01732 759725 44 VOX POP continued... servicing an MFP. It will also dovetail into provision of the personalised user experience, which we currently deliver through tools like desktop profiles or user profiles at a device level being determined by the login credentials. This will be a trend where company-wide services are delivered but the enduser receives a tailored experience to these requirements, so the adoption is improved, and the project delivers. n Sustainability All these trends will be underpinned by the continuing drive to sustainability. Customers will continue to prioritise the environmental impact of their operations and strive for net zero. If our channel can tap into this market, pick a winner and deliver solutions that make a difference, as they have done in the past, then 2024 will be a successful year for us all. https://paebusiness.com Richard Wells, Head of Office Print Sales, Epson: In 2024, sustainability will further rise in importance to end-users and vendors as everyone continues to become more familiarised with sustainable behaviour. The difficulty for sustainably minded buyers will be to decipher and understand the multiple claims over sustainability made by vendors and determine what version of sustainability is the most important to them, their organisations and the planet. Separating greenwashing initiatives underpins data entry into an accounts package, or an HR department automating its onboarding process. It also drives cloud services as a lot of the automation is provided by access to fantastic technology at a price which is accessible to most organisations and takes them to a level of sophistication that was never affordable in the world of on-premise, non-SaaS services. If you need convincing, look at the features offered by Office 365 and the tools you have available as subscriber. As a result, migration to cloud services will still be a significant opportunity for the channel in 2024. n Artificial intelligence Automation also comes into play with the hot topic of the moment – artificial intelligence. I am not clever enough to comprehend the full power and reach of AI but have no doubt we will be hearing a lot about it going forward into 2024 and beyond. I have used ChatGPT to see what it produces, and how it works. It is obvious that it will start to turn up in Chatbots, in back-office processing. It will manifest itself in solutions like Kofax’s Intelligent Automation Platform, which means it is already in play in the channel and what we are delivering to our end-users. It is also going be launched as part of our marketing platform Evolved Office, providing the capability to generate unique content, bespoke to the brand voice of our users and deliver it to their target market all from within one platform, in any language they choose. This is groundbreaking technology, accessible at a fraction of the cost of a marketing agency and on demand. AI is going to be an all-pervasive term in everything we do from now on, however the extent it is being used in various solutions and offering may vary. It will also be a trend in 2025, and 2026 just in case PITR do not ask me to do this again – you heard it first here… n Augmented reality If you add to the trends offered and combine it with a headset, glasses, or a tablet, we can see another trend that will affect business in 2024 – augmented reality. You may recall the bus shelter ad from Pepsi Max which introduced AR to advertising. However, Microsoft are positioning it in things like HR and identify the following areas as areas where AR could play a role going forward: performance support, learning and training modules, new hire onboarding, on demand training and customer service and experience. What a fantastic automation opportunity this presents to the channel. If the OEMS are not already using it to train technicians, I suspect it is only a matter of time before they do, and it will remove the most basic of requirements – attending a classroom to become accredited for repairing or Richard Wells Phil Madders If you add to the trends offered and combine it with a headset, glasses, or a tablet, we can see another trend that will affect business in 2024 – augmented reality
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