A mobile workforce and printing on-the-go

Internet connectivity, higher broadband speeds, tablet and smartphone technology, along with the use of data have transformed the way we work and live.

2014 saw an important change in UK government legislation to allow employees to reasonably request flexible working.  An office now longer means being desk-bound 9-5 in a physical office, so technology needs to support these changes for staff to work productively, securely and flexibly.  According to industry analysts IDC, 72% of the US workforce will work from a mobile location by 2020 and the UK is sure to follow suit.

These changes in the modern office are driving demand for tools and applications which provide accessibility to their systems, processes and documents.  The need to work collaboratively and productively irrespective of location or distance is becoming essential.  Cloud print technology provides the freedom to print-on-the-go and access vital information just as it’s needed.  This flexibility and scalability offered from cloud based technology make this much more accessible to organisations across the globe.

According to Quocirca, unsecured mobile printing can result in confidential information being left in output trays, exposed to prying eyes. This can be overcome through secure job release, or ‘pull-printing’, to authenticate print jobs and also maintains a full audit trail, so the organisation can still keep track of print costs and usage.

Gartner estimate that 50% of all employees will be using their own devices in the workplace by 2018. The emergence of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) means organisations need to have strategies in place to cope with secure printing within the network from users on their own devices, which opens up a whole new chapter for IT security.

Cloud printing is a good option for organisations with distributed sites and a mobile workforce as it avoids the hassle of installing print drivers on each users’ device, which saves time, hassle and increases the productivity of the workforce.

To learn how cloud technology can improve accessibility to documents and print on-the-go please download our whitepaper.