The business world is changing amid increasing digitalisation, globalisation, and a greater awareness of environmental issues. Business demands are changing and the Managed Print Services industry is responding.

Businesses are finding greater demands placed upon them, and in return they are demanding more from Managed Document Services. Increasing regulations mean that companies are having to be more mindful of their data, printed or digital. Competitive pressures mean that businesses need to be able to meet these requirements whilst maintaining their agility and competitive edge. Thankfully, technology is delivering plenty of new opportunities for businesses to meet both. Here are just a few of the changes we’re expecting to see during 2019.

Greater spend and greater awareness on IoT security. 

A global growth in cybercrime, combined with increasing regulation, means that companies will need to commit more time, effort and finances to securing their systems. From secure document management and storage to ensuring flawless firewall protection, companies need to find new ways to manage their documents using categorisation and classification to keep up with compliance and security requirements, without interfering with their day-to day responsibilities.

Smart workplace technology services will start leveraging artificial intelligence.

In 2018, the printer industry started to see some basic voice control capabilities for smart printers and multi-function printers. During 2019, we can expect to see these capabilities developed further, but collaboration with companies such as Google, Amazon or IBM, will be key to making this technology widely available.

Regulatory changes will demand more from document management.

The GDPR, The California Data Privacy Protection Act and other legislation will mean that companies will need to step up their compliance, and it will be professional services that deal with a high volume of PII (Personally Identifiable Information) that lead the way. Many professional services companies will be looking for ways to ensure the safety of their data and reduce printing costs whilst streamlining processes. In amongst these demands, they will also find themselves needing greater collaboration capabilities and improved version control.

Environmental pressure to continue to drive a paperless approach to business.

Businesses will continue to be under pressure to reduce their impact on the environment, continuing to go paperless wherever possible. This means we can expect an increased demand for Managed Document Services that not only safeguard and protect the data within documents, but also provide a meaningful way to retrieve documents in the ever-growing sea of digital files, and a cost-efficient way to store them.

To learn more about how Managed Document Services can help you reduce your carbon footprint, improve your regulatory compliance, and manage the complexity of the changing landscape of businesses today, chat with us online or give us a call on 0345 207 7000.