The need to address climate change remains a primary influence on businesses and their operations across Europe, while the fair and respectful treatment of workers is becoming increasingly important. The use of generative AI is exploding, and new applications are created all the time. While on the one hand this is helping to utilize resources more effectively and increase employee productivity, at the same time, the use of AI for nefarious intentions is also growing and evolving, which means that vigilance and security of business systems have never been more important. Here are Konica Minolta's predictions for some of the key Digital Workplace trends that will be important in 2025.
Trend 1: Sustainability
The effects of climate change are being felt by more and more people, including in Europe. In 2025, sustainability, green technologies, and how to enable resource-efficient operations will therefore continue to be a major focus. Digitalization can play an important role here. Of course, this also applies to the Digital Workplace. Digitalization is excellent for replacing paper documents and their associated waste (figures show 50% of office waste is paper
[1]). Figures also show that cloud solutions are more energy-efficient than when companies maintain their IT environment on local servers
[2]. On the other hand, digitalization and increasing data volumes consume energy, especially the ever-increasing integration of AI, and the number of IT infrastructures is also increasing: data centers need to be built or expanded, hardware needs to be purchased and upgraded accordingly, and employees also need devices that meet the latest requirements. This naturally has an impact: electronic waste accumulates at an incredible rate of three times faster than the global population growth
[3] and storing 1GB of data generates 0.28kg of CO2
[4].
"We must ensure that
digitalized processes are resource-efficient,” emphathizes Olaf Jonas, General Manager Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) at Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH. Konica Minolta's
Intelligent Connected Workplace focuses on digital collaboration and intelligent, low paper usage processes. With solutions such as
M-Files or
Dispatcher Phoenix, the company supports the digitalization of paper-intensive processes. The
Microsoft 365 collaboration solution also helps to reduce data transfer with intelligent sharing functions. Moreover, Konica Minolta’s own data centers run on 100% renewable energy and Konica Minolta also tries to pay attention to this with third-party providers, such as with its
Workplace Pure and
SafeQ Cloud solutions, which are hosted in the Open Telekom Cloud data center, which is also
operated with 100% renewable energy. Konica Minolta is constantly improving its circular economy approach and offers solutions for
refurbishing MFPs and toner bottles to ensure that primary raw materials are used sparingly.
Trend 2: Human-centric Workplaces
In recent years, people and their individual needs have increasingly taken center stage. This will continue in 2025. This also applies to the workplace. In a workplace, employees should be able to develop, their creativity and self-improvement should be encouraged, and their welfare should be a high priority. At a practical level, this means creating comfortable and ergonomic workspaces and addressing both physical and mental health needs to help workers operate efficiently. Equally, fostering an inclusive environment, ensuring leaders are empathetic to their employees’ needs, and engaging with employees in decision-making processes all help to make employees feel valued, supported, and engaged. Encouraging employees to participate in social initiatives and community service helps the business team to engage with the wider community. Additionally, employees will appreciate support for a healthy work/life balance through flexible work arrangements, professional development, and being fairly paid for their work (including benefits and incentives) helps to engender a more motivated and loyal workforce.
To help employees find the best work/life balance Konica Minolta enables a
flexible approach to working in the office, from home, or a hybrid option. To further support its employees’ working experience it also runs its
Flourish Program, which supports personal development and growth, health and well-being, and the celebration of talent and achievement. To promote inclusivity through diversity and equality, the company runs several programs including Woman2Lead and ShePlus, along with its ERGs (Employee Resource Groups) such as the
LGBTQ+ network VIBRANT or the increase of awareness for disability inclusion.
Trend 3: Generative AI and Automation
The use of generative AI and automation will continue to become more widespread in 2025. These technologies will help streamline operations, enhance productivity, and improve employee experiences. Popular AI-powered tools can help create and compose written collateral such as marketing content, reports, or emails. To accompany this, AI can be used for image creation to produce specific high-quality (and often royalty-free) images that are quick to produce and use. On the operational side of the business, AI-powered chatbots are commonly used by retail and other service providers as part of online customer service to produce instant responses for customer inquiries, which also helps to alleviate some of the pressure on human customer service teams and allows them to concentrate on more bespoke customer needs. Elsewhere, generative AI can be used to analyze large datasets to generate insights and reports, helping businesses make better and more accurate data-driven decisions. It can also be deployed to process electronic invoices or to help automate HR recruitment processes, helping to find suitable candidates by screening resumes/applications.
AI is already being used in many of Konica Minolta's document management and process optimization solutions to support workers in their daily work. For example, M-Files helps employees summarize documents or ask questions about documents with its
Generative AI assistant Aino. Additionally, as part of
Microsoft 365, Copilot can be used to quickly create drafts on any topic in Word, transform long email conversations into short summaries in Outlook, or produce fine-tuned presentations quickly in PowerPoint. With
Copilot in
Microsoft Power Platform, applications, workflows, and websites can also be created even more quickly and easily with Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Pages. With Copilot Studio as part of the Power Platform, chatbots can be developed for customer service, for example. In addition,
Workplace Pure allows workers to have documents translated with AI support. Konica Minolta also uses AI and machine learning to automate data extraction from documents such as invoices, contracts and orders, and to analyze and evaluate contract data.
Trend 4: AI-Driven Cyber Threats
Cybercriminals are increasingly using AI to launch sophisticated attacks. At the beginning of 2024 for example, a Hong Kong-based company lost HK$200 million (US$40 million) when AI was used to fake a video call with convincingly generated AI versions of senior leaders to authorize payments
[5]. The Microsoft Digital Defence Report 2024 highlights AI as one of the current and emerging threats to IT security
[6]. AI attacks can target the IT infrastructure, with examples such as AI-driven malware and ransomware, automated vulnerability discovery and exploitation, evasion AI Attacks on Machine Learning systems, and password cracking. AI attacks can also target human beings using methods such as Phishing, Vishing (voice phishing via phone calls), and Deepfakes. So, businesses will need to leverage AI and machine learning to detect and respond to these threats in real time. They should also conduct employee training to sensitize staff and teach them how to deal with AI attacks correctly.
Konica Minolta can help defend businesses against AI-powered threats.
Workplace Intrusion Patrol for instance is a managed security service that recognizes and combats cyber security threats. It secures a wide range of areas: endpoints like servers, computers, and mobile devices, and also eliminates risks originating from phishing emails, malicious links and attachments, leaked user accounts, etc. Advanced AI algorithms continuously analyze data streams to detect threats or anomalies, automatically taking action or engaging the Konica Minolta Security Operations Centre (SOC) for further analysis and to mitigate the incident. Additionally, Konica Minolta also offers security training to build awareness and understanding of information security issues among a business’s team.
Trend 5: Enhanced Cloud Security
As more businesses move to the cloud, securing cloud environments will be a top priority – particularly with the evolution of AI-driven cyber threats. Businesses must be assured they have the right security in place to protect sensitive data and meet compliance requirements (such as GDPR and NIS2 in Europe), but also to protect customer trust and meet the scaling needs of hybrid working. Figures from Statista show a considerable growth in demand for Cloud Security which is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2024-2029) of 25.98%
[7]. The security measures include implementing robust access controls, encryption, and monitoring to protect data stored in the cloud.
Whether at its own data centers or those of third-party providers,
Konica Minolta guarantees the highest level of security. This includes ISO 27001/27017 (information security) and DIN EN 50600 (data center planning, construction, and operation) certification, encrypted data transfer, two-factor authentication, SSO synchronization, and user pseudonymization.
