TRY NOT TO SAY, “I TOLD YOU SO” Several years ago, Sharp Electronics held a dealer meeting where they rolled out their security initiative. They had security expert Frank Abagnale, Jr. as a memorable keynote. Abagnale is better known as the inspiration for the character from the movie Catch Me If You Can (his part was played by Leonardo DeCaprio). Abagnale discussed how flawed security was in the business world and how com-panies were often at great risk without even realizing it. Digital technology was opening a Pandora’s Box full of issues and Abagnale talked about many of the risks most companies faced, often without any knowledge that they were exposed in such a way. This was the official kick off of Sharp’s security initiative and in my opinion they have been leading the industry ever since. Jump ahead to April 2010 and the CBS Evening News piece that showed the world the risks and possible legal ramifications that traditional office copiers and multifunctional printers pre-sented. In case you missed it, CBS reporters went undercover and had a California security consultant walk into a used copier warehouse in New Jersey to acquire four “random” copiers to find out if critical information was, indeed, being left in the device. While I have a hard time believing that CBS had “no idea where <the devices> came from,” as stated in the video, the point was made and the piece turned out to be wildly popular, freaking people out across the globe. You can find the video on youtube.com among many other places. When the security expert pulled the hard drives from the devices, they hit the proverbial jackpot with respect to sensitive data, finding sex crime and investigation information on devices from a police station in Buffalo New York, payroll information on another and medical records on another. Anyone who has ever been in the field selling copiers knows that customers generally buy the bare minimum when it comes to office equipment and they will do anything to keep the cost down. In my copier sales experience, customers typically view accessories or “upgrades” as unnecessary and I get the feeling they’re very skeptical about a lot of things they’re told by their sales reps. Every copier manufacturer like Xerox, Sharp and others has a security option (or options) that can be bundled into the sale of the equipment. In a completely unscientific poll of a few of my buddies in the field, I’m told they almost always mention the security options during the sales process. Since they’re paid on accessories as well as on the hardware, it’s always in their best interest to sell every feature and additional option they can get the customer to buy. What usually happens is the customer tells them they don’t need the security or perhaps they’ll buy the security later. It’s such a small part of the deal that the rep usually takes this rejection and moves on instead of trying to instill fear in the customer’s heart like CBS Evening News seems to have done with this and most of their “special reports.” If you’re reading this, you understand that the majority of copiers are leased or rented and at the end of that lease/rental term, the device – hard drive and all – will go back to the leasing company or dealer. When you lease a car, before you turn it in, you remove all of your belong-ings from it. Customers need to do the same for their copiers. It’s ultimately the customer’s respon-sibility to make sure they aren’t allowing sensitive data to leave their office. The problem is, as the video report showed us, customers either forget or don’t realize that there is data in the copier when it leaves their office. This single five-minute video by CBS has done more legwork for this industry than all the brochures, seminars, webinars, and advertising could have ever done with respect to security issues. The question is; how do you make this work for you? Just as you might inform your prospects that their current copier vendor has put them at great risk by not securing their data, your competitors are going to do the same to you. It’s time to be proactive and this CBS video is a great resource to start conversations with your customers. It’s as simple as making a call and asking your contact if they saw the piece on copier security. If they haven’t, send them a link to it and follow up. You should probably remind them that when you originally sold the device(s), you offered an upgrade that would have removed all of the data on the copier(s) but in order to keep the cost down, they passed. There are essentially two ways that the customer’s data can be secured. It can be “scrubbed” using software. But if you scrub the device’s hard drive, you better be sure that the data is really gone and chances are there is nobody in your dealership that has the background and certifications to confirm with 100% accuracy that the data is completely wiped from the drive. Understand that there are many levels of removing data from a hard drive. Basic scrubs will delete everything but even though it appears as though the data are gone, security experts and hackers are often still able to recover the information. For example, I accidentally deleted all of the pictures on my 1 GB flash drive. When I plugged the drive into my computer, they were gone and the drive was empty. After a few minutes of freaking out, I found a recovery program on the Internet and within the hour I had all of my photos recovered. They were listed on the drive exactly as they were before my stupid mistake. I’m no expert by any means so if I could recover deleted files in a matter of minutes, imagine how fast an expert could do it using more sophisticated software. You are in the business of selling office equipment. You may not want to take full respon-sibility for the security of your customers’ documents. Even if you sell the security option with the copier, if the customer doesn’t use it or doesn’t use it properly, it may not completely destroy all of the data and you are still at risk. There may even be legal ramifications for you and your dealership if sensitive data is exposed. Privacy laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (hipaa) has cost people their jobs and millions of dollars in litigation, penalties and settlements so you had better make sure your customer’s data is secured and destroyed before that copier leaves their office at the end of the lease. Approaching your current customers is critical. You need to get to them before your com-petitors inform them of the “ticking time bomb” (according to CBS) they have in their office. If you don’t, your competitor will have their ear and you will simply become the person who put them at risk. Beyond securing your own customers, this is an incredible opportunity for you to approach potential customers. While you can’t necessarily provide prospects with a solution developed specifically for their brand and model, there are other ways that you can help them. Digital Office Products, a Toshiba dealer serving the Washington DC market, has developed a creative program where they will swap out the copier’s hard drive and replace it with a new one. Brilliant! This method places the responsibility of safeguarding the data found on the copier squarely on the customer, where it should be. They pull out the hard drive and give it to the customer to destroy or safeguard. They then replace it with a new one. These hard drives can cost almost nothing. Is there any dealer that won’t spend less than $35 on a potential customer if it means they’ll sign with them for the upgrade? It’s so hard to get in front of a customer or prospect. Now you have an excellent reason and a great talk track. CBS has opened the door for you and every customer should be made aware of the liability that may exist on their MFP from copying, scanning, faxing and printing. Leverage this video and use it to your advantage. Strike while the iron is hot and whatever you do, after showing your customer the CBS video, try not to say, “I told you so.” Andy Slawetsky is President of Industry Analysts, Inc., a marketing and management consulting firm for the office automation industry. Much of the company’s research and testing results can be viewed on their website www.industryanalysts.com.