sole source of revenue generation continues to gain momentum, we cannot operate in a silo. Borrowing from Captain James T. Kirk, if we’re aiming to boldly go where no dealer has gone before (so to speak), it does entail a degree of hand-holding. The connecting of the dots from a product or service to an end user has a greater degree of difficulty, particularly with newer digital technologies, and we’re fortunate to have a bounty of resources at our disposal, courtesy of our OEM and platform-providing partners.
This month’s state of the industry focus on IT security is a prime example of technologies and processes that can offer a challenge to dealers, so we’ve enlisted our friends in the manufacturer and solution provider sets to provide a snippet overview of how they help equip dealers with technology that supports data and infrastructure security. The panel consists of George Grafanakis (Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America), Hiro Imamura (Canon Business Information Communications Group), Dr. Alissa Abdullah (Xerox), Eric Crump (FollowMe Team at Ringdale), Ryan Weeks (Datto), John Thiessen (Ricoh USA) and Greg VanDeWalker (Collabrance).
George Grafanakis, SIICA
Grafanakis: Sharp’s latest multifunction printers are armed with leading-edge, multi-layered security features, including Firmware Attack Prevention and Self Recovery, which can help identify a malicious intrusion and restore the machine firmware to its original state. Our Whitelisting feature detects access attempts to the machine file system and denies access if the source data is not on the white list. Additionally, built-in Authority Groups help manage and restrict copying, printing and scanning features to safeguard data as well as control costs. Administrators can also apply Active Directory Group Policy to the device, which offers centralized configuration and control for select security and print driver settings. Sharp’s remote device manager enables both IT administrators and service providers to monitor and manage their MFP fleets. Confidential Printing helps ensure sensitive documents are kept safe by requiring users to enter a PIN code to print them. When the customer is ready to trade the machine in, a convenient End-of-Lease feature can erase all data and personal information, as well as print a confirmation report for verification.
Hiro Imamura, Canon
Imamura: Canon’s approach is two-fold: First, we develop strong technology with an underlying focus on keeping information secure. We are a long-term investor in the concept of “secure by design”—it’s part of our DNA. For instance, our current imageRUNNER ADVANCE platform includes extensive security features within the standard offering. Security is consistent across the platform, evolving with frequent updates to help address newly uncovered vulnerabilities.
Second, we integrate with organizations’ existing infrastructures as it relates to security policies and monitoring activity. The MFP is just one component of the overall infrastructure that needs to be monitored and protected against suspicious activity, and Canon’s technology is built not to disrupt that, but to easily speak to, and integrate with, existing systems.
Overall, our goal is to support our dealers and our customers to easily configure systems and implement solutions to create an environment that promotes information security in a way that is seamless and transparent to business operations.
Alissa Abdullah,
Xerox
Abdullah: Equipping our dealers with the best possible security features to protect and defend against cyber attacks is our top priority. At Xerox, we do so by offering a wide array of standard and optional security features on our devices. This includes everything from password protected print jobs and data encryption to access controls and image overwrite of sensitive information through electronic “shredding.” We add an additional layer of security through external partnerships with companies like McAfee and Cisco that are experts in the field. These partnerships allow us to embed best in class cybersecurity technology onto our devices.
Eric Crump, Ringdale
Crump: Ringdale is a partner-based organization and equips dealers to grow in security-conscious industries such as financial services, insurance organizations, telecom, manufacturing, education and government agencies. We equip MPS providers with the leading data loss prevention (DLP) solutions with exceptional professional services support to allow them to secure new business through security and compliance drivers. Ringdale is successfully helping partners grow their MPS business which is evident by the growth in FollowMe sales, outperforming the market at nearly two and half times the forecasted market rate.
Ryan Weeks,
Datto
Weeks: The product engineers at Datto are constantly working to innovate our solutions to ensure they are fitting the needs of our managed service provider partners. We obtain partner feedback and adjust our roadmap in accordance with what MSPs need to more effectively do their jobs and grow their business. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) is at the heart of what we do at Datto, but it’s a piece of the puzzle in a comprehensive data and infrastructure security plan. Ensuring clients’ software and operating systems are patched and up to date also plays an important role, and we offer that assurance through Datto RMM. Our Networking Appliance is built standard with stateful firewall and intrusion detection to defeat unwanted cyberattacks, and our edge routers are equipped with Enhanced Web Content Filtering to prevent threats from entering the networking and communicating back out to the Internet, making it easier to prevent malware, ransomware and other forms of attacks. We also build our solutions to be open to integrating with other vendors in our space. If we don’t offer a solution that an MSP needs, it’s highly likely we integrate with one. This ensures our partners have access to all of the solutions they need to keep their clients secure, even if they aren’t ours.
John Thiessen,
Ricoh
Thiessen: Ricoh has a strong reputation for transparency with our customers, especially when it comes to security measures. We publish information related to security recommendations with all of our products. Beyond simply making this information available, we make security a centerpiece of the sales support materials and training we provide dealers and direct salespeople. We also make sure to “keep an ear to the ground,” working directly with dealers to both refine our training around security to better reflect their needs, and to help answer their customers’ security questions in the day-to-day.
Greg VanDeWalker,
Collabrance
VanDeWalker: Collabrance has a Master MSSP (Managed Security Service Provider) offering that can provide over 20 different security components. Collabrance provides our services to many copier dealers for their own internal IT environments. This helps them when they sell our MSP services to their SMB customers because they have firsthand experience of what Collabrance delivers. From a meta-perspective, we are very influenced by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) framework and are building our Master MSSP offering to comply. This NIST framework has five pillars: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond and Recover. Our goal is to help our MSP partners deliver a NIST-level security offering to their SMB customers. On a side note, Collabrance was recognized as a top 100 MSSP in 2018.
