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The managed print services market
continues to gain momentum
as enterprises seek to tackle
escalating print costs and drive
greater business efficiency. The
market is relatively buoyant with
51% of organisations that are
either already using or planning to
use MPS indicating they plan to
increase expenditure on MPS over
the next year.
Quocirca estimates that almost
50% of large enterprises (over 1,000
employees) now use some form of
MPS, with stronger prevalence in very
large enterprises. A further 20% plan to
use MPS within the next year, reflecting
the growing maturity of the market.
On average, enterprise
organisations have been using MPS
for three years, with the average MPS
contract covering 23 locations and
six countries. The majority (64%)
of respondents are in the second
phase of their engagements and,
having optimised their fleet, are now
implementing document workflow
tools in conjunction with smart
multi-function printers (MFPs). With
sophisticated document capture
and routing capabilities, MFPs can
integrate directly with enterprise
content management (ECM) and other
systems, such as enterprise resource
planning (ERP), so that paper invoices
or expenses receipts, for instance, can
be scanned and routed directly to an
accounts application from the MFP
interface panel.
Cost-savings are still an important
driver – users of MPS reported an
average saving of 26% on the cost
of printing over the past year – but,
for the first time, security has risen
to the top of the agenda (see table),
with 75% indicating that this was
an important or very important
driver. Document security was rated
highest by professional services and
financial sector respondents, with
government, despite their heavy
reliance on printing, giving it the
lowest priority.
Closing the print security gap
Overall, 65% of respondents indicated
that their organisation plans to
increase expenditure on IT security.
This is encouraging for the MPS
market, as there is still a significant
opportunity to enhance the security
of what is often the weakest link –
the print environment. Information,
whether it resides on paper or in
electronic form, represents a vast
array of customer insight, employee
knowledge, business intelligence
and innovation. Left unsecured, this
information can pose a huge legal
and reputational risk.
Organisations are waking up
to the potential security risks that
moving to a shared MFP environment
poses. However, there are regional
variations; whilst 40% of UK
respondents indicated they were
concerned with data loss through
unclaimed printed output, this rose
to 56% in the US.
Overall, 70% reported at least
one data loss in the past year, with
losses being slightly more prevalent
in organisations with over 3,000
employees. The US shows the highest
level of data loss, with 82% reporting
paper-related data losses, compared
to 42% of UK respondents. By
vertical, the highest incidence of data
loss was reported in the government
sector, with only 20% indicating
no data loss, compared to 40% of
financial services respondents.
This all points to the need for
full document security audits and
the implementation of secure
print solutions. In total, 40% of
organisations have completed a
security assessment, with a further
46% indicating that an audit was
underway. Organisations in the US
and France are most likely to have
completed a security assessment.
Overall, 74% of organisations
have deployed or are planning to
implement secure print solutions
(i.e. pull printing). Those using MPS
are most likely to have deployed pull
printing (42%), compared to just 14%
of those not currently using MPS.
Despite a lower incidence of data
loss, UK respondents have deployed
pull printing at the same levels as
other regions. There is a variation
by industry, with financial services
leading in their deployment and the
government sector lagging behind.
Encouragingly, 77% of organisations
feel that MPS has delivered on its
goal to enhance document security.
Quocirca believes that security
assessments and solutions are now
a core requirement for any MPS
engagement. Buyers should closely
evaluate not only the detail of any
security assessment, but also the
hardware and software technology
to ensure that document security is
robust across the entire printer fleet.
Security has become the number one driver for MPS in enterprises with more
than 1,000 employees, according to the Quocirca report
Managed Print Services
Landscape, 2015 – A vendor analysis of the global enterprise MPS market.
In this
extract, Louella Fernandes and Clive Longbottom examine the growing importance
of secure print in MPS engagements. The full report, including Quocirca
recommendations and vendor analysis, can be read at
.
Security now primary
driver for enterprise MPS
Louella
Fernandes
How important are the following drivers to your
organisation in motivating a move to a managed
print service?
3.73
3.77
3.87
3.88
3.88
3.89
3.91
3.99
4.02
4.05
Reduce IT burden
Procurement of commercial print
Reduce hardware costs
Improve workflow
Reduce environmental impact
Reduce paper usage
Gain predictable costs
Improve service quality
Reduce consumables costs
Enhance security
MPS
