Blog – Nubewikli and News

Did you know …….?

Only with a real balance between wealth creation (or economic value added) and sustainability will true progress be achieved.

On reflection, looking back 35 years, three things stand out.
First, the “clustering or consolidation” between OEMs and consumable manufacturers, which was already necessary in 1986, is now stalled in printing and copying. COVID-19 has probably delayed some agendas but accelerated the need. These adjustments will bring both threats and opportunities. One must be prepared.

Second, there is the “protection” of OEMs. In 1987, there was no “aftermarket,” i.e., on one side were the OEMs building the machines and on the other the consumable factories manufacturing the supplies, but everything changed with the advent of inkjet and laser. Since then, the race to place devices at or below cost has been in full swing. OEM supply revenues are more critical than ever and even more, intellectual property challenges are expected. The stakes are high, and OEMs will take greater risks by compromising consumer choice.

The third is “sustainability.” The separation between equipment and supply manufacturers was one of the first signs of the birth of laser cartridge remanufacturing; the other was sustainability. There is broad political agreement that while progress has been made, it is not enough and if we really want to leave a sustainable planet for future generations, we must not only do more we must be more efficient.

Only when we have an alignment between wealth creation and sustainability will real progress be made. Delaying obsolescence, designing for repair and extending product life cycles must become core elements of competitive advantage. Not the other way around.
The circular economy shows us the way and gives remanufacturing an increasingly important role in our industry.

Source: RTM World, Nubeprint

Did you know …….?

Designing sustainable cities will require turning waste into raw materials.

Much of the world’s population is concentrated in cities, where huge amounts of waste are generated.

This waste becomes a pollutant if it ends up in the wrong place, such as our bodies, air or water.

If instead of considering waste as a nuisance, we managed it as a valuable resource, it could offer solutions to multiple problems and create a more sustainable future for billions of people.

An effective way to make a city sustainable is to reduce all waste streams and use them as resources. Waste from one process becomes the raw material for another.

Much of the world’s population continues to migrate to cities, putting urban centers at the forefront of solving the global resource problem. The climate agreements reached in 2015 in Paris also recognized the key role of cities.

Changing building codes and investing in energy efficiency are just two initial steps that, according to many leaders, could be implemented much faster by city councils than by national governments.

It makes sense for cities to step up. The population of some cities (New York, Mexico City, Beijing) exceeds that of entire countries, and the urban landscape emerges where many vital challenges are concentrated. Cities can lead change because they are able to provide solutions quickly and because they are living laboratories for improving the quality of life without depleting the planet’s resources, polluting the air and water, or damaging our health.

Cities abound in wasted energy, wasted CO2, wasted food, wasted water, wasted space and wasted time. Reducing each waste stream and managing it as a resource, rather than a cost, could solve multiple problems at once and create a more sustainable future for billions of people.

Source:(Investigación y Ciencia, Nubeprint)

Did you know …….?

Telecommuting offers many important advantages for companies over face-to-face work.

Digital transformation has diluted most of the disadvantages of working remotely. When we talk about work teams, we easily find technologies that have created virtual platforms that allow us to keep track of the tasks and progress of each member. Communication between colleagues and bosses, and even a working time record that complies with current legislation, are also issues that have been resolved. Thanks to these technologies, it is now possible to move physical office spaces to the cloud and communicate with employees from home.

But it is essential that companies know and evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of teleworking. What are these advantages?

First and foremost is the increase in productivity. The experience accumulated during this last long year has allowed us to quantify that the increase of productivity of the teleworkers is 6%. This is logical if we consider that, by staying at home, employees can better reconcile their personal and professional lives, in addition to eliminating absenteeism or delays due to mobility problems caused by traffic or the care of children and other family members.

Saving space and resources for companies is the second advantage to be highlighted. Working from home implies significant savings in the payment of services in the company, such as electricity, water, security, cleaning, etc. In addition, by having employees working remotely at least two or three days a week, it is possible to reduce office space.

Thirdly, we have all seen an obvious positive impact on the environment. Teleworking eliminates the need for commuting to the office, thus reducing the number of vehicles on the road. Teleworking makes any business activity more sustainable by avoiding the collateral impact of “unnecessary” commuting.

Another of its advantages for socially responsible companies is the facility it provides to include in their areas people with disabilities who can work without having to leave home.

And finally, it reduces the economic impact in times of crisis.

In 2020, teleworking has positioned itself as the best solution to give continuity to the world’s productive system in times of contingency, which has greatly reduced economic complications. A Gartner survey revealed that, given the circumstances, 88% of companies have required or encouraged their employees to work from home. At this time, large companies are unveiling their new working conditions. For example, Telefónica (one of the world’s largest telephone operators) announced last week that teleworking will account for 60% and that it will be applied intelligently according to the profile of each employee.

Source:(Gartner, Think Big, Nubeprint)

Did you know …….?

There are software tools that help prevent consumable stock-outs.

On many occasions, we have heard that this or that manufacturer is having consumables supply problems in its distribution channel.

We have also heard that the forecast systems of the consumables manufacturers make it more rigid to meet the real needs of the markets in terms of the units needed to produce in order to cover an adequate demand.

The big loser in these situations is the distributor who cannot provide adequate service and ultimately the end user, who is affected with stopped equipment for not having the necessary consumable.

For all these reasons, the supplier who is responsible for the machine replenishment services needs tools capable of monitoring the equipment that can provide reliable and accurate information on future needs for the short and medium term (15 to 90 days) on which consumables must be in stock to provide adequate service, is of great importance.

With Nubeprint’s management tool you can manage your consumables inventory forecasts, based on real needs taking as information the historical records of each of the monitored equipment and thus be able to avoid getting surprises.

Source: Nubeprint

Did you know …….?

Workers permanently working remotely will double by 2021.

The percentage of workers worldwide who permanently work from home is expected to double by 2021 as productivity has increased during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a survey by U.S.-based Enterprise Technology Research (ETR).

In September, ETR surveyed some 1,200 CIOs worldwide across industries.

The directors also expressed greater optimism about business prospects in 2021, as they see technology budgets increasing by 2.1%, compared with a 4.1% decline this year due to pandemic-induced roadblocks.

The survey said IT decision makers expect permanent remote work to double to 34.4% of their companies’ workforces by 2021, up from 16.4% before the coronavirus outbreak, as a result of positive productivity trends.

55% of workers believe they were more productive at home than in offices before pandemic, according to Deloitte research

Source: Reuters Deloitte, Nubeprint

Did you know …….?

Managing a subscription-based cartridge replenishment service requires the ability to anticipate when a cartridge is going to run out and act early enough so that the end customer never runs out of ink or toner in their printer. 

 Failure to do so could even lead to claims for compensation as evidenced by the lawsuit filed against HP in a California (USA) court for deficiencies in service delivery associated with its HP InstantInk program.

Recently a group of consumers who had subscribed to the HP Instant Ink service have filed a lawsuit against HP. While the lawsuit has yet to be admitted by a judge, it reflects the unease generated by potentially poor management of a service that is very attractive to small printer users.

HP InstantInk is a subscription-based service that allows you to print up to a maximum volume of pages per month without having to worry about cartridges, as HP commits to automatically replenish them before they run out. Hence, this is the problem that users complain about: the cartridges often don’t arrive on time and the printer is stuck.

The lawsuit says that this happens mainly for 2 reasons:

1. When the user prints a lot, the low ink or toner warning alert is generated too late to allow enough time for the reference to arrive on time and the printer stops.

2. HP runs out of stock of the reference and cannot ship the supply.

In either case, it is impossible to print because, as the lawsuit states, HP locks the printer, preventing the use of any other cartridge not shipped directly from HP, including original cartridges purchased from a retailer.

A consumables replenishment program relies on printer monitoring by HP, the service provider, to be aware of the printer’s status. But it is clearly not enough to know the printer’s status. It is also necessary to anticipate. And this is the problem that HP and many like it encounter. Since every customer has different and changing printing patterns, setting a percentage level at which to send the replacement cartridge guarantees that for many customers the printer will stop, for many others the cartridge will arrive months in advance, and for a few it will arrive about 10 days in advance, which is the optimum time.

The only way for the service provider to avoid this problem is to define the cartridge shipment threshold based on the number of days of use remaining before the cartridge runs out.

There is only one monitoring technology that works like this: Nubeprint. This technology uses an advanced predictive engine that provides individual knowledge for each cartridge and each printer on what date it will run out. Knowing what and when it will be needed to service customers’ printers make it easier to keep the right stock in the warehouse and avoid those problems that HP InstantInk customers complain about.

In this day and age where service is more important than product, it is imperative to use the right technology that allows you to differentiate and succeed without the risk of legal liability.

Source: Tonernews.com, Nubeprint

Did you know …….?

The global cloud services market increased spending on infrastructure services by an average of 32% in the last quarter of 2020.

Demand for cloud services remained strong across all enterprise customer segments, including industries most affected by the pandemic, such as retail and manufacturing. “The pace of digitization, led by the cloud, is gathering pace. Enterprises are now more confident in freeing up budgets for business transformation.”

This is the largest quarterly expansion as continued pandemic constraints drove intense demand for cloud resources to enable remote working and learning, e-commerce, content streaming, online gaming and collaboration. At the same time, a gradual recovery in economic confidence spurred cloud investments by organizations across industry segments to drive digital transformation. Cloud vendors are expanding their investments in channel partnerships to maintain high demand rates and support customers, which will be critical for project deployments in 2021 and beyond.
In 2020, total spending on cloud infrastructure services grew 33% to US $142 billion, compared to US $107 billion in 2019. Demand was higher than expected, despite an initial slowdown in large projects led by consultative entities.

The launch of new vertical partner competencies, further expansion in distribution to drive SMB adoption, and new partnerships as it expands its hybrid cloud strategy.
Demand for cloud services remained strong across all enterprise customer segments, including industries most affected by the pandemic, such as retail and manufacturing. “The pace of digitization, led by the cloud, is picking up speed. Enterprises now have more confidence in freeing up budgets for business transformation.” “Large projects that were postponed earlier in the year are being prioritized, led by application modernization, workplace transformation.” “Even those under the most pressure are diverting investments to the cloud, opening up new revenue streams and diversifying business models.”

At the same time, small and midsize companies continue to turn to cloud services to maintain operations and control costs. The approval of COVID-19 vaccines and the start of mass vaccination programs will further increase business reliance throughout 2021, while remote working and learning will continue. This will maintain reliance on cloud services and drive spending.
The technology channel, from global systems integrators and MSPs to resellers and distributors, is playing an increasingly important role in driving cloud growth worldwide. All of the major cloud vendors are increasing their investments in the channel, both to leverage consulting and managed services capabilities. Microsoft’s recent announcement promoting its Cloud PC is a definitive endorsement of the cloud, and a farewell to the PC as we know it now.

We will soon see the effect this will have on the PC as the base computer we all work with, because if the desktop and applications are going to be in the cloud, why do you need so much memory, processor or hard drive on the computer you connect to?

Source: Canalys, Nubeprint

Did you know …….?

Each employee leaves an average of 600 sheets of printed pages a year unutilized.

Printing does not have to be an excessive expense. To reduce this item, the most important thing is to know what your current printing costs are. For example, many employees print excessively, leaving up to 600 pages a year in the printer tray.
How can this excess printed material be managed efficiently? To begin with, you need to keep an eye on the hidden costs of printing. This can be done by implementing measures that require the user to be next to the equipment when printing, to avoid the accumulation of printed documents.

It is also necessary to be clear in which cases it is not necessary to use color printing or high-quality settings, to apply permissions that limit the amount of printing that can be done, and to use management tools that allow tracking of each employee’s printing.

For example, there is equipment that incorporates the pull printing option, a solution that allows users to pick up their prints when and where they want, identifying themselves at the chosen printing equipment by means of a PIN, password, or card. In this way, documents are released only when their owner is in front of the equipment, to ensure immediate collection. The authentication process can be done by a combination of username and password or, for ease of use, by NFC cards.

Another way to save money is to set up, by default, a cost-saving configuration to limit the volume of color, single-sided and high-resolution prints when they are not needed, or to apply per-user permissions. In this regard, together with the appropriate tool, the administrator is allowed to create and configure different user profiles in which he can determine printing quotas, restrict color printing, and configure the functions that can be accessed by each of the registered users.

But once it has been decided to print a document, it is necessary to do so with maximum savings, minimizing the waste of consumables due to early supply replacements, optimizing the management of cartridge delivery by grouping shipments and establishing an automatic consumables management system for onsite supplies giving one total control over the supplies and their use.
It should not be forgotten that when not managing the supplies at this level there is a 30% cost overrun on printing costs.

Contact Nubeprint if you want to know how to save 30% of your printing costs from day one.

As one can see, all these measures are aimed in one way or another at reducing the environmental impact of waste generation.

Source: IT Users, Nubeprint

Did you know …….?

There are powerful arguments in favor of online versus traditional retailing.

The advance of technology in recent years has led to the emergence of a market experience that has brought greater value to the customer and better management for sellers. This new way of doing business has created great competition versus the traditional method: the purchase and sale of services made in person, compared to the e-commerce or electronic commerce based on online sales. Below we present different benefits that the implementation of this method brings:

1.Savings in administration costs: With an e-commerce you avoid paying for the rental of a store and hiring the services of third parties. From the online store the customer has the necessary advice if all the information of the product or service is provided in detail.

2.Prices more adjusted to the customer’s pocket: The previous benefit leads us to something particularly important and that is that, when you save money on administrative costs, you can reduce the cost of products or services, which becomes a great incentive for customer to buy online than by the traditional method.

3.Access to new markets: Deciding to take the products to the digital world through e-commerce allows one to reach national and international markets. Online sales make it easier for people around the world to see the products and decide to purchase. In other words, the target is not limited to one specific region.

4.Less investment in advertising: Having your own e-commerce helps you to reduce the investment budget for advertising thanks to new Digital Marketing trends, such as SEO, SEM, social networks, email marketing, among others.

5.Make a customer analysis: E-commerce allows you to know more about your customers thanks to the implementation of platforms that detail their behavior, interests, tastes, needs and even what they are passionate about.

6.Greater convenience for customers: Online sales allow people to save money on transportation to the store and time when looking for the product they want. This facilitates the decision to make an online purchase, helping to increase store sales.

7.Sales 24/7: Internet never sleeps, therefore, sales do not stop at any time, contrary to what happens when you have a physical store, because it only works at a specific time.
Nubeprint allows you to incorporate the sale of monitoring services in your e-commerce portal, improving your customers’ experience and increasing their loyalty. In this way, when a customer buys a cartridge from you, the monitoring integrated in your e-commerce automatically manages your customer’s next cartridge purchases in your e-commerce portal.

Source: Next_U, Nubeprint

Did you know …….?

It is advisable not to turn off the printer even if it is not going to be used.

When we talk about technology, doubts arise about the best method for proper maintenance. In the case of printers, there is a belief that switching them off leads to savings. But as soon as we scratch the surface, we find a very different reality.

It is necessary to differentiate between the two most common printer types: laser and inkjet. We are also going to stick to printers up to five years old, for which manufacturers have optimized power consumption in the well-known “standby” mode.

Regular cleaning and maintenance of a printer is essential to ensure good quality printing.

When the printer is turned on, the self-test process is activated and the printer takes the opportunity to perform maintenance. But turning the printer off and on frequently decreases its useful life as the self-test moves its internal components, causing wear and tear. During maintenance cycles (head cleaning, etc.), the printer uses consumables, sometimes up to 20% of the cartridge contents. Compared to its inkjet equivalent, a laser printer has many more components susceptible to wear and tear: drum, transfer, fuser, waste bottle…

In a printer fleet managed by an MPS service provider, there is often the paradox that an attempt to save energy costs by switching printers off daily leads to higher unproductive consumption of consumables. The user benefits from the energy savings, while the service provider absorbs the entire overrun. From an environmental point of view, the question arises as to whether the energy savings offset the environmental impact of manufacturing 20% more cartridges than strictly necessary, the logistics involved in getting them to the user, the collection of the empties and their processing as electronic waste.

This unproductive consumption is one of the reasons why 60% of printer models in cost-per-copy contracts report a lower than expected yield, since the volume of copies printed per cartridge is significantly lower than the yield approved by the manufacturer.

The manufacturers themselves recommend not to turn off the printer even if we are not going to use it for some time. However, it is good to do so from time to time so that these self-diagnostic cycles can take place (they are there for a reason).

Source: Hard Zone, Nubeprint