Partner Content: The modern workplace is evolving – businesses need the right tools to face the challenge
Businesses today face a whole host of challenges – from an evolving technology landscape to increasing sustainability and cybersecurity concerns.
Navigating these demands requires organisations to reassess the tools they rely on in order to improve the way they operate and support their employees’ work day-to-day.
Against this backdrop, Canon has developed imageFORCE - its latest portfolio of multifunction printers designed to help organisations of all sizes adapt to the demands that businesses face today. Marc Bory, Vice President, Digital Printing & Solutions, Marketing & Innovation at Canon Europe shares how, with cutting-edge technology, imageFORCE enhances performance and drives long-term growth.
Why has Canon introduced imageFORCE? Why now?
imageFORCE has been launched at a point where organisations are battling a wealth of challenges and macro trends. It’s a tough business environment with growing external pressures such as increasingly complex cyber security threats and tighter sustainability legislation pushing business leaders to reevaluate the way they operate and foster long-term growth.
Against this backdrop, a key consideration for businesses is how technology can be used to enhance employee experience. When employees are better supported, businesses benefit from stronger collaboration, improved productivity and longer-term profitability.
As our most advanced generation of multifunction printers to-date, imageFORCE is designed to help organisations address many of these challenges head on. The top-of-the-range devices feature attributes such as market-leading print quality, enhanced sustainability capabilities and machine learning powered security settings that help organisations drive productivity in a responsible and secure way.
How does imageFORCE use AI and technology innovation to enhance employee experiences?
AI is becoming an increasingly important element of business technology infrastructure - it can help power processes such as automation, data and print management and it plays a core role in shaping the office experience of employees and supporting their productivity levels.
Central to employee experience is ensuring that machines and tools are always reliable, running efficiently and that downtime is minimised – and this is where imageFORCE makes a difference. Not only is the range built with high-quality and long-lasting parts, the devices use machine learning to analyse performance, identify usage patterns and predict the lifespan of key components. Together, these capabilities help to maintain reliability, resolve issues before they escalate and prevent day-to-day operations from being impacted.
It’s also clear that cyber-attacks can have a significant impact on an organisation – they can disrupt operations, compromise confidential data and expose businesses to financial, legal and reputational risk, bringing whole office systems down and stopping work in its tracks. Our Security Environment Estimation technology, which is incorporated into top-tier imageFORCE devices, also embraces machine learning to support businesses in staying protected. This technology analyses the device’s network environment, recommending optimal settings and in turn helps to minimise vulnerabilities to avert the risk of cyber attacks.
The imageFORCE multifunction platform goes far beyond traditional printing and scanning. Acting as a hub at the heart of the workplace, it enables employees to securely store, access and share information, launch document and data-processing automation and connect seamlessly with popular employee collaboration tools used in day-to-day operations. By bridging the gap between physical paper and digital workflows, imageFORCE helps organisations to efficiently streamline document management, driving higher productivity and supporting better employee experiences.
Why is robust security so important, and how does imageFORCE help minimise risk in this area?
You only need to read the daily news to see the extent that the business world is being impacted by cyber threats. These attacks are becoming a daily part of life and are increasing in volume and sophistication. In fact, organisations of every size and type are being affected, with legacy technologies often proving to be the most vulnerable. At the same time, it’s clear that our customers are trying to navigate complex security legislations such asNIS-2 (2022), Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) (2025) andCyber Resilience Act (CRA) (2024). All of these require action from businesses to ensure that security measures are being met – and this places additional pressure on IT and technical support teams.
Multifunction printers are a critical element of many organisations’ infrastructure, but they are frequently forgotten in the security conversation. They often hold and process a wealth of sensitive data and documents and are deeply integrated into an organisation’s IT infrastructure - it’s therefore essential that businesses take appropriate measures to ensure these end-point devices are protected and properly secured.
imageFORCE is a strong solution in this area – devices apply machine learning to continually monitor security levels, recommending optimal settings which are specific to an organisation’s security environment. This is important for our customers as it not only helps to counteract risks, but allows organisations with limited expertise or with smaller IT teams to be prepared and protected.
Print quality remains key for customer-facing use cases, what performance enhancements does imageFORCE introduce?
For many of our customers, especially those producing in-house promotional materials or printing applications for clients, print quality can help to deliver differentiation from competitors – and overall can directly influence brand perception. imageFORCE is a solution which can help organisations stand out – as uniquely, it delivers the highest resolution 4800 dpi print available on the market, achieved through our cutting-edge, high-definition exposure technology which is used within the high-end devices. This allows businesses to react faster to changing demands, deliver short campaigns without delay and avoid the slower, less flexible nature of outsourcing. Giving the business greater control, agility and impact.
Businesses are always looking to reduce friction in their workflows. How is Canon improving ease of use and reliability through imageFORCE?
Many of the organisations that we work with are navigating fast-paced workplace environments. They are looking for easy to use solutions which can help them to ensure operational efficiency and above all, profitability. imageFORCE has been built to support customers with these needs – for example, our devices are equipped with simple, intuitive, user-friendly interfaces which require minimal training for employees.
It’s also important that businesses balance innovation with reliability – ensuring that they are implementing robust technologies which are thoroughly tested and resilient enough to perform consistently over time. imageFORCE devices are built with highly durable parts and a welded frame to help ensure long term performance – they also include machine learning powered smart sensors which use predictive maintenance algorithms to anticipate part lifespans and identify faults before they occur.
How does imageFORCE contribute to an organisation’s sustainability objectives?
Customers now expect responsible practices from their suppliers, and technology plays a vital role in helping them to meet sustainability obligations. We are also seeing tightening regulation in sustainability, such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and theEU Directive on corporate sustainability due diligence – which have further enhanced sustainability’s critical importance.
Sustainability sits at the heart of our philosophy – and we’re proud of the way that it shapes how our products are designed, how our business operates, and how we support our customers. It’s also great to see the wide recognition that this commitment receives – for example, we were recently awarded with a prestigious Platinum rating for our sustainability efforts by global sustainability ratings organisation EcoVadis, as well as an A score by CDP for our initiatives around climate change.
To support our customers on this journey, our imageFORCE devices are built using up to 30% recycled plastic and long-life parts, which help to support the circular economy, extend product lifespan and in turn minimise environmental impact over the lifecycle of the device. The devices also incorporate technology to track environmental performance, helping to ensure the efficient use of paper and energy, whilst consuming less energy than previous models in our range.
Is there anything else you’d like to highlight?
To thrive in the modern workplace, it’s clear that organisations must embrace best-in-class technology – but what’s also important is the supplier that they chose to work with. A true technology partner is one that offers advanced solutions that deliver real and measurable value to a business – but also goes above and beyond in supporting the organisation with sustainable growth and continual improvements to optimise productivity.
At Canon, for example, we combine exceptional technology with proactive guidance and ongoing support, helping our customers to strengthen performance, unlock opportunities and continuously improve outcomes. We work to ensure that our solutions drive operational excellence, enhance productivity and support long-term success – and that our products are serviced quickly and efficiently to minimise any impact on operations.
Businesses that recognise the value of a strong partner will be best placed for growth and ready to face the challenges of the future.
This article is sponsored by Canon.