When people ask about “innovations,” I try to steer the conversation away from flashy features and toward changes that actually reduce work. In recent years, the innovations I notice most in this space tend to fall into a few buckets: Better security and identity features built into devices, smarter automation for scanning and document routing, cloud-friendly management, and service models that use remote diagnostics to prevent downtime. I’ve seen offices benefit a lot from the less glamorous upgrades, like improved admin visibility, stronger default security settings, and easier integration with common cloud tools.
I remember the first time I saw secure print release set up in a busy shared office. It wasn’t “new” in a sci-fi sense, but it changed behaviour immediately. People stopped hovering at printers, sensitive pages stopped getting left behind, and IT stopped dealing with complaints about missing documents. That kind of practical innovation is the stuff that makes Monday mornings less painful.
If you’re trying to evaluate what’s “new” and relevant for your business, my tip is to pick one workflow you want to modernise, then ask how the technology supports it end to end. For example, “incoming invoices to approval to ERP,” or “new employee paperwork to HR folder to retention policy.” Innovations that improve just one step can still be valuable, but the best ones reduce handoffs and retyping.
If you want to dig deeper, there's a great resource that I came across.
Before I forget, I’d also consider sustainability-related improvements like better energy management and usage reporting, since those features can turn into real savings when you manage fleets across multiple sites.