Millennials–the generation of social media, ride-sharing, e-commerce and smartphones–are often categorized as techy and completely digital in their methods. Or so we think. Studies show millennials and printers will depend more on each other in 2025 than previously thought.
According to market research by Quocirca’s Print 2025 Spotlight Report: Millennials Matter, millennials will still value traditional paper documents in 2025. Already a dominant force in the job market, as millennials advance into management, they will continue their reliance on office printers.
“As millennials become more influential in technology choices, and consumerization of IT continues, buying decisions are falling to both IT and line-of-business (LOB) stakeholders,” according to Channelnomics.
There will be a search to partner with local managed print services (MPS) who can meet a generation’s need for paper. Why? Millennials equate traditional paper documents as more official, more trusted, and more secure. More than three-quarters surveyed say documents are less trustworthy in digital format since they can be altered without your knowledge, according to Print Media Centr.
Millennials will want more than a supplier who sells them paper and ink. They will want an MPS partner who is strategic and offers solutions beyond office printers. These solutions include, but are not limited to, managed IT services, cloud solutions and network security.
We live in a digital age where data and documents are accessed and stored in the cloud. Today’s preferred communication method is email, Facebook Messenger, or Slack. Past predictions by industry observers envisioned a workplace with no need for paper or printed documents. In its report, Quocirca researchers found that this belief was mainly held by workers 55 and older.
In contrast, the analyst spoke with 200 IT decision making millennials between the ages of 18 and 34. Seventy-seven percent said print will still be important in 2025 and more than half said that office printing will increase between now and that year.
Of the millennials, 55% expect to see an increase in mobile printing, and 69% said important documents ought to be printed. Sixty-three percent said printed documents are more durable than digital documents.
It is fascinating to see millennial decision-makers choose efficiency and productivity over cost. Printed documents will not vanish entirely, but will change as time goes on. Print has and will continue to carve out its place in the millennial’s digital age.
With that in mind, the need for digital and IT will grow too. Managed print services need to fill the gap between IT and office printers. This will ultimately help businesses achieve maximum efficiency for productivity.
