Imagine your company gets robbed or vandalized, costing thousands of dollars your business doesn’t have the room to spare.

Imagine you’re a large, well-known company, and you’ve just discovered your database has been breached. Three million files have been compromised, resulting in a loss of $5,000,000 in settlement. Your company’s bank account starts to dwindle, and you may be looking at potentially having to lay off employees. What could have been done to prevent this?

To celebrate International Women in STEM Day tomorrow, we interviewed some of the women from Usherwood Office Technology that help demonstrate the importance of having women in positions that are normally male-dominated. This includes Lindsay Usherwood, General Counsel; Meriah Maneri, Odyssey Security Analyst; Marguerite Dillon, Videographer; and Lauren Usherwood, Business Development Executive. Hear them share what empowers them each day in their positions, as well as what challenges they face working as women in STEM.

Everyone who has worked in an office knows the rollercoaster experience of working with printers. From paper jams, to replacing ink cartridges and reconnecting to the wifi, printers can be a pain when you’re striving to get work done. Usherwood has worked with 7,000 companies over the past forty-seven years, many of which utilize HP’s line of A3 multi functional printers, or MFPs. In this article, we’ll review the significance of HP's line of A3 MFPs gaining its first wins in the BLI Line of the Year Awards and six useful features of the line that contributed to the winnings. Every company wants to know if the devices they invest in can help their business grow and succeed, so allow us to lend a helping hand in the decision-making process. Why Are HP Multi Function Printers So Popular? First, let’s explore why HP and its products are so popular in the office world. HP is a prominent player in the printer industry. They are an established worldwide leader in the A4 segment of the Buyers Lab Line of the Year Awards, or BLI. What’s BLI? These awards highlight companies with a wide range of software and hardware consistent with above-average performances. Having won the Buyers Lab A4 Line of the Year Award for the ninth time this year, HP also received its first awards for its A3 segment in the Buyers Lab Line of the Year Award and Special BLI Most Energy Efficient Laser A3 Brand Award, highlighting its green and more environment-friendly technology. HP Printer All In One Features The A3 line from HP carries many reliable, useful, and secure features guaranteed to impress your company, which is how it ended up winning the BLI Awards. We know this due to working with around 7,000 companies and have heard the many complaints of why certain printers weren’t working for their business and office productivity, some of which included shorter lifespans than worth the amount paid for the device as well as the complications experienced just trying to use the basic functions. HP’s line of A3 MFPs is known for long service life and rare malfunctions; if there are any, they are easily fixed. They're continuously praised for high quality and ease of use, all contributing to their continuous winnings. New this year, they also offer the option of color gradients to add a little enthusiasm and aesthetics to your office space and strengthen your brand, but we’ll get to more of that later on. Standard Speed and Auto Upgrades on the A3 Office Printer HP’s A3 MFPs have useful characteristics, such as running high scan speeds of up to 240 images per minute, or ipm3, and printing speeds up to 70 pages per minute, or ppm, to assist with multi-tasking, which could mean allowing multiple people to utilize the printer at once. These printers have a higher printing speed compared to many other printing systems. Work-life balance is about productivity and being on the go, moving on to the next goal with intensive drive. That couldn’t be achievable if slow devices drag you down and take precious time. HP A3 MFPs help consumers avoid this potential bump in the road, and it seems the BLI Awards noticed this. The BLI Awards focus on hardware and software that ultimately provide upper-quality performance and leave consumers satisfied–that couldn’t be done if the product lacked reliability. HP speed allows you to have the ability to juggle various tasks while streamlining upgrades for the device. You don't want to worry about making sure your device is manually upgraded while also doing your essential functions throughout the day, making it very convenient for the device to take care of its upgrades and repairs on its own. HP A3s Are Easy to Use and Have a Customizable Touch Screen Interface HP A3 MFPs offer easy accessibility. With a sizable, customizable touchscreen, users will find the features easily. The touchscreen allows every part to be seen and performed easily, whether on-screen editing, flipbook browsing, or annotating. You can easily find what function you're looking for with just a few taps of the screen and can even personalize the touchscreen according to what functions your company tends to use more. It even manages document sizes and adjusts to fit email standards. Multiple devices can connect with the printers without needing intervention from a tech operator. Overall, the features are very straightforward and easy to learn. Better Security Ensured by HP’s A3 Multi Function Printers Increased security for all printers in the A3 line offers maximum control and comfort for your business. HP A3s are designed to undergo any challenge in a complex work environment. Decked with top-quality hardware, firmware, and timely and efficient functions, HP A3 MFPs offer users comfort in the knowledge that their information is protected and malicious viruses and malware will have no place to flourish in their workspace. Everything from the control panels, USB ports, and address books are properly protected. Any potential threat or risk is sent immediately as a notification to the security hardware. These MFPs are designed to scan documents and self-recover if an issue occurs during a task instead of ending it altogether, which any person who has ever worked in an office will appreciate. If you’re curious how an HP MFP self-heals, "Protect Your Network with HP Sure Start" by genesisONE provides a straightforward explanation. These built-in protection features are what make HP printers the most secure in the world and most likely contributed to the winnings of the most current BLI Line of the Year Award. Having control over such an essential piece of equipment promises smoother productivity and a lower chance of running into any issues that may lead to harmful consequences. It's better to have something with protection already programmed versus buying the device and the proper hardware to secure it. You want to ensure the product you purchase for consistent use is of premium quality and already set up to eliminate a majority of the hard work, which plays a part in the length of this printer's service life. If you don’t have proper printer security, costly data breaches could occur, and not only cost you more money but also affect the smooth and speedy functions of the printer. After all, you want to get the most use out of the product as possible. Why spend money on something without a bang for your buck? You want a consistent product to serve as the backbone of your productivity. The HP A3s Are Not Just Color Printers- They Also Come In Fun Colors

The commercial security and surveillance industry continues to experience rapid growth. You might notice headlines rife with retail thefts, vandalism, and other physical threats. As you consider options for securing your business, it's helpful to know about current trends in the business video surveillance and security industry.

Historically, printers have not been much of a consideration in most organizations’ cyber security strategies. However, that is exactly what has made them an attractive attack method for hackers. In the past, the basic assumption was that a secure firewall was the extent of what is necessary for printer security, but that is no longer sufficient. This is because “the bad guys” know these are soft targets on corporate networks.

Incidents like what happened with Microsoft Exchange Zero Day, Solarwinds, and Colonial Pipeline all had common threads. Chief among them being the lax attitude towards cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is no longer a luxury, or a fancy add-on. It is an absolute requirement. You would not leave the doors to your home unlocked and hope the bad guys do not notice. Yet, without effective and thoughtful security measures, you have done exactly that with your business. Still, we often hear objections and here are some of the most common.

Perhaps you have heard the term “Zero Trust” at some point over the last couple years. If so, hopefully it was in the context of cybersecurity and not as part of a couple’s therapy session. Even if you have heard the phrase…even if you understand the technical aspects of how to execute a Zero Trust network architecture…or perhaps because you already know just how difficult it is to actually migrate to such an environment…it remains light years from being the reality for most organizations.

Update: The Federal Trade Commission has extended the deadline of their Safeguards Rule that applies to auto dealerships from December 9th, 2022 to June 9th 2023, the article below reflects this update.

You're researching office technology companies, and suddenly, you're wondering, do you want to work with a national or local provider? If you're considering national companies there is a good chance you are looking into Ricoh. They have a very large footprint throughout the united states.