Kevin Cronin is the owner and operator of Print Graphics in Clifton Park.

©2016 Saratoga Photographer.com

By Susan E. Campbell

Smaller printing companies can stay “in the black” in an uncertain economy by expanding their offerings. A copy shop becomes a full-service printer. An offset printer becomes a mail house for the client materials it produces.

Two such companies that survived the latest recession by diversifying are Print Graphics of Clifton Park and Alexander BlueLine of Ballston Spa.

For Kevin Cronin, owner of Print Graphics, the downturn beginning in 2008 was “like someone had cut the phone line.”

“All of a sudden your services are not needed,” he said. “The state of New York used to do a lot of printing, but not now.”

Paper is in fact “one of the few manufacturers left in the state,” Cronin said. Whereas there were five or six distributors pre-recession, there has been some consolidation and now there are two.

“Over the years, certain print offerings have disappeared because the mills have disappeared,” said Patti Kelsey, president of Alexander BlueLine Inc. When a mill merged or closed, the specific type of paper it produced would be lost.

“Clients like a certain look and feel of a paper,” said Kelsey. “I have to search for their specifications and work locally as much as possible.”

But there are new types of stock, coatings and digital equipment, and commercial printers need to “stay up with trends,” she said.

“Everything has changed, from price to how things are put together,” said Kelsey. “There are products to make paper rip-proof, waterproof, and look three-dimentional,” she said.

Mark Shaw, president and CEO of Stored Technology Solutions Inc. (StoredTech).

Courtesy StoredTech

By Mark Shaw

The cloud is here, and it can be your own private cloud, or you may leverage the cloud others have built.

The transition has begun in earnest to fundamentally change the way IT services, and how the hardware it runs on is delivered. Microsoft and Amazon currently have two of the largest clouds for businesses. If you are a business owner and considering an upgrade- and your IT provider, IT director or CIO isn’t talking to you about cloud – you may be missing out on some real business value in your next technology cycle.

What is the cloud? What is a private cloud? What is the value? The concept can be boiled down to utility computing. Use technology and computing power like you would use electricity from the power company or internet service from a local provider. The process of buying a server, router, switch, desktops, laptops and tablets is about to change dramatically. In these cases, you own the hardware, you depreciate it, you pay a large IT bill up front to own it, and you pay an IT managed-service company or an internal set of resources to run it.

This is a capital expense. There is no way around it. The costs are variable, the support is variable, and if something gets old, you pass it down and spend more energy on older hardware. It’s a vicious cycle, and organizations are starting to ask why. Why do I have to play the card game with old desktops? Why do I have to plan for a large expense every three to five years? Why is this not easier, with more streamlined costs, and why won’t this technology just work?

What if there was a newer way? A better way. An operating expense way. There is, and it is growing in acceptance and use for small businesses by the day. This parallels the shift we saw from flip phones to today’s smartphones. You might start with either a “cloud in a box,” or use public clouds to make your business run better.

Consider this example for your next business upgrade. Your company needs new technology, you have desktops and laptops in various states of age and speed, you are paying an IT firm or internal resources to maintain this, and the monthly expenditures have you asking, “What am I getting for all of this?”