Digicom Technology News

Telework has become more prevalent within government departments, and the latest intelligence from the Office of Personnel Management says employees are pleased! From the environment to the budget, the benefits are far-reaching. But perhaps the most important advantage is to the employees themselves.

Teleworkers say they are more engaged and satisfied than their onsite counterparts, according to the 2012 US Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. Other reported benefits included a reduced number of sick days, increased employee motivation and greater workforce flexibility.

All things considered, it’s no surprise adopting collaborative tools in support of a mobile workforce is becoming a top priority for government departments. These survey results demonstrate just how fast telework opportunities are growing:

• In 2012, one out of three government employees were eligible for teleworking, up from one in four in 2012
• Almost a quarter of the government workforce engaged in a form of teleworking over the past year
• The General Services Administration and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation have the highest rate of teleworkers with more than 80 percent of their employees working remotely

But not only is the telework trend growing, it is working. When Hurricane Sandy disrupted the East Coast, departments had to work to ensure a continuity of operations despite the storm. Not surprisingly, many turned to telework as a solution.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office didn’t miss a beat during the storm thanks to their mobile workforce. On average the agency’s teams reported more than 70 percent productivity, while other organizations were forced to shut down. As more agencies make the transition to teleworking, resources like the Telework Exchange help to eliminate the obstacles.

If you would like more information on teleworking and its benefits, please contact Digicom today.

It’s clear from the Ricoh Document Governance Index 2012 series that European business leaders recognise the importance of having document processes that can be accessed from anywhere, at any time – able to attract and keep customers, meet regulatory requirements and keep cash flowing throughout the business. But in many cases, they have been unable to keep their document processes in step with the rapid changes in technology and ways of working. As a result, systems are not always connected, data is often unstructured, and employees are unable to access business-critical information at crucial times.

Below is outline of four steps for business leaders to follow to ensure their document processes are fully connected and able to meet the needs of their business today and tomorrow, as follows:

1. Europe’s business leaders should become more involved in document processes, to ensure senior overview of the way information is created, shared, and used throughout the entire business.

2. They should consider working with an expert to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. Document processes, the business technology used to manage them, and the people who work with them on a day-to-day basis cannot be reviewed or improved in isolation.

3. Employees should be more involved in any new ways of working. As the people working with these processes every day, it’s vital they are consulted, their valuable experiences and opinions acted on, and a change management programme is introduced to ensure any improvements achieve their desired results.

4. It’s essential to maintain an on-going process of governance and improvement. Doing so means any remaining bottlenecks can be identified and put right, and better ways of working can be identified and replicated throughout the business.

Those businesses that are able to master the management of business-critical document processes will be the ones that thrive in the increasingly global, fast-paced business environment of the future.

Contact Digicom to find out how connected you are to your business-critical document processes.

The growing omnipresence of email and online data storage are enough to make you think excessive office paper waste is a thing of the past. A look at the numbers, however, reveals otherwise. And what's more, a lag on going totally paperless doesn't just hurt the environment -- it's a huge burden on slow-to-adapt businesses as well.

These stats and more were rounded up from across the web by Internet faxing firm MetroFax, and they're presented in the following infographic.

Irish Whiskey Collection Store

The Retail Excellence Awards are about celebrating retail stores and promoting best practice in the Irish retail industry. This awards ceremony has become one of the most anticipated and prestigious events on the retail calendar. It has become the benchmark by which the best in retail are judged.

The winners of the National Company of the Year/Industry Leader and Retail Store of the Year were The Loop, Dublin Airport and The Irish Whiskey Collection, Terminal 2 respectively. Within these retail spaces, Digicom were nominated to design and install a digital signage system which comprised of both hardware and software.

David Fitzsimons, Chief Executive of Retail Excellence commented "What Aer Rianta International and specifically The Loop have been doing at Dublin Airport is inspirational. They have reinvented airport shopping not just in Ireland but across the world". Part of their success was the meticulous research they carried out. The DAA do very little without speaking to the customer first. The ideas that they have are researched with their customers after talking to them one on one or in focus groups. Outcomes of the research included installing flat panel screens with digital signage.

There are many features and benefits not offered by static displays and signage that the retail space in Terminal 2 in now experiencing. The dynamic digital signage is grabbing customer's attention and is influencing their purchasing decision right at the point of purchase. It is also eliminating the high cost of creating and distributing print ad campaigns. The digital signage system in place is instant and offers the ability to change promotions immediately for various products or particular customers. Another advantage of the digital displays over static is that the retailers have the potential to earn money with their digital signage network by selling advertising space to their suppliers.

The big challenge to the DAA was how to engage with a new breed of customer that views the airport as a bus stop. Impressively the DAA have delivered on this front having experienced a 30% increase in Irish whiskey sales since the opening of the Irish Whiskey Collection store in T2. Their digital signage system has played a significant role in achieving engagement with customers.

Whether it is intended to build a brand, influence customer behaviour or simply provide information, the dynamic visual experience created by digital signage will ultimately increase sales.

Please click here for more information on the Retail Excellence Awards.

NEC Display has introduced the VE281 and VE281X mobile projectors, which are aimed at small meeting rooms, schools and conference room installs. Both projectors are specified at 2,800 lumens, offer auto power on and quick startup/shutdown, an Eco Mode, a carbon savings meter and extended filter life. They also have energy-saving features such as NEC's Intelligent Driving Scheme (IDS2) technology to extend the lamp life of the projector up to 6,000 hours in Eco Mode and 4,000 hours in normal use.


The VE281 is native SVGA (800x600) resolution and the VE281X is native XGA (1024x768) resolution, using a one-chip DLP engine with a BrilliantColor chip with a specified contrast ratio of 3,000:1. Inputs include HDMI and VGA (both ports automatically turn on the projector when they detect a signal). The VE281 and VE281X will be available in January 2013.

If you would like more information on projectors, please contact Digicom today.

Over the past few years, personal video conferencing has promised to enter the enterprise mainstream, with laptops, tablets, and phones operating on upgraded networks capable of supporting real-time audio and video communications. Many corporations are looking to embrace personal video conferencing as both a stand-alone application and as part of an overall Unified Communications (UC) deployment because rich media communications can speed decision making, help build stronger teams, and ultimately drive top line revenues as part of a sales strategy. Avaya recently commissioned a study with the aim of establishing the requirements for successfully deploying pervasive personal video. Below is a brief discussion and results from the study.

Many of today's crop of personal video conferencing systems have overcome the limitations of the past – ease of use, video quality, bandwidth management, and reliability. And while many enterprise managers may have the perception that wide-scale deployment of personal video would be possible only as part of a UC platform rollout, it is actually very achievable and affordable using traditional MCUbased video conferencing. An added benefit to MCU-based video is its extensive feature set and room systems compatibility which contrasts with many UC-based solutions. Rolling out a personal video conferencing service to managers and information workers has significant benefits beyond travel savings – including improved team building, better integration of resources, and faster decision making while allowing for a richer interaction. A factor that is often overlooked is the need to deploy to a critical mass of users. Scale is essential to making video calling an everyday experience. Configuring the network to support personal video conferencing and the required bandwidth is an important step, but not one that is particularly onerous with today's technology and services.

The follow are the results of the study:

• Enterprises should evaluate the new generation of personal video conferencing solutions as a vehicle to increase sales, strengthen partnerships, and improve internal team building. The current crop of personal video collaboration solutions are enterprise-ready and overcome the scalability, reliability, and quality issues that plagued desktop video conferencing years ago. 
• Avoid creating islands of communication. Integrate room systems with personal and mobile video conferencing solutions, bringing added value to both sets of investments. Integrated deployments should support high quality audio and video and easy connections inside and outside the firewall.
• Create a small, end-user driven team of product champions with participation from at least one high level executive. Have IT represented on the team, but do not have only IT department members. Include the network specialists and line-of-business users.
• Communicate internally to all involved with information on what will happen and when so that colleagues can monitor the progress of the deployment project. Include training sessions and provide documentation on how to use the new solution effectively.
• Communicate after the deployment about how the solution is being used and what benefits workers are seeing. This will encourage others to use video, making the solution more valuable to all.