Analysis of the printer security market for MFPs notes that the “shift towards” a paperless office is “posing challenges”.
Market Research Reports’ Global multifunction printer security market 2016-2020 report found that the market is expected to see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.37 percent between 2016 and 2020, though the “shift towards [a] paperless society” is “posing challenges” to the market. The report “delves into the current scenario and growth prospects” of the market, with the market “segmented into two” – managed security services and “in-built” security.
The analysts noted that the “constant evolution of communication technology and automation has ushered in welcome changes in the printing mechanism” through “software-driven” MFPs, and these have helped to solve a “growing need for managing printing of ever-increasing volumes of official documents, to a large extent, by providing a complete document solution, including document management”.
Despite this, the risks of “data or information loss owing to misuse or misplacement of data processed through printers” still costs SMBs and larger companies financially, and as a result the “demand for printer security solutions has grown in tandem” with the demand for MFPs. With managed security, printer monitoring through data encryption, document management and print access control is “outsourced to a third-party”, while in-built security sees the MFP already have its own system “in place”.
The first of these two segments has seen “rapid adoption by enterprises in the recent past” due to the fact that “it is much easier to utilise the services of a vendor”, and Market Research Reports believes that this growth is “slated to continue in the upcoming years too, despite challenges such as a shift towards a paperless society”. Other areas that the full report looks into include types of printers and applications, the market’s size and prospects, and the lifecycle analysis.
In turn, it considers “market attractiveness, buying criteria, growth drivers and market challenges”, as well as the Porter’s five forces analysis, which assesses an industry “based on detail regarding suppliers, buyers, competition, substitutes and new entrants” leveraged to “calculate the opportunities and likely-profitability”. While studying the geographic regions, the report also notes that key OEMs include Xerox, HPE, Ricoh, Canon, Sharp, PrinterCorp, Toshiba, Lexmark, Epson and Konica Minolta.