Businesses are facing a period of economic uncertainty, as factors like trade frictions, erratic oil prices and changing interest rates cloud the nation’s outlook. At the same time, a tightening labor market makes it challenging to find and retain employees—particularly in technology. This is forcing CIOs to rethink where IT budgets should be allocated.

According to John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner, “Through the remainder of 2019, the U.S. dollar is expected to trend stronger, while enduring tremendous volatility due to uncertain economic and political environments and trade wars.”

Lovelock’s words come on the back of Gartner’s latest forecast which estimates worldwide IT spending to total $3.79 trillion in 2019, a slight increase of 1.1 percent from 2018.

While IT leaders have been focused on the opportunities surrounding emerging technologies like AI and blockchain, these economic pressures are moving back-office productivity and cost cutting measures back to the top of the CIO agenda.

Already gaining significant market traction, as-a-service offerings are becoming even more appealing to IT leaders in this context, providing an option to access the latest technologies with minimal upfront investment, costs spread over time via subscriptions, and a way to manage financial risk.

Lexmark recently launched its own as-a-service solution, offering customers a completely new approach to managing print environments.

Cloud Print Infrastructure as a Service (CPI) drives IT savings to help curb operating costs and improve operational efficiency by providing organizations access to a modern, secure print environment through a subscription service—paying only for print capacity rather than owning and managing the physical infrastructure.

CPI enables IT to reduce costs by removing the print infrastructure and management burden, while ensuring an improved user experience. For purchasing departments spending valuable time managing RFPs, complex contracts and accounting rules, the offering provides flexible subscription pricing options, allowing customers to choose from a range of as-a-service billing models that best suit their organizational needs.

This is a completely new approach to print and one which will excite enterprise customers in terms of the productivity, flexibility and the cost benefits it can provide. CPI is a natural progression of Lexmark’s MPS leadership and a huge step forward for the market.