Print.IT Reseller - issue 74

01732 759725 4 BULLETIN Future of work survey A new global business survey commissioned by Xerox shows an estimated 82% of the workforce in respondents’ organisations will have returned to the workplace in 12-18 months’ time, on average. In preparation for a return, companies are investing in new resources to support a hybrid remote/in-office workforce, with 56% increasing technology budgets and 34% planning to speed their digital transformation as a result of COVID-19. The Xerox Future of Work Survey, conducted by Vanson Bourne, polled 600 IT decision-makers from the US, Canada, the UK, Germany and France, whose organisations have at least 500 employees. Respondents reported challenges caused by the sudden transition to remote work, with 72% citing they were not fully prepared from a technology perspective. In addition to technology (29%), the biggest pain points during the required work from home period were communication breakdown across teams/ employees (26%) and maintaining focus (25%). www.xerox.com A false sense of (cyber) security New insights from the 2020 Thales Europe Data Threat Report reveal that European organisations have a false sense of security when it comes to protecting themselves, with only two-thirds (68%) seeing themselves as vulnerable, down from nine in ten (86%) in 2018. This confidence flies in the face of the findings of the survey of 509 European executives which reveals over half (52%) of organisations were breached or failed a compliance audit in 2019, raising concerns as to why a fifth (20%) intend to reduce data security spend in the next year. The findings come as workers across Europe are working from home due to COVID-19, often using personal devices which don’t have the built-in security office systems do, significantly increasing risk to sensitive data. Despite the multitude of threats, businesses feel that the complexity (40%) of their environments is holding their data security capabilities back. Multi-cloud adoption is the main driver of this complexity; four-fifths of businesses are using more than one IaaS vendor, whilst a third have more than 50 SaaS applications to manage. Businesses also identified a lack of budget (30%), staff to manage (28%) and organisation buy-in/low priority (25%) as other top blockers. www.thalesgroup.com Tech firms signal decline in business activity The UK’s tech sector suffered its worst performance since the global financial crisis in the opening quarter of 2020, according to KPMG’s quarterly survey of UK technology companies, as the COVID-19 pandemic led to a swift decline in non-essential spending and escalating uncertainty about the economic outlook. In particular, tech firms noted that the public health emergency led to a rapid fall in non- essential corporate spending, cancelled projects and widespread closures among clients. Despite the marked fall in overall business activity, some areas of the tech sector continued to report growth during Q1 2020. These companies often commented on rising demand for services related to home working and business continuity. www.kpmg.com Reduced reliance on passwords Gartner forecasts that by 2022, 60% of businesses will have cut their reliance on passwords by half. Veridium CEO, James Stickland, believes the global crisis is acting as a catalyst, forcing firms to innovate stronger authentication technology, such as biometrics, to protect their most valuable assets. “COVID-19 is now posing the biggest-ever cybersecurity threat. This is forcing businesses to rethink and overhaul their security strategies in an increasingly vulnerable landscape. Now that millions of employees are working from home, companies are waking up to the weakness of passwords. As a result, more and more organisations are turning towards passwordless, multi-factor biometric authentication to mitigate against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, whilst enhancing the user experience.” www.veridiumid.com CompTIA seeks nominations for spotlight awards CompTIA is accepting nominations for its 2020 Spotlight Awards, honouring excellence and leadership in the UK’s technology sector. Special consideration will be given to 2020 nominees who have demonstrated leadership in their community or organisation during the COVID-19 crisis or are impacting social change. Nominations will be accepted through 31 July. www.comptia.org The Print Show postponed Organisers of The Print Show have confirmed that the event will be postponed until 2021, due to the ongoing novel coronavirus situation in the UK. The Print Show, and new sister event The Sign Show, had been due to run from September 27 to 29 at the NEC in Birmingham, with a number of leading brands having already committed to the show. The two events will now run from September 28 to 30 next year at the NEC. Event Director Chris Davies said: “We remain fully committed to delivering a quality event that solely focuses on the UK printing industry. The Print Show is the only event dedicated to the UK market and as we emerge from lockdown and build for a brighter future, we believe our event will play a key role in this recovery process.” www.theprintshow.co.uk AWARDS 2020 VOTING OPEN DEADLINE 17 AUGUST www.printitawards.co.uk