Launched last week, the research, which surveyed 250 UK IT decision-makers in the UK, has found that 28 per cent of organisations that have a file and print management service currently host it in the cloud, up from just 19 per cent from the same survey in 2014. A further 16 per cent have plans to do so in future. Similarly, the proportion of organisations using cloud for document management has increased from 30 per cent in 2014 to 38 per cent today.
Commenting on the findings, Joe Doyle, Marketing Director at Annodata, said: “Cloud-based solutions have been part of the IT estate for quite some time and it’s clear that organisations have become much more comfortable with the deployment model. But it’s only really now that we are seeing cloud print and document management take off. This holds true for organisations of all sizes, but particularly for those in the mid-market, who arguably stand to benefit the most from this kind of approach to print management. With sprawling and inefficient print estates, that often consist of hundreds of different devices, cloud-based print and file management solutions offer the opportunity to control costs and rebuild from the ground up, incorporating new efficiencies and easing the burden on the IT department.
“For all the talk of the paperless office, the printed page shows no sign of going away and is, for a significant proportion of businesses, critical for day-to-day operations. But the fact is that no one really knows what the next year will bring, let alone the next five years, so investing in agile technology solutions is critical. Cloud-based Managed Print Services, which can scale both up and down in line with business demands, allow businesses to remain agile and maintain competitive advantage, unencumbered by unnecessary print resources and free of the time needed to manage them,” he continued.