The second edition of Quocirca‘s Print 2025 global market insight study found that expectations for print-digital convergence on the part of office workers differed from what IT executives wanted to implement.
65% of IT decision-makers said that paper will still play an important part in the workplace in 2025, compared to just 36% of office workers.
Meanwhile, in regards to digital collaboration tools, 62% of office staff declared them a priority, while only 45% of decision-makers shared this notion, and 58% of respondents said print vendors need to establish partnerships with decision-makers and lines-of-business.
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49% expressed expectation in response to the suggested importance of paper-based processes within digital transformation by 2025, compared to 25% today.
Louella Fernandes, director at Quocirca, said: “The print industry is at a critical point where it must build momentum around ‘as-a-service’ IT-centric offerings. However, identifying what customers need will prove difficult given the significant disconnection in priorities between those who use print technologies and those who specify and purchase them.
“This creates a satisfaction gap where office workers don’t get the productivity tools they want, and IT decision makers see their investments failing to have the positive impact they anticipate.
“Print vendors need to become strategic partners working with IT decision makers to identify what business units really need, offering services that satisfy those requirements, while also responding to the security and control requirements of IT decision-makers.
“Failure to do this will see print vendors continue losing influence with both IT decision-makers and lines-of-business at the crucial point where digital transformation focus is turning towards digitising paper-based processes.”
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Also explored were the views of decision-makers towards sustainability as part of the corporate agenda; Compared to the report’s first edition, which saw the reduction of environmental impact ranked 7th in a list of print challenges, 52% of respondents for the 2019 iteration ranked sustainability top of their priorities.
Views on mobility increased in favourability from the last study also, as organisations said that 66% of their workforce would be mobile by 2025, compared to 56% in 2017.
As for cloud-based print management, 73% said they expected this to increase by 2025, while a quarter of participants said that print vendors should invest in cloud printing.
The report, which built on a prior study from 2017, oversaw interviews with 1625 decision makers and end users from around Europe and the US.
