Artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and a growing remote and hybrid workforce among top office technology trends in 2024.
What are the latest office technology trends that will impact office technology dealers and the businesses they serve in 2024?
Today’s office technology dealers provide an array of services and products that go far beyond office printing to meet the needs of the rapidly changing business landscape. Groundbreaking new technologies and advancements have redefined the traditional office technology business model.
At the same time, the workplace environment has been forever changed. Innovative new office technologies have created greater efficiencies to meet evolving marketplace demands. Increased communication and connectivity provide the essential foundation for all office environments across all business sectors.
Moreover, what defines a workplace in 2024 depends more on each business operation, its management, and its employees. Office technology has evolved and now has found a home beyond the walls of a traditional workplace. Today’s hybrid and work-from-home employees need the latest office technology offerings to sustain flexible hours, work habits, and collaboration.
Here, we examine the 2024 office technology trends that will have the most significant impact in the new year and how they will influence the marketplace and overall business culture.
The following office technology trends will drive transformative change in 2024:
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The emergence of ChatGPT in late 2022 created a firestorm of interest in artificial intelligence. The office technology industry, along with many business sectors, has for years incorporated elements of AI into its products and services. The adoption of artificial intelligence is expected to accelerate in 2024.
Businesses that utilize artificial intelligence are employing innovative strategies to help fuel growth and expansion. Artificial intelligence can help create greater efficiencies in process automation and supply chain management, analyze customer feedback and insights to develop more consistent service and better customer engagement, and be used to inform the creation of successful marketing and sales initiatives.
Experts predict that artificial intelligence will only continue to gain momentum, resulting in widespread utilization throughout the modern business landscape. As AI becomes more prevalent, there is a growing call to action for regulation that will need buy-in from corporations and governments worldwide.
Cybersecurity
Cyberattacks and cybercrimes are increasing at alarming rates and impacting all business sectors, including healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, government agencies and operations. The COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to increased cyberattacks via healthcare, banking, unemployment, and remote work/hybrid employees.
Businesses now rank cybersecurity measures as top priorities to keep their digital data safe. Office technology-managed service providers are forging strategic partnerships with cybersecurity firms to improve and protect their and customers’ data networks. Cybersecurity intelligence is crucial for MSPs to guard against evolving cyber threats.
Hybrid and Remote Work
According to WFH Research, a scholarly data-collection project, as of 2023, 12.7% of full-time employees worked from home, and 28.2% worked a hybrid model.
Remote and hybrid work is a trend that will continue to accelerate as long as valued employees demand flexibility to create a better work-life balance. According to projections by Upwork, by 2025, an estimated 32.6 million Americans will be working remotely.
Businesses that employ hybrid and remote workers provide office technology dealers with many opportunities for new and increased revenue streams.
Cloud Communications
cloud communications have evolved to meet the needs of today’s modern business environments.
Cloud-based communications tools allow for successful collaboration for all kinds of organizations, especially those that employ hybrid and remote workforces. The number of companies using advanced communication solutions for video conferencing, VoIP, mobile integrations, file sharing, and security will only continue to increase as these tools become essential for both hybrid and traditional work environments.
Because of their growing popularity, many office technology dealers offer cloud communications or work with third-party providers to solve their customer’s growing communication needs.
Hyperautomation
Hyperautomation describes an approach to automation that goes beyond traditional robotic process automation (RPA) by combining various technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, process mining, and analytics to automate and optimize complex business processes end-to-end. The goal is greater efficiency, agility, and scalability by automating repetitive tasks and entire workflows and processes, including those that involve unstructured data and decision-making.
Hyperautomation is one of 2024’s top office technology trends, represented by new products and solutions coming to market in the new year across all office technology and IT industries.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)
This topic will continue to be a focus for organizations of all sizes across all business sectors dedicated to creating an inclusive workforce.
In the office technology industry, companies such as HP, Inc., Konica Minolta, Lexmark, Sharp, and many others have been public about their DEI efforts and initiatives at the center of their company’s mission and core values.
Inkjet Printing
As reported in our Annual Dealer Survey, independent dealers are increasingly offering inkjet printing solutions to great success. Our recent surveys reveal a significant rise in office technology dealers partnering with Epson America, while others provide inkjet solutions from Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Ricoh, RISO, and others.
Inkjet printing options, including A3 and A4 printers, high-speed printers and duplicators, and production printing solutions, are offered by office technology dealers to meet their customers’ diverse printing needs.
Diversification
The only way to ensure long-term viability for office technology dealers is to diversify beyond traditional office products and services.
Many independent dealers are broadening their businesses with various emerging office technology trends, including managed IT services, label and barcode printers, document management services, shredding services, mailing equipment, laptop computers, digital displays, and production printing.
Please visit our website in the coming weeks as we will continue to monitor the latest office technology trends and other initiatives and developments in the office technology industry.
