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Former Sharp Imaging President Ed McLaughlin Joins Board of Advisors at ContinuumBOSTON --(Business Wire)-- Continuum®, the industry's only channel-exclusive provider of fully integrated managed IT services solutions, has welcomed Ed McLaughlin, President and CEO at Valderus, bringing together dealerships with an innovative approach for shared profitability while retaining local management and brand identity, to its Board of Advisors. Ed was President of Sharp Imaging & Information Company of America for more than nine years and Executive Advisor at Sharp Electronics for nearly two years. With traditional hardware and copy sales dwindling, office equipment (OE) dealers are well suited to capture revenue from the managed services market, expected to surpass $320 billion by 2020. Ed is advising Continuum as the company continues to focus its strategic resources in helping OE dealers make the transition to managed IT services. 
Edward McLaughlin, Advisor, Continuum Managed IT Services (Photo: Business Wire) "Ed is universally liked and respected in the office equipment industry and we are delighted to have him consult with us on various industry issues, opportunities and strategic direction," said Michael George, CEO at Continuum. "His knowledge and experience in this industry are unmatched and have already proven invaluable as we continue to focus on making our office equipment dealers the most successful and profitable in managed IT services." Ed McLaughlin has 40 years of experience in the information and imaging industries. Prior to Sharp, Ed served as Vice President, Direct Operations for Savin/Ricoh for nearly seven years. He wa President of Duplifax, a Canon (News - Alert) USA Company and Director, National Accounts Division for Canon USA. He also served NeXT Object Channel Partner and Sperry Rand Corp. He began his career in the office equipment industry in 1971 as a sales representative for 3M (News - Alert) Company. He has received many honors during his career including Marketing Research Associates' Lifetime Achievement and a BTA Lifetime Achievement, both in 2012. "The office equipment industry is at a crucial inflection point," said Ed McLaughlin. "Continuum has the right tools, technology and training that office equipment dealers need to greatly profit from managed IT services and effectively support customers' technology needs. Their transformational business model brings the required technical labor element to the equation - a necessary ingredient that OE dealers have struggled with until now with Continuum. I look forward to advising Continuum in order to help OE dealers best transition to a complete and comprehensive managed IT services model and solidify their future in this increasingly important market opportunity." Being presented this week at the CDA CEO Meeting, Thursday, October 16 - Friday, October 17, 2014 in Sea Island, Georgia, a first of its kind, revolutionary business model, "Managed IT Services Business Model Report," co-authored by Continuum and Growth Achievement Partners (GAP), allows office equipment dealers to achieve over 60% pre-labor gross margins with managed IT services. To download the report, visit: http://page.continuum.net/white-paper-managed-it-services-business-model-for-office-equipment-dealers. The Copier Dealers Association (CDA) comprises independent imaging dealers across the United States and Canada. For more information, visit: http://cdainfo.org/. For more information on accelerating the transition into managed IT services with Continuum, visit: http://www.continuum.net/office-equipment. About Continuum Managed IT Services Continuum is the technology industry's only channel-exclusive provider of fully integrated managed IT services, allowing its Managed Services Provider (MSP) partners to maintain both on premise and cloud-based servers, desktops, mobile devices and other endpoints for small-and-medium-sized businesses. Continuum's SaaS (News - Alert) platform enables MSPs to efficiently backup, monitor, troubleshoot and maintain clients' IT infrastructure from a single pane of glass, all backed by an industry-leading network operations center (NOC (News - Alert)) and Service Desk. MSPs leverage Continuum's pay-as-you-grow business model to scale IT services without committing to long-term contracts and to reserve in-house staff for strategic initiatives. The company employs 800 professionals worldwide, supports over 3,500 partners and monitors over half a million endpoints. For more information, visit http://www.continuum.net/ or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter (News - Alert) @FollowContinuum. All trademarks recognized.
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