PAPERCUT PROFILE
able to walk into the building, connect their laptop or smart device they’re using and click ‘file’ and ‘print’ if they need to print in a self- service manner,” he explains. “The emergence of hybrid working means many organisations have outsourced or removed/reduced their IT teams as they move to cloud, and they just now want users to be in a self-service world. “We’ve seen a significant growth in the uptake of our print deploy feature. That’s the ability to push out print queues and manage print queues for users based on their location.” Stuart adds there is also a trend towards digital transformation and increasing use of data analytics. “Again, hybrid working has grown the demand for it, with people needing to get access to data wherever they are,” he says. “Being able to put all your hard copy documents into soft copy is great, but then it’s about understanding how to extract the meaningful content from that data and information so that organisations can create value. “That can be the capture and extraction of hard copy data, but it’s also the use of analytics such as repeated document names or print profiles and print trends. We’re certainly seeing an uptick in the whole digital transformation and analytics piece. “People are realising that print management products like PaperCut MF hold a lot of useful data, such as departmental data and chronological data, and people can read a lot into that data and are starting to understand it. Things like common document names, or the most prevalent time of the day that the volume is done, and if there is a process that drives that. People are now starting to take that print management data and pick out business processes that they can then go and improve.” Sustainability Another growing trend is for sustainability, with many more companies looking at their environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies and bringing them into line with net zero carbon emissions goals, Steve adds. “Sustainability is now at the forefront of customer needs,” he says. “What historically may have been a more of a tick box exercise is now one of the lead conversations that we’re having with customers. There’s been a big growth in sustainability, possibly down to a lot of younger individuals coming into organisations who have a keen envrionmental
interest and its even resulted in new roles being created within our customers’ businesses. “It’s not unusual now to have conversations around opportunities that historically may have been led by a procurement person and a technical person and maybe parts of the IT team but now those conversations are being led by chief sustainability officers and sustainability managers. “While sustainability is linked to reducing costs, which our customers want to do, the big thing we’re seeing is that many are not leading with cost reduction but with that sustainability message; there has been a definite shift in the past three years and we’re trying to help our ecosystem along that journey as well. There has been a real change in all industries, and it’s growing, you can really feel the pace of it.” Sustainability is part of PaperCut’s DNA, and over its 22 years in business it has helped save billions of sheets of paper from being wasted across the globe, and the company proactively supports sustainability efforts through initiatives like PaperCut Grows. “This is where PaperCut plants trees on behalf of our customers based on their own print usage,” says Steve. “This is one of the many ways we’re trying to help and assist our ecosystem on that sustainable journey. We really want to enable the ecosystem to be able to lead with a Forest Positive message and a differentiated sustainability message as they go forward. Security Another growing trend in the sector has been security threats. “Unfortunately, the attention of bad actors is now being directed towards the print industry,” says Steve. “We’ve always worked hard to protect against any vulnerability in our software
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What historically may have been a more of a tick box exercise is now one of the lead conversations that we’re having with customers.
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