Quocirca Cloud Print Services Landscape 2021 Report Excerpt
Executive Summary
The ability of cloud-based services to deliver flexibility, on-demand scalability and reliability while controlling direct costs and administrative overheads has come into its own during the COVID-19 pandemic. IT teams have scrambled to support the shift to remote-working as businesses have battled to maintain employee productivity; cloud-based software and services have often played a central role in the tactical response to the crisis.
Now, as the long-term effects of the pandemic become evident, businesses are taking a more strategic view of the future workplace and the technology and services that will be required to support a hybrid workforce working across the office and from home.
MPS providers must position themselves to support the accelerating digitisation journey and demonstrate how moving print infrastructure to the cloud delivers the visibility, security, functionality and cost control needed by highly distributed organisations.
This report highlights key market trends for cloud print services, covering offerings from both manufacturers and independent software vendors (ISVs). It draws on primary research conducted in January 2021 amongst 219 organisations using managed print services (MPS) across the US, the UK, France and Germany.
Quocirca Cloud Print Services Landscape 2021: Report Excerpt
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Key findings
- The traditional on-premises print infrastructure is complex and characterised by cost inefficiencies.
- Cloud adoption continues to accelerate.
- Hybrid cloud provides the foundation for edge computing.
- Zero trust security is an imperative in enabling the remote workforce.
- As cloud momentum grows, industry players are expanding their cloud print service and solutions
offerings. - Provision of cloud print services is a primary supplier selection factor and incumbent suppliers should
not be complacent.
Cloud printing market trends
The pandemic has spurred cloud adoption. Even before the pandemic, the transition to cloud was underway. The pandemic accelerated the pace of digital transformation, redefining the way we work and collaborate and compressing the timeframe that organisations are migrating to the cloud.
The mass exodus from the office left IT teams scrambling to keep their organisations up and running while dealing with new issues around information security and device suitability for those working from home (WFH).
Speed, agility and resiliency have never been more important, and the cloud has become the bedrock for every organisation.
According to Quocirca’s latest research, 82% of organisations expect more than half of their IT infrastructure to be cloud based by the end of 2021. 43% of organisations expect all their IT infrastructure to be cloud based by the end of 2021, rising to 52% in the US.
The pandemic pressed the reset button on traditional approaches that rely on legacy and on-premise infrastructure.
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The cloud has delivered on its promises of flexibility and on-demand scalability, enabling businesses to emerge stronger and more adaptable, and to plug gaps in their resilience measures.
Those organisations that adapted best had already taken steps to modernise their IT environment and were able to rapidly scale resources to support a remote workforce.
As organisations ramp up their digitisation journeys and remote working becomes a permanent feature for many, cloud initiatives are set to accelerate in 2021.
Recent Quocirca research amongst US and European businesses with over 250 employees revealed that on average 47% of employees are expected to work fully or predominantly from home when offices reopen.
Cloud spend will continue to increase, with 45% of the organisations reporting it as a top investment priority over the coming year, rising to 50% in organisations with more than 1,000 employees.
Quocirca’s MPS 2021 study revealed that over three quarters (77%) of organisations are already using some
form of cloud service to manage at least some of their print jobs (Figure 3), with 21% using cloud services to
manage over 50% of the workload.
Overall, 39% report that they have implemented a cloud print management platform, with a further 37% planning to do so in the next 12 months. The percentage that has already deployed cloud print management rises to 52% amongst US organisations, while German organisations are least likely to have implemented a cloud printing platform. Larger organisations are most likely to have implemented cloud print management (48%) compared to 31% of smaller organisations. The financial sector is ahead in adoption, with 51% compared to 29% in the retail sector.
