Modernizing Enterprise Printing: 5 Reasons to Migrate to the Cloud

Introduction

Cloud services are so seamlessly integrated into our daily work that we often don’t realize we’re using them. From Slack and Dropbox to Zoom and Microsoft Teams, these tools have become essential for boosting productivity, collaboration, and employee engagement—especially as digital transformation efforts accelerate across industries.

Yet in many organizations, one critical area has been left behind: printing.

Despite the widespread shift to cloud-based operations, print infrastructure is often still managed on-premises, relying on outdated servers and manual oversight. Cloud printing offers a smarter alternative—eliminating the need for local print servers, strengthening security, and easing the burden on IT teams.

Almost half of enterprises say they are currently looking to modernize print infrastructure to align with their overall cloud migration strategy.

So, what’s holding companies back? Often, the same challenges that cause hesitation are the very reasons a move to cloud printing is more important than ever. Let’s explore five compelling reasons why now is the time to bring print into the cloud era.

The Challenges of Printing Today

It’s easy to take printing for granted as long as things are working well. But even then, printers can cause headaches for businesses concerned about the rise of security threats and newly dispersed workforces. We all want to be able to click and print—but we must do that without causing substantial harm to company or consumer privacy.

Printer Vulnerabilities

Network hacks via printing can debilitate companies and destroy customer trust. Whether a company suffers a ransomware attack in which they must pay to get their data back, lose data to a hacker, or are simply left embarrassed by a bad actor who can prove they exploited the system, it can require years to recover from financial and reputational losses.

In 2010, businesses were warned that any printer with a hard drive, especially multifunctional printers with photocopying abilities, was susceptible to bad actors after a CBS News investigation2 discovered pay stubs, domestic violence complaints, and detailed medical records stored on the hard drives of machines that organizations had discarded. In 2016, hackers attacked printers connected to the SWIFT mobile payment platform and stole $81 million3 from Bangladesh Bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. This shows how different yet effective printer hacks can be.

The Dilemmas of Remote Work

The expansion of remote and hybrid work has only added to the problem of print security. A distributed workforce that prints company documents on home printers—which typically lack the robust security of the workplace—can be an easy target. In fact, 70 percent of enterprises say keeping pace with print security issues has become more challenging due to this ongoing shift.

Even within an office, operating a mixed print fleet increases cybersecurity risk. Quocirca found that 66 percent of organizations operate non-standardized fleets that create security “blind spots” and that 73 percent of those companies reported data breaches.

At the same time, print volumes have declined, and the fluctuating nature of the hybrid workforce makes planning more difficult. But print is still important—in fact, a survey of European workers found that 79 percent felt their print habits made them more productive.

Regulations and Infrastructure

Even when printer management is outsourced, companies still face tough decisions about how to handle print infrastructure, especially during broader digital transformation efforts that demand significant IT resources.

Developing policies for mobile printing and providing employees with a simple and convenient experience is no easy task. It’s only made harder by the regulatory blind spots created by increasingly stringent data privacy requirements. For example, shortly after the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was established, 34 percent of IT professionals in Europe, where it was set to have the most impact, either didn’t think or didn’t know whether the new rules covered printing.

This uncertainty contributes to a broader lack of organizational confidence in print security overall; on average, only 2 percent of the overall IT budget is allocated to print security. Sixty-six percent of businesses have identified security spending as a high priority over the next two years. So while organizations are expected to increase their print security, it needs to happen quickly.

Top 5 Reasons to Migrate Your Print to the Cloud

1. Enhance Security

High-profile exploits like PrintNightmare exposed just how overlooked print infrastructure can be in broader security strategies. Even months after the initial attacks were uncovered, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) continued to add new privilege escalation bugs in the Windows Print Spooler to its list of actively exploited vulnerabilities—with CVEs like 2022-22718 impacting unpatched systems across all Windows versions. According to Microsoft, these vulnerabilities make it easy for bad actors to exploit local print infrastructure in low-complexity attacks—often without any user interaction.

These cybersecurity risks tied to printing make one thing clear: print infrastructure has been largely overlooked in previous security strategies, and that oversight is becoming increasingly costly. As cyber threats grow more sophisticated and frequent, print environments are proving to be a vulnerable entry point. Thirty-two percent of organizations have experienced at least one print-related security breach over the last 12 months. The average cost of a print-related data breach for enterprise organizations is $658,000. The most significant impact resulting from a data breach: productivity lost (stemming from IT and other resources dedicated to recovery and remediation).9 Outdated print systems are no longer just a security gap, they’re a business risk. Traditional defenses like firewalls and antivirus software simply aren’t enough.

Adopting a Zero Trust Security Model

Sixty-four percent of enterprise organizations have already implemented Zero Trust security initiatives. In Zero Trust environments, nothing inside the network is inherently trusted. It is assumed that bad actors are already inside the network, so printing requires identity and access management (IAM), end-to-end encryption of print paths, and validation of all communication endpoints before communication is allowed.

2. Support Your Hybrid and Mobile Workforce Wherever They Work

Hybrid and remote work is here to stay; four out of five workers in a McKinsey & Company survey of remote workers said they wanted to keep their arrangement going forward.11 Even more conservative estimates suggest that workers are happier and more productive while working two days a week at home.

As a result, employers are making long-term plans to adjust to employees’ desire for flexibility. But even occasional remote work requires hyperconnectivity, the convenience of connecting to a company’s digital assets, and more devices, including personal printers.

Print on the Go

Employees who work remotely aren’t always working from home—they may need to print while traveling or working from shared spaces. Ideally, an organization would allow their employees to send print jobs from any network, even if it happens to be the corner coffee shop or a hotel during a work trip.

Knowing they can access these documents later when they are near a secured printer allows them to stay productive in the moment.

Companies should also consider employees’ ability to print from their mobile devices when planning any cloud print migration, to ensure maximum convenience. Even back in 2016, 87 percent of businesses allowed employees to use their mobile devices to access company apps, and 64 percent of employees did so regardless of their employer’s policies.

Ignoring the use of mobile devices is a significant security oversight. Cloud printing should be supported as easily and seamlessly as any other mobile feature while also using encryption, password enforcement, network control, and ensuring that all mobile devices that access the network have up-to-date operating systems with current security patches.

4 out of 5 workers in a McKinsey & Company survey 
of remote workers said they wanted to keep their arrangement going forward

3. Adhere to Local Data Privacy Requirements

From the EU’s GDPR to the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (CPDA), and Colorado Privacy Act (CPA), there’s no doubt that digital transformation must consider the new and ever-changing compliance requirements around the world.

Designed to protect data privacy and sovereignty, these state and national policies are more than just guidelines— there are stiff penalties for companies that violate them. This becomes even more complicated with cloud environments, since it’s often unclear where data centers are located and which laws apply: the laws of the territory where the data resides, or those governing the company that owns it.

One of the key benefits of a robust cloud print management solution is that it can help companies adhere to data privacy requirements by controlling where print jobs are stored and what personal identifying information is collected in each region—even for BYOD and guest printing. This is done via a management console that provides 20+ pre-created regions mapped to secure AWS S3 repositories worldwide. This means, administrators can set job storage and data collection policies by region and support region switching as employees travel.

4. Drive IT Efficiency

Many companies are under pressure to reduce expenses, and IT teams—already stretched thin—are being asked to support remote and hybrid workers while managing rising security risks. But while cyber threats grow more complex, IT departments often don’t have the budget or bandwidth to expand their teams.

Moving print infrastructure to the cloud helps lessen the day-to-day maintenance burden, freeing up skilled IT professionals to focus on real threats instead of routine help desk tickets. A cloud print management platform eliminates the need for on-premises servers and automates tasks so teams can tackle issues as they come up, instead of acting as sentries constantly on guard for intrusions. Features like automatic device discovery and the ability to manage all devices on a network through a single portal help cloud-based systems run smoothly without adding to cybersecurity workloads.

Some print management solutions also eliminate vendor driver management and allow for a self-service approach so employees can add print devices or enable guest printing without needing administrative control of company workstations. Migrating to the cloud improves efficiency for end-users and reduces the burden on IT.

5. Insights to Optimize Print and Reduce Costs

Controlling print costs starts with access to accurate, up-to-date data. With leading cloud print management solutions, organizations gain near real-time visibility into key print metrics through intuitive dashboards. These insights provide a detailed view of the print fleet—including how it’s used, where inefficiencies exist, and which devices or behaviors stand out—empowering teams to make informed decisions, reduce costs, and improve performance.

By looking at print flow, usage by individuals and departments, and printer locations, companies can more easily identify which machines are under or overutilized. Print metrics also allow IT and management to schedule maintenance, relocate machines, and justify new print policies. These digital dashboards also help IT keep the print fleet running optimally by monitoring supply levels.

Actionable Insights to Educate Employees

Often, employees don’t realize how much they print, how much of that is wasted paper, and the costs of poor printing habits. Collecting and showcasing this information can be educational and allow companies to streamline printing with less pushback. It even helps organizations meet sustainability goals.

When companies deploy a cloud print management solution, they get a platform that provides actionable insights, including information about printers outside the office, to help conduct risk assessments. These opportunities for optimization aren’t possible with a decentralized print ecosystem.

How Pharos Helps Enterprises Securely Migrate Print to the Cloud

It’s time to stop mulling over plans and prepare for the future. While the workforce has changed from the traditional office in recent years, technologies like the cloud have allowed the same processes to run smoothly but in a different way. Think of it as an evolution, albeit an accelerated one.

Old on-premises print solutions are already becoming problems of their own. Meanwhile, the cloud has grown to support nearly every system and add visibility and accountability to workflows, including printing.

Pharos Cloud enables print migration into the cloud. A true cloud platform built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Pharos Cloud is a secure, cloud-native, modern print management platform that helps enterprises reduce costs, eliminate print servers, and simplify IT operations. With deep analytics, centralized control, and open APIs for seamless integration, IT teams gain the visibility needed to optimize usage, reduce downtime, and increase efficiency. Built for the modern  workplace, Pharos Cloud provides the flexibility, security, and scalability organizations need to support hybrid work and future-proof their print infrastructure.

Pharos Cloud Capabilities

Pharos Direct Print

Direct Print enables users to conveniently print in the direct-to-printer workflow they’re already familiar with—even across networks via the cloud. In addition, it provides centralized print management, allowing IT leaders to efficiently manage printers, print drivers, print queues, and users across the enterprise. With direct IP printing, your organization can easily scale to accommodate growing print needs without additional servers, reducing hardware costs and management time. End-users benefit from the intuitive print experience they’re used to while the system operates at a more sophisticated level behind the scenes to enhance security.

Pharos Secure Release

Secure Release enhances document security by requiring users to authenticate at the device before releasing their print jobs—preventing sensitive documents from being left unattended. It also supports an increasingly mobile and hybrid workforce by allowing employees to submit print jobs from any network as long as they have an internet connection, and pick them up at a convenient, secured device.

Secure Release supports BYOD printing, allowing employees to print from their iOS and Android devices via an easy-to-use app or by uploading documents into the User Portal.

Pharos Insights

Insights brings everything together. This comprehensive analytics platform provides actionable data on the printer fleet and user printing, essential for optimizing the print environment and reducing costs without wading through endless spreadsheets. A modern dashboard instantly visualizes key print metrics, enabling administrators to drill down into job-level details to quickly identify outliers and make data-driven decisions.

By providing critical metrics like total annual volume, color versus black and white usage, total cost of printing, and user-to-device ratio, Insights illuminates printing trends. It also highlights outliers and allows managers to explore data by region, specific departments, and applications used to print, along with other job-level details, all to help reduce unnecessary costs.