[Lexmark News Blog] Lexmark’s Center for Children launches and is gathering STEAM

Yesterday, Lexmark opened its new Center for Children, a brand new state-of-the-art facility located at our headquarters here in Lexington, Ky. The 25,500 square foot facility, which has a capacity to hold 186 children ages, six weeks to pre-kindergarten, will be run by Bright Horizons Family Solutions, a leading provider of employer-sponsored child care. 

One of the key teaching initiatives of the center is to provide a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) based education into the curriculum. This will not be your average daycare.

To gain insight into why Lexmark chose a STEAM curriculum for the center’s students and their futures, we talked to Jeri Isbell, vice president of human resources for Lexmark.

Lexmark: Why did Lexmark choose to incorporate STEAM initiatives into the Center for Children’s curriculum?

Isbell: Lexmark is a technology company. Many of our employees have backgrounds in STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. For our curriculum in the Center for Children, we have chosen STEAM, which adds the ‘Art’ component to the original STEM program. All of the subjects are fundamental to children excelling in school. We want to expose them as early as possible to these subjects.

Lexmark: What are the advantages of children having an early introduction to STEAM education?

Isbell: Connecting the STEAM subjects provides a more meaningful curriculum for children. Studies show that children immersed and exposed to a STEAM curriculum at a very early age perform better in science and math than those who are not. We want our children to have the advantage of early exposure to begin to build their interest in these areas.

Lexmark: What is the correlation between STEAM and innovation?

Isbell: Problem-solving and critical thinking, which are the tenets of STEAM curriculum, are the keys to innovation. The Center for Children’s curriculum will be hands-on, inquiry-based, with a lot of projects and activity-based learning. We believe it will be a more engaging, and fun, learning environment.

Lexmark: What has been the response from employees?

Isbell: We’ve had great response from employees.  They are thrilled with the care that was put into the design and build of the center.  The Center for Children is truly state-of-the-art and top-notch.

Lexmark: With both a new childcare center and a wellness center, how will these types of employee services help Lexmark in recruiting?

Isbell: Lexmark is committed to helping our employees balance the pressures of raising their families in our 24/7 global environment. The Center for Children will help our employees with work/life balance, which is key to employee retention and recruitment.  We see the center as another added benefit of working at Lexmark.

For more information on employment at Lexmark, go to our“Careers at Lexmark” page.

[Lexmark News Blog] The results are in: Lexmark conducts “Voice of the Customer” survey

Our counterpart in EMEA recently conducted a voice of the customer survey.

This survey was conducted with customers and Lexmark partners in over 21 countries.

Questions such as, “How important is Performance/Productivity in your business and printing” and “How important is Device Management in your business and printing environment?” were asked and the results are in! 

* 90 percent of those asked would recommend Lexmark products, 77% of which would highly recommend

* Device Management is the most important feature for our customers and partners

* 86 percent of Lexmark customers are most satisfied with the ease of device configuration

Click here to check out the cool infographic detailing the survey’s results and click here to see the results of the full survey.

[Lexmark News] What’s the choice? Getting your information fast, or getting it right? Learn how to have both!

Thanks to the instantaneous answers served up by Google, Yahoo and other search engines, we now have similar expectations for the speed and flexibility of information that drives our businesses. However, access to data in organizations is rarely as quick and fluid as an Internet search. Even so, we hustle to speed up information delivery, especially when it comes to business decisions, collaboration and customer service. 

But the real goal shouldn’t only be faster information, but faster decision making – there’s a difference. The key is to get the RIGHTinformation faster.

You can help your managers and employees improve decision-making processes. The greatest potential for improvement comes from understanding your organization’s true information needs and in bringing more order to workplaces where the norm has been disconnected processes, unstructured information and ultimately, frustrated employees.

Learn About Getting Information Right

In a Lexmark-sponsored webinar on Sept. 24, best-selling author, educator and consultant Tom Davenport will help you focus on identifying the right information. You’ll also learn how to organize the best processes to capture and deliver the data you need. Better processes won’t guarantee better decisions, but can make that outcome more likely.

Join this free webinar to learn more about:

• Identifying the kinds of decisions your organization makes
• The types of work our decisions support
• What information needs to be fast – and what doesn’t
• How to avoid the pain of gathering information

Register today to join this master class, without leaving your office.

More About Tom Davenport

It’s not every day you have the chance to spend an hour with one of the world’s top 25 consultants and one of the 100 most influential people in the IT industry. Tom Davenport has authored hundreds of articles, columns and blogs for such publications as Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, CIO, and The Financial Times. http://www.tomdavenport.com/

[Lexmark News Blog] Conversations around the cloud in financial services

Analysts are predicting a greater adoption of cloud services over the next five to seven years. Mike Gabbert, manager of Lexmark’s financial services vertical, discusses what kinds of conversations are taking place in the cloud today, what trends are forthcoming and how important the cloud is to businesses.

For more information about Lexmark financial services, click here.

[Lexmark News Blog] What we can all learn from the Snowden disaster

Dennis Cunningham, vice president public sector for Perceptive Software, a Lexmark company, writes a timely post focusing on data security and the implications of the Edward Snowden data breach incident. 

A commitment to finding, securing and tracking sensitive data might just save your organization from a catastrophic data breach.

In 1775, Benjamin Franklin said, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither.”

Whoa. Those are some heavy words written by a man more than 200 years ago. In the wake of 9/11, I heard this quote used in the context of airport security lines, the Patriot Act, defending our borders and many other modern-day scenarios.

But, I can’t say I’ve heard this quote in reference to the handling of the data we use every day to run our businesses. In light of the Edward Snowden case, however, I can’t help consider a parallel.

Click here to read the entire article.

[Lexmark News Blog]Solving the document headache: Using technology to process receipts

Bronwyn Jesse, payroll manager and accounts payable supervisor for theCity of Lethbridgein Canada, recently wrote this customer case study on how organizations can keep track on company purchases and ensure accurate reports with Perceptive Capture Solutions. 

Credit card use in Canada is on the rise, with nearly 74 million Visa and MasterCard cards in circulation as of October 2012. These cards aren’t limited to personal use — employees frequently have access to corporate credit cards, as well. But increased usage brings with it a greater volume of receipts and record keeping processes for finance departments. So the question becomes, how can organizations keep track of all company purchases and ensure accurate records?

This is a challenge with which the City of Lethbridge is extremely familiar. Our department typically processes between 800 to 1,000 receipts every month. Given the nature of government many of these receipts originate with individuals out in the field or in our various locations within the city, adding an additional layer of complexity should we have questions about the details behind a particular purchase.

Our expense system requires that employees are responsible for keeping track of their monthly receipts and getting them approved by their supervisor. In order to do this, they need to print off the individual activity statement from the credit card’s website and enter in a General Ledger (GL) code and description of the purchase. From there, they must reprint the activity statement, and send to their supervisor for approval along with copies of all the relevant receipts. Following supervisor approval, the statement is forwarded to an office manager to confirm that the expenses are in line with the City’s policies. Once confirmed, the completed package is then forwarded to the accounts payable department to pull details from the credit card website and input them into our financial system.

Once this has been done, all of the receipts are scanned intoPerceptive Capture, an intelligent data capture solution from Perceptive Software, a Lexmark company, which seamlessly captures receipts and links them with matching expense reports. The solution allows us to attach a GL code to all scanned receipts, so that we can easily look up the number to determine the nature of the transaction. A bit like a virtual filing cabinet, this ensures that vendor, employee and corporate receipts are all stored so that they can be easily accessible by our users, especially when they are in the field. Implementing Perceptive Capture means this access is available wherever and whenever we need it — a particularly important benefit given the city government’s various departments and locations.

We’ve been excited by the feedback we’ve received stemming from the implementation of Perceptive Capture and looking ahead, we have plans to further digitize our document management system even further.

Want to find out how Perceptive Capture can help your business. Click here to find out more information.

[Lexmark News Blog] Perceptive Software named Kansas City’s Coolest Company

Perceptive Software, a Lexmark company, was recently named the “Coolest Company” to work for in KC Magazine’s, Kansas City’s Top Company’s List. 

“Perceptive Software is known for being a great place to work”, said Kyle Crager, Director of Human Resources, Perceptive Software.

“The judges voted us Kansas City’s Coolest Company based on both our cool culture and our continued growth and success. We believe engaged employees lead to happy customers and this award recognizes us for excellence in both. Ultimately it’s the combination of a great culture and sustained growth and success that will help us continue to be a place where the best and brightest want to be.”

Click here to read the full article and click here to find out what career opportunities are currently available at Perceptive.

[Lexmark News Blog] Business Leader Interview – Scott Coons – CEO of Perceptive Software

Document Boss recently spoke with Scott Coons, CEO of Perceptive Software, to gain insight into his views on the company’s current positioning as part of Lexmark and his insight into what the future may hold. He also discusses what Brainware has added to the equation, what he perceives have been the managerial challenges and what Perceptive’s key focus will be, moving forward. Click here to read the entire article.