Why documents have become one of IT’s biggest data challenges | Future Ready with Bechtle

Why documents have become one of IT’s biggest data challenges | Future Ready with Bechtle

Printers used to sit firmly in the world of facilities. Today, they’re part of the IT ecosystem and represent one of the biggest information management challenges organisations face.

In this episode of Future Ready with Bechtle, host Stephen Harley is joined by Iain Heard, Document Solutions Consultant at Bechtle UK, to explore how the print and document solutions industry has transformed over the past 30 years.

Print has evolved from a simple operational task into a critical IT responsibility. The “paperless office” remains a myth and organisations now face a growing challenge in managing both physical documents and vast volumes of unstructured digital information.

In this episode, we cover:
How print moved from facilities into the IT department
Why the “paperless office” hasn’t happened and what actually replaced it
The rise of secure print, pull printing and device-level security
Why unstructured data is a growing challenge
The hidden risks of digital “filing rooms” with little visibility or control
Preparing for audits and compliance when organisations don’t know what data they hold
Why document solutions should be viewed as an information management strategy
The questions CEOs, CIOs and IT leaders should be asking in the boardroom

Watch the full episode to hear how Bechtle UK helps organisations modernise document and information management strategies. 

👉 Learn more about Bechtle UK’s document solutions and information management services:
https://www.bechtle.com/gb/bechtle-library/bechtle-pillars/services

👉 Speak to the Bechtle UK team about reviewing your document infrastructure and data management approach:
https://www.bechtle.com/pl-en/about-bechtle/company/locations/bechtle-direct-uk

#FutureReady #BechtleUK #DocumentSolutions #InformationManagement #DigitalTransformation #CIO #ITLeadership #DataGovernance #FutureOfWork

The Bechtle Future Ready Podcast explores how technology is transforming the way we work. Hosted by Bechtle UK, each episode features thought leaders and innovators discussing digital transformation, cybersecurity, sustainability, and the modern workplace.

Discover insights and strategies to help your business stay agile, connected, and ready for what’s next.

🎧 Subscribe now and get future ready with Bechtle UK.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Future Ready with Bet Club. My name's Steve Harley and today I'm joined by Document Solutions consultant Ian Heard. We're going to speak about his 30-year career in print and document solutions and how the industry has changed during that time. We're going to speak about how today document solutions are really a data and information management challenge and the shifting mindset that we as leaders within IT need to make to include that in our IT strategy in the right way. I'm sure you're going to enjoy this episode. Ian has a wealth of experience to share with us. Wherever you get your podcast, please make sure that you like and subscribe. Welcome to the Beckler Future Ready Podcast. I'm Steve Harley and I'm joined by Document Solutions Consultant Ian Hurd. Welcome to the podcast, Ian. Thank you for having me. That's been brilliant. I'm really looking forward to it. You and I have very different experiences of print. So I understand that in my in my 24-ish year career in IT, I got to the stage where I wasn't allowed to specify or sell or go anywhere near a printer. But that's not been your experience of the last 30 years. How's that world been for you?

SPEAKER_02 1:24

And I must remember that when we're when we're in the office. But um yeah, uh it it's it's one of those subjects. It's it's it's an IT subject. Now it it never traditionally was an IT subject. So um it's always one that generally fascinates those that I talk to, um both internally and externally, because it's almost left field from your kind of software and server and security.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

It's not core tech any, or it doesn't, it's not seen as core tech, but yet yet it is hundreds of facilities, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:56

It did used to be facilities, yeah. Um and it's now become um an IT sort of subject, an IT arena, and something for them to sort of include. And uh and it's kind of um I think a lot of people are resistant to sort of taking print on. Um and then it's a little bit mystifying, and that's my job essentially is to demystify it. Um and I've um you know I'm very privileged to be within an organization like Becklow where it's an IT-centric organization, but I can I can practice my my my print um you know daily. Yes, absolutely, you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Uh well that that changed though over time. Uh that's an interesting point. It used to be facilities, it's now uh seen as an IT uh function. What's driven that? It it can't just be that that emails replaced faxes. There must be more to it than that, right? There is more to it than that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

But um it's over a period of time, um, it's now um kind of evolved to being this sort of standalone, um very paper-heavy, very um, you know, all about where it sits and the and the utilization of them and and and and the the storage of the materials to being a uh end almost an end-user compute device um within an organization. It is plugged into the network. Um people go up to it and can input various different things on there and type in email addresses to scan things to.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

So your business process now, whereas it previously was as just say just, but but it was it's previously a physical thing, but now it's a digital thing as well. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Um so uh it it's it's quite rightly now fallen under the the IT umbrella um because of things like security, um, because it it it needs to be looked after by the uh by the IT staff.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Uncontrolled. And I I suppose there's also that whole whole thing where we had, you know, I remember it a few years that that the paperless office. Yes. Is it paperless or is it paperless? You know, is that a real is that actually ever become a thing?

SPEAKER_02 4:07

That has been a phrase that's been thrown around now for probably about 20, 25 years. So when I first started almost 30 years ago, um email was was you know really taken off and and that was seen as the way of sharing information. Um and people at the time said, oh, you know, this is this is gonna be the end of people printing because ultimately we'll just share the documents by email. Um traditionally, something came into the organization, um, it was opened post or or or what however it was, and everybody wanted a copy. So the first thing someone walked up to the photocopier, they put it in, they type in 200 copies, press start and leave it.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Um, and hopefully three hours later, there were 200 copies there. If it hadn't run out of paper in the meantime, um, but to answer your question, um, I haven't come across a paperless office yet.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Do you know it's it's I just as you were speaking, then I was remembering a story from from um it would have been about 15, 15, maybe a little bit longer, 20 years ago, probably actually no, 20 years ago, um, when we were first talking about mobile email, and I remember speaking to a uh business leader, and he was a lawyer, and he was explaining to me how he didn't need email on his mobile phones on the go anymore, um because he had a lady that printed out each individual email he received and put it on his desk each day. So so that that change though of of going that how much we rely on it has has that tilted is because it it it used to be that you'd almost want a printer on every desk. And I remember Brother, for example, would would actually you know advocate that you know it's it's next to you, it's it's there. Is that still the world we live in today? It it seems it feels like it's not, but yeah, I'm sat with paper in front of me today. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

Um it has changed. There's a shift now to a printer on every desk to maybe a printer or two on every floor. Um, and that's come about because um print has evolved, it's advanced, um, and it's very much caught up to the to the IT uh philosophy of um secure the device, um protect the data, protect the information, protect the network, um, and also audit, monitor, and control who's using the device. So you had a print on every desk before because everybody wanted to print everything out and they didn't want to get up and go anywhere and go collect their print. But actually, the the the the advent of things like um secure print uh or push print pull print where he needed a card or a pin to release uh the print has has meant it's impractical to put a printer on every desk. Yeah. Um, and actually we've now gone to a model where there are larger, more capable devices within organizations, but a lot less of them. Um also driven by the reduction of general print.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Yeah, it's an interesting angle there. As you were speaking, I was thinking to myself, um, that that that printer on every desk, the piece where you kind of see it a lot was it's in the finance director's uh desk because he's printing out, oh she's printed out uh you know some really sensitive documentation or it's in HR, and so we can't have it left around. But that that modern security controls embedded, that presumably has taken that away and allows you to kind of get away from that and and then have that consolidation and that that management device. It does, it does.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Although um when doing audits or when speaking with uh um um you know uh key stakeholders within organizations, there is still the exception to the rule of printer on a desk. Um that's normally a CEO or a uh uh um you know a chief finance officer or whoever it might be who insists that they will want a uh printer on their desk. But but but ordinarily, yeah, the the the whole security um issue has been taken away by that. Um in fact, a lot of solutions now that incorporate um follow me print or or or pull print will allow delegate printing. So actually, what you can do as if you're if you're too important to move to to to go anywhere and collect your own. I was gonna say inkjets as status site symbols is is is something, isn't it? You know they can actually ask somebody else to do that on their behalf. So if you have a PA or a secretary or a colleague who is happy to um to make that three-metre journey down the corridor to the photocopier, um, then it can be programmed that they can release the prints on on your behalf. And that's all tracked and monitored in the background. So if if if anyone thinks that something has been released that shouldn't have been released or whatever, you you you've got complete and utter auditability, shall we say, of of everything that's going on.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

And you know, uh apart from those security concerns and uh I obviously the cost because print has often been uh spoken about as a as a kind of a cost optimization problem, as it were. Um what other things should businesses be thinking about when they're considering their document solutions?

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Good question, Stephen. And I and it's gone beyond print now. Um the the history of having a lot of printed pages within an organization and everything being printed and then uh filed and archived and that kind of thing has has has all but disappeared. Um certainly from a um from a current perspective, obviously there's a lot of there's a lot of back uh documentation that's either stored off-site or on-site. Um and those that's another subject around sort of services around backscanning and and digitization and that sort of thing, which is which is you know hot topic um as well. Um but what's happened now is is those documents that were printed and were being tracked and and audited and that sort of thing have now gone digital, they've now gone under the radar. And and I say under the radar because actually when they were printed, they could be everyone knew that they were there. If there was a part of paper on a desk, you could you can see there's a part of paper on the desk and you say, Oh, what's that? And you say such and such document. Well, why have you printed that? Because Sandra is uh is looking after that document. Get rid of that because you shouldn't have it. Um we have now with things like OneDrive SharePoint, we we we almost have a uh disorganized um filing room where anybody can just chuck a file into this room, close the door, and it's it's just uh it's a it's a it's a mess, it's disorganized, and and in some ways it's quite dangerous for it depending on your organization. But it's not visible in the same way, yeah. But you can't see it, and it's almost like if we can't see it, it's not a problem, but but but it is, and the and the problems facing companies now are they don't actually have a good handle as to what information they're storing. They know, you know, file properties, you can go and say, right, okay, we've got six and a half terabytes of documents, but we don't know what they are. We don't know how much of that is duplicate data, we don't know how much of that is outdated. Um, so these very, very much are the challenges around um managing the data that exists within an organization, um, cleansing that information, and uh also being able to uh audit and track and control who's viewing it and who's uh um editing it ultimately.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Yeah, it's really really um key, I suppose, the the the types of engagement that document solutions uh uh uh you know can can deliver. You it's moved, as you say, beyond that um what's my cost per print, what's my cost to store. Um if you're talking about that unstructured data, these solutions then presumably with the ad advent of AI can give people a window into that that unstructured data that is that's just that that might be on paper or might still be in a word file document. Is that the sort of thing that you're getting involved in today? Is that how people are engaging with you?

SPEAKER_02 12:11

Those are the conversations that we're now having, um, and and they resonate as well. Um print's an older industry, and I think we're we're we're we just look we look into the churn a lot of the time about saying you've got these devices and actually you don't need this speed, we don't need this specification, and we can downgrade and print's still print's still there, it's still needed. It's still a factor. Um, but the conversations that we're having now and and and are are really you know getting the uh the attention of um of a lot of our clients are asking certain questions around do you know what you've got and do you know where it is and do you know who's accessing it? Um and believe it or not, a number of our conversations are now coming up around auditing. Um and I didn't realise, you know, as I'm fairly naive or was fairly naive to the to the to the pain and in a lot of ways cost of auditing. Um, you know, auditors coming in and saying, right, okay, we need to we need you to pull up your information on this and actually how much time that takes and how difficult that can be. Um and unfortunately, a lot of the conversations we're having are post-audit. Gotcha. Rather than pre-audit. And that's really what we want to start to to capture now is to almost sort of lessons learned from our from our part. We've learned the lessons by looking at it externally. Um we're trying to send that message out to say, look, before you get an audit, actually that let's have a conversation, let's look at how easy would it be for you to present the information if you were asked to, and actually, what is the cost as a business of of doing that in time, uh, resource, um, you know, and and possibly paying somebody externally to do that for you.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

I I suppose that that that's another sign of that evolution, that that conversation, isn't it? Uh and now I I I think there's been an element of when we talked about IT earlier and the transition of uh of document solutions and print into IT, how perhaps some reticence from an IT engineer's point of view. And so you know, I graduated as a software engineering way in the midst of time, right? So I was always a software guy. Um, but and I would be be wary of of touching touching that kind of the physical side of it. I suppose the the the importance now is that with the the value of that data and the amount that there now exists uh and how it can be interactive with, you can't just ignore it anymore. It it's got to be part of your IT strategy and how you engage. And I I suspect that's something lots of businesses miss. It is it is, Stephen.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

And and as time goes on, um, the problem's only getting worse. Um the amount of documents that now come into an uh you know a business or or or information, I call them documents. Yeah. You know, we we're thinking PDFs, we're thinking word files as documents, but actually anything that that that that that exists in a structure that you you can view as an end user can can be called a document. Um the the longer that goes on, the bigger the problem becomes. Um and eventually I think what's going to happen is is is there's going to be this um this situation where it reaches critical mass.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

I could believe that. I as we're speaking, I I'm just thinking to myself that this is a this is a data management problem. You know, that that's that's at its core what we're talking about. The format of the data being unstructured or even physical, um, we in it and in boardrooms, we allow ourselves to think it's some sort of separate problem. So we could we can talk about IT infrastructure and network connectivity, and we can talk about databases, and we can talk about the cloud storage in the cloud cloud, and we can kind of pretend that that that that document solutions is uh is a print thing that is uh you know to one side. Yeah. But but it's actually about your most valuable resource, or one of your most valuable resources, being being an organization's data.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Yeah. It's it's information, it's information management, and it's it's it's being able to um comply ultimately, I think, with with the ever-increasing um uh rules and regulations that exist out there around retaining data. Um and we know full well what that's like. Um because if you are a um a medical business or if you're an insurance business, or if if you're in financial, uh you're a financial organization, you know full well the rules around how how much you can um how much data you can keep, how long you need to keep it for.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

But as a as a as a as a day-to-day business, you know, doing anything, manufacturing, uh you might be a logistics company, um marketing, you know, any any any kind of I think it applies to unregulate or less regulated industry, so I think that that those rules still exist, but I think they they they they fall down the pecking order, they fall down the list somewhat.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Um actually it's realizing that you're falling foul of certain rules. You you you you allow data onto your system, you don't assign it a expiry date, you don't uh assign it a a level of importance, you don't say this is customer sensitive data, there's no metadata um if you don't have a structured um document solution.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

So if we we talk a little bit about um uh the questions that people should be asking themselves in the boardroom. How how does this view of document solutions print uh need to change for the modern modern world? You know, what what should what should the CEO, the managing director, the CFO, the CO, you know, what what should they be asking? How should they view view this? Uh is this cost optimization or is this is compliance or or you know how what change needs to happen there in your view?

SPEAKER_02 18:08

It's it it's a good question. Um I think there's a number of answers to that, but ultimately I would say if we if we look at this a little like the evolution of print over the years, um and having started out almost 30 years ago and seeing you know photocopiers and printers just dotted around and anyone could walk over to them and scan, copy. Yeah, um, oh I'm you know, it's probably before scan to email, but even when scan to email came in, it was kind of like, oh, I just want to send this to my cousin. Yeah, you know, in Australia. And you could just put their email address in and pop off it went, and no one really understood. So we've seen that evolution in print over the years, um, to the stage now where devices are locked down and someone in IT can bring up a um a you know a display menu or whatever it might be and actually view the printers and actually go, that's what that's what they're doing. Um can't do the same with unstructured data. And and and ultimately the question that I think most organizations need to ask themselves are um why why aren't our documents electronically in the same state as we've got our print in in terms of lockdown, fully auditable, can be monitored. Why are we training them differently? Exactly, it's the same data, it's the same data. You've taken it from paper and you've put it into into into um digital format and allowed it to essentially slip under the radar. Um that would be the overarching question, I think, that that most organizations can can sort of ask themselves and see whether they have an answer. Um the other ones, I think, as you've mentioned, Stephen, around things like security and compliance, you know, actually, do we comply with GDPR? Do we comply with the, you know, how long we can retain uh sensitive customer information for? If we have a document that someone's written that's got customer name, address, date of birth in, that's staying on that. Becomes a problem in the cloud for forever, essentially. And it shouldn't be the it shouldn't be the way. And it it doesn't have to be because there's now so much available to us that that that that actually this this doesn't have to be this way anymore.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

I think that's I think that's the biggest thing I've taken away so far from our conversation is that that mindset shift that we need to make that um uh that that just because it's on a piece of paper or it might have started on a piece of paper, doesn't mean that it's not data and it needs to be treated in the same way and and and dealt with in the in the same way. Um for for businesses out there looking at their options to how they go about addressing that, you know, what makes Beckler unique when we're having these conversations?

SPEAKER_02 20:58

I'd I'd say we're unique in terms of um how we are in in other areas of our business. The fact that we are uh we're independent, we're not owned by uh a vendor or a manufacturer, we're not we're not, we're not um we're not told to push a certain solution forward. Um we fit the solution to the customer's requirement and not the other way around, essentially. So um I think we're unique in terms of we have a spec we have specialist teams in-house for this sort of stuff. Um I have experience where in this sort of field it's very much kind of like you've asked me a question, I'll get on the phone to a particular vendor and I'll ask them what their solution is. Whereas actually our job is to is to understand the market and bring the best solution forward for the customer. Um, what that does is delivers exactly what is required. It looks at all the nuances, it looks at the customer as an individual and not a oh, well, you're you're a logistics company. We've done this before for a logistics company, you must always All be the same, but no two companies are the same. So we take the same approach with everybody. We start at the beginning, we fact find, we discover, and then we introduce the right partners, the right vendors at the right time. Then to blend in a whole you know a whole mixture of products and services and and and portfolio to end up with a robust and uh essentially fit-for-purpose solution for the customer.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Do you know there there will be there's likely be customers of mine from 10-15 years ago who I inflicted uh a printer on on through my naivety as we're sitting there watching this now or listening to this now, going going, Steve, where was this man? When I was reviewing our print estate.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Well, we can't turn back the clock, Stephen, but we can we can we can certainly make amends for that. We can get back in there, can't we? And we can we can start those conversations, Kevin.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Definitely, definitely. Ian, it's been a real pleasure to sit down with you. It's been really interesting, different take, I think, around uh around a subject that that um I think is isn't isn't considered deeply enough from the people's IT strategy. So thank you ever so much for that. It's been a real pleasure. Uh you're welcome and thanks for having me.