01732 759725 40 VOX POP continued... continued... Phil Madders, Managing Director, PAE Business: Well, 2024 was a weird one. It almost got going but never really kicked off or reached the critical mass that I expected in terms of trends and development. I should have predicted a new government in the UK but forgot there was an election due. It is going to have impact in 2025 as the tax payable on company disposals is increasing. This will impact entrepreneurs and may bring forward some plans to sell their companies, which given said entrepreneurs are the backbone of our channel will in turn affect our channel. Therefore, an obvious prediction is more consolidation as there will be a flurry of activity related to sales of companies to save the tax before the April deadline. So, what will the trends and developments be for 2025? Perish the thought but if some consulting type was standing in front of a room of me and some eager execs with a fist full of Post-it notes asking what the main themes for 2025 would be, then among the words being enthusiastically offered up which would attract my attention would be: cloud, connectivity, AI, smart equipment, sustainability, digitisation, data analytics, transformation and security – what does this mean for the channel in 2025? Connectivity is increasingly a table stakes issue, any application offered by the channel will need to connect to other systems. A quick glance at the DocuWare platform shows connectors for multiple platforms and applications all designed to remove the manual tasks that add no value to an organisation and have negative impact on the people having to carry them out. Our CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) platform CloudQuote is great as a standalone product but join it to the ERP platform and you carve out duplication, doublehanding, inconsistency, and ramp up efficiency and productivity. These are the outcomes our customers are looking for and if you can provide them, you will win the business. Significantly these connectors are using low code or no code to simplify integration. In 2024, AI started to creep in, but it is still early in the journey and in terms of the impact in the channel just out of kindergarten and heading to reception. However, it is going to continue to develop in 2025 and become integrated at an equipment level – so called smart equipment, offering data on usage, supplies, and self-diagnostics to reduce downtime and increase productivity. We will use AI to analyse the data generated by the systems used to manage our customers, whether is PaperCut or CloudQuote. It will become the norm for applications to integrate AI into the reporting engine and the inner workings of the product itself. Sustainability and net zero will be a business imperative as companies set challenging carbon reduction targets. Devices manufactured using recycled material, and using less energy with a lower carbon footprint will be more in demand as will sustainability credentials through an Energy Star or EPEAT Accreditation (at the time of writing there were only 47 MFDs listed on the EPEAT website and all were Xerox). It will be interesting to compare this next year. Security will be front and centre for every organisation. Faced with the daily drudge of phishing, spam texts, and sophisticated frauds enhanced using AI, and the potential penalties for not protecting data, our customers will protect themselves. Security and encryption will be a key feature for devices and applications on offer to them and without these they will be looking elsewhere for their suppliers. In summary I would predict that 2025 will be a year of transformation for the channel, with a more secure, connected, and sustainable workspace. I have no doubt that the channel will rise to the challenge and 2025 will be a good year for us all. https://paebusiness.com Phil Madders Sustainability and net zero will be a business imperative as companies set challenging carbon reduction targets A Year of transformation
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