Konica Minolta Business Solutions, U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta), today announced Workplace Hub Pro, further strengthening its all-in-one IT offering to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Joining the Hub and Edge solutions in the next-generation Workplace Hub portfolio, the newly launched device combines powerful, smart office printing technology from Konica Minolta's bizhub i-Series MFP range, with best-of-breed software and managed IT services - all in a single solution.

Designed with the particular IT needs of SMBs in mind, Workplace Hub Pro combines the innovative Workplace Hub software with high-quality bizhub i-Series printing and scanning capabilities to deliver a powerful solution for the intelligent connected workplace. The advanced solution offers customers print and copy speeds ranging from 25ppm to 65ppm (pages per minute), and scanning speeds range from 100/200ipm to 140/280ipm (images per minute). Workplace Hub Pro also offers a comprehensive portfolio of features and applications including print and document management, cloud back-up and remote virtual public network (VPN) connection, and WiFi management to give users the convenience of working with a single provider for all their technology needs.

Konica Minolta's customer research has shown the five biggest SMB challenges are an aging/non-scalable IT infrastructure, few or no internal IT management resources and knowledge to manage ever-growing IT environments and different providers, lack of storage and proper backup, low level of security and little transparency on costs. Recent developments of the COVID-19 crisis have created further challenges for customers, making remote access and collaboration a clear and urgent necessity for them. It highlights the impairments their work processes face by an inadequate and out-of-date IT infrastructure and the need for VPN access as well as smart IT set-ups.

"That's why we believe in growing the Workplace Hub ecosystem - to relieve our customers of these challenges, and help them focus more on their business," said Nick Pegley, Senior Vice President, Digital Workplace, Konica Minolta. "Smaller businesses in particular only have very limited IT resources at their disposal, so for many of our SMB customers, the Workplace Hub portfolio has been a true game changer with regard to their IT capabilities."

These scalable, secure and reliable hybrid IT solutions integrate both physically and virtually even into the smallest office environment, providing digital work tools users require. With managed IT services accessible through these solutions, Konica Minolta can take care of all of its customers' IT needs, allowing even small businesses to benefit from an IT infrastructure otherwise only accessible to larger companies.

Howie Flagler, Vice President of Spector Textile Products and Konica Minolta customer, explains: "Our company, like many small firms, struggles to keep updated with the rapid changes in IT. Maintaining aging hardware, tracking updates, license renewals, implementing upgrades and other tasks all become challenging. We realized that these functions were draining resources away from our primary objectives. Konica Minolta's Workplace Hub, coupled with their IT managed services, allows us to focus on our business knowing that our IT needs will be managed effectively."

Konica Minolta is constantly optimizing and redefining its services and solutions according to fast-changing markets and small businesses requirements, aiming to provide its customers with exactly the solutions they need. "Particularly in smaller businesses and organizations, printing, copying, faxing and scanning are still very much at the core of everyday business routines. Recognizing this need, we decided to provide the full scope of paper-to-digital and digital-to-paper work processing in a Workplace Hub solution, and so we built in the full IT infrastructure into our fully functional and powerful smart MFP bizhub i-Series," Pegley added.

The set-up also allows for a seamless integration of information and business process management, be it digital or paper-based. To ensure the highest level of security, the IT solution and the MFP functionalities run on two separate systems. "Workplace Hub Pro is designed as the heart of our smaller customers' intelligent connected workplace, simplifying both their IT and paper-based document processing. At the same time, it keeps capital as well as operational costs low and flexibility high, as customers pay a consistent monthly fee," Pegley concludes.

Visit Konica Minolta online for more information on Workplace Hub.