By Rod Tonna-Barthet, President & Chief Executive Officer at KYOCERA Document Solutions (UK)
The global print industry’s market size is projected to reach £392 billion by 2027 and has been evolving at an unprecedented pace since the pandemic. As a result, organisations must be aware of and prepare for what lies ahead. To do this, the print industry must develop new technology to meet these challenges and continue to provide more value for their customers. Given the breadth of the challenges being faced, print businesses need to ensure they are as resilient and agile as possible to turn these challenges into opportunities and in doing so continue to add value and remain relevant to their customers.
Below are three major trends that businesses should be aware of this year;
1. Environmental considerations will be front of mind for many businesses.
Organisations that have not yet committed to carbon neutrality may seek initiatives like Kyocera’s recently launched Carbon Neutral Printing and Managed Print Services to demonstrate their emphasis on this. At present, with the high cost of energy, businesses are already choosing products that include energy-saving features such as Advanced Power Management. The most environmentally-minded companies are also engaging in initiatives such as reforesting schemes to offset paper usage.
2. Security will also be a major trend for next year, both in hardware and software.
There remains a need to balance remote and hybrid working with flexibility but without compromising security. As a consequence, expect to see new IT software designed to make platforms more secure and offer better protection for sensitive company data. To ensure print devices are free of any security flaws, large organisations will seek the help of independent companies like BLI and Keypoint Intelligence for validation of their security credentials.
Furthermore, we expect that many businesses will more regularly examine their data protection procedures to ensure compliance with new requirements. The need to guard against cyberattacks and the subsequent increase threat that these represent is top of mind for many businesses, both large and small. We expect to see more customers seeking managed security solutions, such as Managed Endpoint Detection and Response (M-EDR), from their service providers. These will include providers who look after their print infrastructure.
3. As the adoption of cloud technologies continues to grow, more businesses will rely on automated workflows and document management systems.
Security is a significant factor in the adoption of these systems, but they also provide improved efficiency. For example, Kyocera’s Cloud Print Scan (KCPS) and Cloud Information Manager (KCIM) solutions are designed to help companies easily merge print and digital workflows by enabling the convergence of those processes.
Meeting the biggest challenges
The print industry is continuing to evolve at an unprecedented pace, so businesses must make a consistent effort to be proactive in the support of their customers and to remain relevant to them. Those that do will thrive.
As documents become increasingly digitised, print organisations will not be able to rely on the same industries or companies for business as they did before. Meeting this challenge is about being creative and thinking outside the box. It’s worth considering how to diversify your product and service portfolio so that you are not overly dependent on one product or service. For example, if you sell products or services in the IT industry, it makes sense to provide related and complementary services such as sustainability consulting or managed security solutions. It requires meticulous thought and plenty of forward planning, but the organisations taking these steps are the ones that will experience great success.
