Adam Bishop, CMO
10 min read
Swiftly evolving technology inks the future of print. Our current printing technology has already transformed significantly because of advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and robotics. By 2025, experts predict that the workplace will connect beyond anything we've seen before.
More companies will use cloud printing in the future. They will do this to save on IT management, improve security, and cut print expenses. Workplaces will implement digital workflows for data preservation and digitalization. The demand for portable as-a-service models and secure, data-driven ways of working will significantly increase.
This article will discuss the future changes in the print industry for 2025 and beyond. It will also provide insights on how your organization can adapt to these changes. Quocirca's study investigating the future of print and industry predictions for 2025 form the basis of our data.
What Does the Future of the Printing Industry Hold?
The future of print hinges on the industry’s core legacy: Transforming workplace productivity. Print, as a whole, has a history of continual innovation. From Gutenberg to Xerox copiers to inkjet and 3D printing, print has moved in the direction of productivity and innovation.
The print industry is constantly in a state of flux. Today, we see disruption as new agents of change toward better workplace productivity. As remote and hybrid work become more common, there's a need for better connectivity. This led to the development of new print technology and a different mindset among providers.
Quocirca reports more people are using mobile printing, digitalizing document workflows, and wanting 'as-a-service' models.
Major industry players are exploring new avenues (like mergers and acquisitions) to keep up with disruptive technologies in print. Developments of this kind bode well for the larger industry and our customers.
End users will benefit from better print quality and functionality, reduced costs, and lower energy consumption in newer tech. It’s an interesting time as manufacturers strive to develop new products and services for the increasingly connected digital workplace.
According to Quocirca, end-users will still view print as an essential component of their business in 2025 and beyond. In simple terms, print is unlikely to become obsolete, even as the modern workplace continues to evolve. That said, customers (IT departments and professionals) are transforming into business enablers and can't work on overhead tasks anymore. They need to focus on building the backbone of their digital future.
Want more insight into how the IT department is transforming?
The challenge for print service providers and businesses is to lay the groundwork for the digital workplace. They need to use printing technology advancements to simplify and automate print tasks, allowing IT teams to prioritize important work.
Digitalization DRIVES the Future of Print
One aspect of the print industry’s future is the massive shift to digital. With the generational shift from boomers to millennials to Gen-Z, a generation of tech-savvy workers will have high expectations for all technology in the workplace. According to Quocirca, the key elements of surviving in a rapidly evolving technological landscape entail the following:
- A start-up mentality in both core and new areas of business
- A focus on compelling, future-proof solutions
- Increased interest in machine intelligence and analytics
- Extensive collaboration among industry leaders and key players
58% of Quocirca’s respondents said vendors must become strategic partners to IT decision-makers. As IT departments become vital on the strategic business level, CIOs need print vendors to work closely with them. They need their vendors to bring innovations forward that automate IT overhead, maximize productivity, and simplify print-related admin tasks.
With that, it’s understandable that 60% of print manufacturers remain optimistic about future revenue growth. But while the future of print remains promising, there is a wider awareness of the critical changes required. This includes openness to ideas and challenging the status quo. It also involves relationships between suppliers, vendors, and customers.
Digital transformation is a key factor in our predictions for 2025. According to Statista, the investment in digital transformation technologies and services worldwide keeps growing at a rapid pace. Experts anticipate that global spending on digital transformation technologies and services will reach $2.92 trillion in 2025.
At the same time, many print industry executives remain unsure of how well-prepared they are for the future. Quocirca data shows that only 31% are certain they are well-prepared for digital disruption down the road. For that to change, these executives need to focus their attention on:
- Embracing Digitization: For businesses to survive, there must be an acceptance of the larger role of digitization in the future workplace.
- Focusing on Service-Centric Methods: Businesses in the print industry need to drive relevance among a new era of customers. To achieve this, we can connect with them in new ways and prioritize business models that make their lives easier.
- Innovation as a Driver for Success: Innovation is crucial for success on the journey to 2025. Encouraging an innovative culture in manufacturing and print businesses is therefore essential.
- Vendor-Managed Print Solutions: Increased digitization has also increased demand for software and service-led business models. Managed print service (MPS) providers are, therefore, slated to deliver the most strategic value.
- Future-Proof Solutions with Ongoing Value: IT professionals rely on solution providers for future-proof product enhancements. Providers must excel in a service-led business mentality and deliver ongoing value in low-touch environments, covering features, functionality, and security.
7 Predictions for Future Printing
Data and analytical insights reveal that the following key areas of digital transformation will characterize the future of the printing industry.
#1. Private, Hybrid, or Public Cloud
More organizations are increasingly taking advantage of cloud-based printing. 73% are expecting to ramp up their cloud print usage by 2025.
According to industry experts:
- Paul Birkett, Head of Print & Workflow Management at HP: "We're starting to see those markets that were cloud resistant become very cloud positive now."
- Alastair MacKay, Head of Sales, Office Print, Ricoh: "The shift to cloud is massively accelerated. The future comes down to moving print to a low-touch service model."
- John Harding, General Manager of Solution Delivery, Konica Minolta: “No print management means that customers don't need to have that complexity anymore. They can have print delivered to them as an outcome, as a service, from their own provider.”
The shift to cloud print infrastructures from legacy infrastructures will be a key marker of the industry’s transformation. According to Gartner, 51% of IT spending within software and infrastructure will have shifted from traditional solutions to the public cloud.
McKinsey estimates that large enterprises aspire to have roughly 60% of their environment in the cloud by 2025. The three primary forms of cloud infrastructure include public, private, and hybrid. There is no one-size-fits-all solution in this regard, as organizations will need to find the type of infrastructure that will suit their operations the best.
Find out more about each cloud type here:
Y Soft’s Relationship With Cloud Technology
At Y Soft, we’re a cloud-first print solutions provider. We have various cloud solutions suited for all types of organizations. Those reliant on hardware can leverage the convenience of cloud printing with OMNI Bridge. This is a hybrid cloud solution that connects legacy devices to the cloud.
The OMNI Bridge Edge device functions as a cloud gateway. It’s the answer if you’re looking for easy hybrid deployment that can instantly connect networked printers to the cloud.
SAFEQ Managed is Y Soft’s private cloud solution, an option with fewer hardware dependencies and no maintenance woes. Managed print services provide organizations with complete visibility and control over their print setup. This applies to all offices, regardless of their locations.
SAFEQ Cloud harnesses the power of private, hybrid, and public cloud infrastructures. With SAFEQ Cloud, organizations can streamline their entire print infrastructure by eliminating print servers and fully adopting pure cloud technologies.
One of the main benefits of SAFEQ Cloud is that it’s a scalable Software-as-a-Service solution. There’s no need to purchase and maintain costly hardware—everything’s in the cloud.
SAFEQ Cloud simplifies print management by transferring all tasks to vendors, reducing the workload for IT departments. It also improves the print experience for both techies and their colleagues.
#2. Mobile Printing
As most global workers are now on the go, the demand for portable printing technologies and tools is increasing. Mobile printing entails driverless printing, more integration options, and modern authentication methods.
As distributed workforces become more popular, IT teams need inventions that make office moves easy, provide seamless print access for guests, and meet BYOD demands.
More organizations will adopt mobile printing moving forward. Quocirca found that organizations expect at least 66% of their workforce to be mobile by 2025. This further highlights the need to establish and develop the foundations of mobile printing in current print infrastructures.
#3. Print Security
Quocirca reports that security is also becoming a critical differentiator in the business environment. An estimated 84% of organizations will make security a top priority by 2025.
There’s no doubt that suppliers with security expertise will have the upper hand. More than half of organizations and investors today prefer doing business with suppliers with industry-grade security measures.
This emphasis on security is largely because of an increasing number of data breaches resulting from unsecured printing. Needless to say, breaches can have dire consequences both for a company’s reputation and its finances. Under GDPR alone, a penalty of up to 4% of a business’s global turnover could result from a data breach.
Print security will remain important for customers in the future. It will also continue to be a key part of distinguishing solutions.
What Print Security Looks Like in SAFEQ
Print and scan security has long been a central element in our overall strategies and culture. Among the existing zero-trust security mechanisms you’ll find in our SAFEQ Platform are:
- Secure pull printing
- Usage reports and tracking
- Broad range of authentication (on-prem and cloud)
- End-to-end data encryption
- Comprehensive security compliance
- Incident management
SAFEQ has built-in security measures included during development to ensure safety and protection. These include extensive security training and threat modeling. This is even more true in our cloud solutions where advanced security features and measurements have been implemented.
#4. Paper-to-Digital Workflows
Reports show that a "less paper" office is more realistic than going completely paperless, despite the common belief. A vast majority of businesses (78%) still consider printing as crucial in daily business operations.
The introduction of paper-to-digital workflows is gaining traction. It serves as a middle ground between paper trail reliance and going completely digital and paperless. Automation in the paper-to-digital workflow streamlines business processes, ensuring organization and timeliness.
For instance, you can arrange paper files to automatically scan, rename, and store them. This can be useful in tailoring a workflow like processing paper invoices or encoding customer orders and data. This will further speed up workflows by eliminating manual tasks and risks caused by human error.
Within our SAFEQ solutions, we enable intelligent document capture and scanning to make paper-to-digital workflows much more efficient. Explore our Scanning capabilities in detail here:
#5. As-A-Service Model
Meeting the need for improved efficiency, lower costs, and sustainability is a challenging task that calls for innovative solutions. The “as-a-service” model has been gaining traction over the last few years.
The as-a-service model allows organizations to avoid purchasing and maintaining expensive hardware. This frees up IT teams to concentrate on more crucial tasks. Companies can now outsource many services, from print to cloud computing, unlocking massive cost efficiencies in the process.
Y Soft’s “No Print Management” Initiative
As cloud technology and digitalization continue to move forward, the IT department is making way for a new era of printing. With No Print Management, to be precise.
Under this model, organizations can centralize printer fleets through a unified cloud environment, freeing IT teams from print management. IT teams are becoming important decision-makers for their company's future. As such, they no longer want to allocate time for print as it's not strategic work anymore.
With SaaS, we’re able to address key customer pain points and provide IT departments with solutions with:
- Automated administration
- Immediate fulfilment
- High availability (when and where you need it)
- Ongoing, proactively distributed value
- Advanced security built-in
- On-demand scalability
Take charge of your future aspirations and make them a reality with Y Soft.
#6. Artificial Intelligence
Over the past few years, businesses and individuals have widely adopted artificial intelligence (AI) and expect its usage to increase further. Its role in the print and imaging industry is manifold, from Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to more advanced recognition and zoning models.
Companies use AI for predictive maintenance and automating paper-to-digital processes, in addition to OCR. As an industry, we are learning how we can leverage AI to drive further connectivity and technological disruption across existing technologies.
That said, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning undoubtedly have a place in the print industry already. For instance, AI is already available for device testing and configurations.
Other ways AI facilitates printing:
- Self-monitoring systems
- Smart algorithms
- User experience
- Service innovation
- Intelligent processing
#7. Predictive Analytics
Predictive analytics encompasses the use of machine learning and algorithms to predict possible outcomes based on historical data. Simply put, it's using machine learning to analyze past data and predict future events.
The print industry uses predictive analytics to discover advantages in multifunctional devices that generate large amounts of data. Among the main benefits of predictive analytics are:
- Better security
- Streamlined operations
- Reduced cost
- Optimized maintenance and service
- Reduced risks and vulnerabilities
How SAFEQ Harnesses Predictive Analysis
At Y Soft, we use predictive analytics to monitor commercial printing devices. We also analyze user behavior for comprehensive reports on document activities. These activities include global print, scan, copy, and fax. This allows organizations to gain valuable insights about long term cost analysis, trends, and more.
The reports are also seamlessly integrated with applications like Tableau and CompleteView, allowing teams to make intelligent optimization decisions based on real-time data.
Future Advancements in Printing Technology
Since our inception in 2000, we’ve been on a mission to embrace innovation in the intersections between technology and print operations. We operate multiple R&D centers, which serve as innovation incubators to bring increasing value to businesses and individuals globally.
Our YSoft Labs continues to discover new office solutions as technologies evolve, with a focus on IoT, process management, and progressive technology. With a start-up mentality and long-standing tech expertise, we continue to drive innovation in the world of print.
For many years, our focus was on print management. And while we still power print management with our SAFEQ platform, we're looking at it differently now.
To address the future of print and the predictions for 2025, we’re building and fuelling the No Print Management bandwagon. Our focus is on the innovation our partners and customers need to thrive in the future, with special attention to:
- Moving from high-touch to low-touch and no-touch print platforms
- Making print as easily consumable as wi-fi or power out of a socket
- Adopting the SaaS experience of ongoing value, simplicity, and availability
We catalyzed 'No Print Management' when we acquired EveryonePrint in July 2022. We further developed it on the basis of customer feedback and refined it with a focus on aligning with partner positioning. Lastly, it continues to evolve alongside the current transformations happening in IT departments everywhere.
FAQs on the Future of Print
Q1) Will Print Survive in the Future?
Yes, print continues to be part of the modern workplace’s critical business aspects, especially since AI and machine learning have expanded efficiencies to include functions to speed up scanning, printing, and more.
Q2) Are we Facing a Paperless World?
Instead of a paperless world, we're expecting a future with less paper. Per HP Inc.’s Gary Tierney, “While we are seeing an incremental shift towards a paperless world, there will always be a need for printing".
Final Points
Innovations in digital printing technology are moving at breakneck speed, especially since AI has commanded the world’s attention. The print industry will improve with new features and functionalities that meet the needs of today's workers.
More people are using cloud infrastructure. They want to print from mobile devices securely. They also need AI and analytics to make work easier. Print isn’t dead—it’s evolving, especially as workplaces continue to rely on paper and print.
Cloud technology is notable for its ability to store lots of data and improve print processes worldwide. Cloud-powered print systems enable IT teams to concentrate on core business activities and enhance their digital skills. They achieve this by minimizing the amount of print-related tasks they need to handle.
Does this sound like the future you're envisioning for your IT team?
