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14
BULLETIN
Printer problems one of the top time
wasters
A survey into office productivity conducted
by YouGov on behalf of Brother, showed
that just over a fifth of senior leaders in
SME businesses believe that solving printer
problems are one of the top things wasting
employee time, while 20% think computer
crashes are zapping productivity.
When asked about other ways of boosting
productivity, just over one third of leaders said
introducing mandatory regular screen breaks
would have a positive impact (34%), 16% said a
change office ergonomics would help and 1 in 10
(11%) said they would limit website access.
Brother UK Managing Director Phil Jones said:
"Productivity is a big issue for ambitious SMEs.
As the survey data shows, millions of hours of
employee time are wasted through typical IT errors
that many people will be all too familiar with. It's
easy to overlook the common issues that have,
wrongly, become part of the working day. Fixing
these issues can deliver quick and long-term
productivity wins that improve staff morale as well
as benefitting the balance sheet. The trick is to
preserve a small amount of time to look for the
seemingly inconsequential things that waste time."
IT budgets to rise
In its report, Mid-market IT priorities 2017, Node4
claims that despite lack of confidence in the UK’s
economic prospects mid-market companies are
bucking the UK trend for lower IT budgets. 77%
of decision-makers in companies with a turnover
of £15m to £800m expect to see an IT budget
increase in 2017, 35% are looking forward to a
rise of 5-10%, with a further 22% anticipating an
increase of over 10%.
Line of business buyers
flexing their muscles
According to a new report by CompTIA,
for decades, the seat of technology
purchasing power belonged to the CIO’s
office or internal IT department. But times
are changing, and a new potential buyer
is emerging, the non-IT line of business
executives.
CompTIA’s latest study examines the habits
of these new buyers, including those from
marketing, finance, logistics and sales. Carolyn
April, Senior Director, Industry Analysis, CompTIA
said: “It’s another strong signal that technology
has shifted from a supporting function for
business to a strategic asset. Line of business
buyers are flexing their muscles and this shift
is impacting the entire IT channel – vendors,
distributors and solution providers.”
April warns that it’s incumbent on the
channel to get their faces in front of line of
business leaders. “Much of what business lines
are buying are cloud-based software solutions
which can be self-provisioned quickly within a
department. For that reason, channel partners
need to package what they sell differently.
“They need to speak the language of
business because this new generation of buyers
doesn’t want to hear about the technical
implications of their purchases,” she explained.
“Channel partners need to position themselves
as consultants and service providers who can
help customers make informed decisions about
what they buy.”
Interruptions barrier to peak performance
Digital technology that helps employees achieve the nirvana like state of optimal
performance could increase productivity significantly, according to research commissioned by
Konica Minolta.
Employees polled said the main barriers to maintaining peak performance are interruptions, computer
problems and problems accessing data when working away from their desks. These barriers can be overcome,
says Konica Minolta, by investing in digital solutions – sometimes called Digital Workplace Initiatives (DWI) to
change how technology, people and the workplace interact.
The research suggests that by the end of last year, finding ways to encourage employees to reach peak
productivity, was the single biggest driver to implement DWIs and to do so quickly. The top three DWI projects
are enabling effective mobile working (62%); effective remote working (56%) and improving collaborative
working technology (49%).
Head of Marketing Francis Thornhill said: “Improving access to information, integrating systems and using
technology as the catalyst for improved performance, should be at the top of every CEOs to-do list.”
Cloud is driving business transformation
The latest research from the Cloud
Industry Forum (CIF) reveals that the
overall cloud adoption rate in the UK
now stands at 88% with 67% of users
expecting to increase their adoption
of cloud services over the coming year.
However, while organisations are clearly
taking a cloud-first approach, the industry
body predicts that the vast majority of
companies will be maintaining hybrid IT
estates for some time to come.
The research polled 250 IT and business
decision-makers in large enterprises, small to
medium-sized businesses and public sector
organisations. The majority of respondents
(58%) described their organisation as having
a hybrid approach to IT and 54% expect to
eventually move their entire IT estate to remotely
hosted cloud services, with 8% of the smallest
organisations in the sample having already done
so. Despite this, inhibitors to cloud adoption still
remain, including concerns over data privacy
(62%) and a lack of budget (35%), meaning
that a ‘cloud-everything’ model is still not yet
feasible for all organisations.
Phil Jones
Francis Thornhill
