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VOX POP
How has the cloud affected
the print products/services
you offer?
David Lockie, Director, Capita
Document and Information Services:
“The cloud has enabled us to manage and
use inbound data more swiftly and include
more accurate and timely information in
the documents we create. This, in turn,
means that communications are more
targeted and relevant, benefiting both our
clients and their customers.
“Being able to deploy more time-
critical communications has also driven
our investment in more efficient processes
and a new white paper facility, resulting
in greater flexibility for our clients and
improved products and services. Rather
than reduce our print products and services,
it has made them more effective, improving
the return on investment to our clients.”
Simon Hill, Sales Director UK &
Ireland, Nuance Communications:
“Most enterprises already have document
imaging software in place to convert paper
to digital files and manage document
lifecycles. This software can be extended
to incorporate the cloud and mobility
functions depending on the customers’
needs. In anticipation of those needs
changing, we introduced OmniPage
Ultimate which integrates with the Nuance
Cloud Connector to dramatically simplify
the process of connecting to and converting
documents within a variety of cloud storage
and online document websites.
“Meanwhile, advances in cloud
technology are pushing the MPS industry
to new levels in terms of both challenges
and opportunities. We have experienced
an increase in the number of large deals
and demand for solutions that have deeper
software and service components that
can be plugged into a customer’s existing
environment.”
Mark Smyth, Operations Director,
Vision:
“More and more of our solutions
are combining with cloud-based
applications and are becoming embedded
within the devices we utilise. This then
becomes part of our Managed Printing
Solution, and there is certainly an increase
in the number of organisations wishing to
take advantage of the benefits combined
technology and applications offer.”
Tony Wills, Commercial & Marketing
Director, Principal:
“We predicted that
the cloud would have an impact on the
way organisations manage their print fleet
some months ago. In anticipation of this,
we launched a number of cloud service
offerings. Part of this offering has been to
partner with KDDI.
“While cloud printing is being more
widely discussed, many companies are
still using traditional on-premise print
server infrastructures. What is driving the
interest in cloud-based printing is the
proliferation of mobile workers who require
follow me printing services, as well as the
requirement to provide more accessible
guest printing facilities.
“All of these challenges are best
addressed by a cloud-based solution that
can be managed by us without the need
for additional resource and investment to
be made in the traditional infrastructure by
the customer’s IT department.”
Matt Goodall, Service Director, Office
Evolution:
“At present there has been no
effect on the products or services we offer.
The Develop machines we supply can email
to cloud-based services such as Microsoft
Office 365 and they can be configured
to connect to Google drive for printing
documents.”
PrintIT Reseller
asks leading lights from the print and imaging
industry for their thoughts on the cloud and asks how it is impacting
their business
A cloud on the horizon
Gary Downey, Group Marketing
Director, Balreed:
“It depends on what
you define cloud as. If it means remotely
provided platforms, software and servicing,
then this is a fundamental part of the
way Balreed delivers managed services to
clients.
“We have invested heavily in new
technology and in developing cloud-based
service delivery. A major consideration of
the hardware and software solutions we
provide is whether they can support cloud
integration for clients.”
How important is the cloud to
current and future revenue?
David Lockie:
“The cloud is very
important to our current and future
revenues. It has extended the range of
products and services we offer by enabling
our clients’ customers to choose the
channel through which they wish to receive
documents, whether that’s print and mail,
email, SMS or website.
“This multi-channel capability driven
through the cloud has enabled us to
embrace these channels on behalf of our
clients and increase service quality to them
and revenue for us.”
Simon Hill:
“The rapid adoption of cloud
services and the incredibly fast rise in the
use of mobile devices in the enterprise are
creating increasingly diversified document
workflow patterns. It’s no secret that these
technologies are not trends, but the new
path of business adopted by enterprises
everywhere. It is imperative that we
continue to offer a mix of cloud-based and
on-premise imaging solutions, in order to
give customers choice and flexibility – the
path to revenue success.”
Mark Smyth:
“Whilst we are yet to see
any significant increase in revenues, we
are fairly optimistic this will happen as the
applications and services become more
relied on for storage and retrieval in the
workplace and support becomes more
important.”
Left: David Lockie,
director, Capita
Document and
Information
Services.
Right: Simon Hill,
sales director UK
& Ireland, Nuance
Communications
...advances
in cloud
technology
are pushing
the MPS
industry to
new levels...
Continued...
