Technology Costs
How much does outdated technology hurt SMB competitiveness?
Summary: Putting off investments in new PCs and other infrastructure may save money in the short-term, but research suggests sticking with older technology may hurt a small company’s credibility with employees and customers.
The Intel research (conducted by Techaisle) suggests that small-business workers could be losing up to one work week per year because of old personal computers. If a PC is four years or older, employees lose 21 hours on repairs, maintenance and security fixes, according to the Intel Small Business PC Refresh Study. The survey covered 736 small businesses with fewer than 100 employees in Brazil, China, Germany, India, Russia and the United States.
The average cost to repair PCs four years or older is now around $427, according to the survey. That’s about 1.3 times the amount needed to fix a system that is less than four years old.
More than one-third of the businesses surveyed (36 per cent) are clinging to older systems, the Intel study found. Small companies in the United States were more inclined to make do as long as they can: 8 per cent of the ones surveyed were using systems more than five years old, compared with 5 per cent of the companies from other countries.
“PCs are largely considered the foundation for many of these companies, and this study makes a clear-cut case for refreshing them on a regular basis,” said Rick Echevarria, vice president of the PC Client Group and General Manager of the Business Client Platform division at Intel, in remarks about the data.
The Microsoft research looks at things from a customer perspective, and it’s based on the opinions of 1,405 general consumers polled online via SurveyMonkey in September 2013.
Here are four of the main revelations:
- 61 per cent think an SMB is out of date if it’s using an operating system that is more than five years old
- 25 per cent think an SMB lacks credibility if it is using a free email service
- 68 per cent think “modern technology” is key to the success of a business
- 70 per cent said they were be “extremely or quite concerned” about providing personal information on an outdated SMB Website
Even more than those findings, I especially appreciated the list of attributes that define a “modern SMB,” according to the Microsoft study. Here they are, ranked by the percentage of respondents who expected these things:
- Network security certificates that protect personal information (63.5 per cent)
- Email appointment confirmations (61.6 per cent)
- Real-time online chat and scheduling (59.8 per cent)
- Modern mobile devices including tablets and smartphones (57.8 per cent)
- The latest operating system (55.4 per cent)
- Mobile-friendly Web site (54 per cent)
- Mobile payment processing (50 per cent)
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