We covered a lot of topical ground in our blog this year, and not surprisingly, much of it surrounded the central theme of “what should we do now” as the COVID-19 pandemic swept through our world and changed the way business is done perhaps forever. 

Although we may be leaving quite a bit out here, we thought it would be a valuable exercise to go through and package together some of our best thoughts from this past year. If you want to read the rest of the blog from which a point comes, just click the link in each selection. So, enjoy...and Happy New Year! 

In the very near future, a new type of digital divide will materialize between businesses that have embraced cloud technology as an integral part of their business...and those that haven’t.

In fact, the divide is already forming—exacerbated by the pandemic. 

The question for business owners is now: will you sit idly by as the players in your industry and market move, or will you adapt your organization to the new normal with cloud-based tools that give you the power to do things easier, faster, and more strategically? 

And what exactly can done easier, faster, and more strategically? The truth is...too much to list here—but I'm glad you asked! Rather than call out specific ways that digital transformation technologies and cloud computing can help you adapt your business, here are seven general areas of your business where they can help.

In mathematical charting models, an inflection point is where the direction of a curve changes in response to an event. To be considered as such, the change must be clearly perceptible and attributable to a specific cause. 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw a true inflection point emerge in the number of people working remotely, and almost in lock step, an increase in the utilization of cloud computing services followed...and right now, those curves show no signs of shifting back to the pre-pandemic trajectory. 

Indeed, cloud computing and remote work go together like peanut butter and jelly, but now, as companies have had a few months to use and evaluate cloud resources that were initially available to them, they’ve been able to note the deficiencies and challenges of those cloud services and put together want lists for a “version two” of their cloud computing tools that are hopefully more precisely tuned to their needs. 

If you’re looking to settle on some guiding strategies for implementing a new and improved toolbox of cloud solutions for your organization, read on... 

Barry Carr is both the point guard and head coach of the Imaging Office Systems’ sales team—yes, the rare player-coach!

During the last nine months of the pandemic, he and his squad of sales consultants have had to make key “halftime adjustments” to sales strategies and tactics to align with the Covid-era business environment. 

But staying on the move and adjusting to “on-court” realities is second nature to this one-time pupil of legendary college basketball coach Bobby Knight. 

That’s why I was excited to sit down with him and attempt to peel back the layers of Barry's game...for sales, that is!  

OK, we've probably achieved triple-double digits on these gratuitous basketball analogies by now...enough to tip off this Q&A, at least! So, let’s give him the ball out of the backcourt and start our conversation with Barry Carr, "The Galactic Sales Manager!"

Denise Holbrook recently celebrated her one-year anniversary with the Imaging Office Systems family and brings the discipline and analytical mind of an archer to her role as controller and vice president of finance.

In this interview, I enjoyed getting to hear her thoughts on archery as a metaphor for finance, the intersection of finance and technology, and a few other interesting tidbits.