But in an increasingly digital and remote world, the printer is no longer the center of attention. So what now?

Opportunity knocks

This is an uncertain landscape for companies to navigate – after all, it seems like every company’s return-to-office strategy has seen pushback result in delays or even full reversals, making it hard to get a grip on exactly what they need to provide on-site. What’s the right level of investment in technology and support for employees and end users? In short: How many people are actually going to be there, and how many of them are actually going to print stuff?

If your enterprise isn’t giving that question serious consideration, you’re probably leaving money on the table – potentially tens of millions of dollars for larger organizations.

Of course, the sea change in where and how we work has left providers of managed print services scrambling to make up for huge deficits in recurring revenue – and aggressively seeking new lines of business to make up the difference. And that’s where this challenge becomes an opportunity for enterprises to flex their buying power, reduce costs, and improve the end-user experience.

Print suppliers are hungry for renewal revenue, but they’re also well aware of today’s trends – which is why they’re equally interested in offering new digitalization capabilities and innovative services to displace legacy print business. As enterprises pursue digital transformation and strive to meet ESG standards as well as carbon-reduction goals, assessing their print environment offers a prime opportunity to support those initiatives.

This is the time to dig into those legacy business processes and find areas where automation can move the needle not only by providing improved speed and cost savings, but also by delivering flexibility, agility, and continuity to the broader business – regardless of the work environment.

Mind the risks

Multifunction printers are commonly connected endpoints on corporate networks, opening companies up to dangers that reach well beyond traditional concerns about the loss of intellectual property. Despite the many, many, many, many (and many more) stories over the last decade of exploited and exploitable vulnerabilities in internet-connected printers, the security risks involved are still all too often overlooked.

Without proper patching, active management and physical assessment, multifunction devices can be a soft spot in your security architecture – and with the status of the office in stasis or flux for much of the last two years, it’s vital to make sure you’re keeping up to date.

Moving forward

Even in a world where it sometimes seems everything has turned digital, the printer isn’t dead. Whether for legal reasons or process reasons, or simply to satisfy customer expectations, leaving a paper trail is still mandatory across a wide spectrum of industries and business activities.

But even if you can’t leave printing behind, you can make sure that you’re managing your print services in a way that drives value, efficiency, and productivity. From the user experience to your bottom line, getting a handle on your managed print environment can make a major impact across your organization.