Quocirca’s Cloud Print Services 2022 report reveals growing momentum in the cloud print services market as organisations continue to migrate to the cloud to support ongoing digital transformation.
Cloud momentum grows
The cloud has underpinned the digital transformation journey for many organisations as they adapted to decentralised work models over the past two years. As we move into the era of hybrid work, organisations are increasingly focused on building a resilient, future-proof IT infrastructure. The high availability, flexibility, and scalability of the cloud is helping businesses become more agile, while also better preparing them for cyberattacks through advanced data compliance and security. In addition to flexibility and scalability, the cloud can also help organisations reduce costs – both financial and environmental – compared to operating a traditional on-premises environment.
Cloud print services help overcome the complexity and inefficiencies of managing a traditional print infrastructure. Conventional print management is typically reliant on on-premises print servers and incurs a high IT administrative burden to manage driver installation, device configuration and compliance, device monitoring, reporting and management, server and queue management, firmware updates, and app deployment and maintenance. Cloud-based print management can reduce the IT burden and, where print servers are eliminated, also lower the financial and environmental costs associated with procuring and managing print servers.
The cloud print ecosystem
Print manufacturers and ISVs are bringing cloud-based options to the market to cater for the different public, private and hybrid cloud approaches being pursued by customers. Cloud print services and solutions encompass the remit of serverless printing platforms, cloud-based remote monitoring platforms, and hybrid cloud print management platforms, which may be managed internally or by third-party managed print services (MPS) providers. Cloud print services may also include other adjacent services and solutions around digitisation, workflow, security and collaboration.
Key findings include:
- Cloud adoption continues to increase, underpinning the digital transformation journey. 20% expect their IT infrastructure to be fully in the cloud by 2025, a rise from 6% today. A further 41% expect it to be mostly in the cloud, a rise from 21% today. This is creating momentum in the cloud print services market, as more organisations recognise the benefits of eliminating or minimising their reliance on on-premises print servers.
- Cloud print adoption continues to accelerate. Overall, 43% of organisations have already implemented a cloud print management platform, with a further 37% reporting that they have plans to do so in the next two years. The US is the most mature in relation to cloud printing adoption (56%), with Germany trailing at 32%. The finance sector is the most advanced vertical (56%).
- Cloud print adoption aligns with customer sustainability goals. By reducing or eliminating print servers, organisations can lower costs and reduce environmental impact through lower energy usage. Quocirca’s Sustainability Trends reports revealed that 80% of organisations had already implemented or planned to implement cloud printing as part of their sustainability strategy.
- Organisations are looking for support from MPS on their cloud print journey. 40% said moving to a cloud print management platform was a top benefit of MPS adoption.
- MPS maturity does not equal cloud maturity. Organisations with a fully outsourced Managed Print Service were less likely than those using a hybrid MPS approach to have switched to a cloud-based print environment. More than half (52%) of fully outsourced MPS customers are still operating their print environment fully on-premise, compared to only 31% of those which are managing the print infrastucture in-house.
- Organisations recognise the enhanced security of cloud printing platforms. Over half (52%) of respondents considered cloud printing to be more secure than an on-premises platform. Cloud security is a major consideration, with 42% indicating they were operating a zero trust architecture for their IT environment. Ensuring cloud platforms conform to zero trust principles is now a major consideration, and as IT environments become increasingly distributed, a zero trust approach is becoming more important.
Quocirca’s Cloud Print Services Report 2022 contains valuable recommendations for buyers and suppliers to guide a successful shift to cloud print deployment. The report contains in-depth coverage of cloud print service offerings from the following:
Print manufacturers: Canon, HP Inc., Konica Minolta, Kyocera Lexmark, Ricoh, Xerox
ISVs: directprint.io, Kofax, MPS Monitor, MyQ, NT-Ware, Papercut, Process Fusion, Thinprint/ezeep, Vasion (PrinterLogic) and Y Soft
Download the Executive Summary
