Key Factors That Impact Business

Key Factors That Impact Business

When evaluating the cost and value of upgrading, there’s a delicate balance to be found between direct IT costs, end-user costs, and productivity gains.
With any upgrade, it’s important to account for the full business use case and IT support model for all devices, ranging from purchase, deployment, and IT administration to support, security, and disposal—and everything in between.

We review the four key decision factors that have the most significant impact on your business.
These factors include device age, intended device usage, the degree of user mobility, and how the device is managed.
• Device age – The age of the device can greatly impact user productivity and the need for IT resources, becoming an important factor in determining the right time to upgrade.
• Usage model – How an employee uses a device (primary or secondary usage) to accomplish work has a significant impact on required IT service levels and corresponding support costs.
• Employee mobility – How mobile an employee is can have a significant positive impact on productivity, yet there is also the added cost of maintaining and servicing mobile devices.
• Device management model – How IT chooses to manage an employee device in terms of data security, application flexibility, and business service delivery affects the support costs.

Determining the right time to upgrade devices is a critical decision point for any enterprise.
It seems like a simple concept, but every device has a useful life span. Many IT organisations establish a strategic cadence for regular refresh, but choose to hold on to older devices for practical reasons—from limited capital budget or IT resources to potential disruptions in workflow. And as these devices continue to age, organisations incur escalating IT support costs, while users experience increased downtime.

When determining the right time to replace aging devices, it’s important to consider the key areas that can quickly escalate costs:

Repair and Resale
• Specialised repair – Maintaining older devices adds costs and complexity.
• Reduced availability for spare parts
• Added costs to inventory spare parts
• Specialised warranty coverage
• Specialised IT skills needed
• Repairs made out of warranty – Extending the original manufacturer’s warranty coverage or paying for out-of-warranty repairs can add up fast.
• Resale value – As devices age, the used hardware will have a lesser value on the secondary market, if it’s sellable at all.

Impact on IT and Employee Resources 
• Help desk – Older devices require more IT support, such as troubleshooting, management, and repairs.
• Lost employee productivity – Employees spend more time troubleshooting devices, which impacts productivity.

People spend up to three days a year waiting for older devices to boot or load web pages.

Security Complexity 
• Malware protection – Older devices typically lack the security to prevent and respond to today’s sophisticated malware attacks.
• Patch management and deployment – Additional security measures such as frequent patching and operating system updates can take valuable IT time and resources; if not managed well, these can also result in user downtime.

Hardware and Software Compatibility 
• Update history – Older devices are challenging to manage because there are more configurations, application updates, and system images for IT to navigate.
• Newer software – Some new software may not be able to run, or can negatively impact system and application performance.

The way in which a device is used has a significant impact on the degree of IT support required. For workers, it’s about having access to applications and data with the flexibility to work across a variety of devices.

For IT, the focus is on the degree of support needed to balance service quality against costs while maintaining proper data security and availability to keep the business running efficiently.

There are two common usage models for devices, primary and secondary, which dictate two very different support and cost models:

• Primary – This model represents the devices necessary for accomplishing assigned work-related tasks and therefore receives the full support of IT.
Primary devices are most commonly a company desktop PC or laptop. However, for highly mobile workers, tablets are also emerging as a popular option.
• The applications and software running on this device typically include a full suite of business applications and services fundamental to business process workflows, such as inventory reporting, payroll processing, or file sharing and enterprise collaboration.
• Proactive IT service delivery and support is required for this device. If the device fails, there is a clear impact on user productivity and business processes.
• Secondary – This increasingly popular model represents complementary device usage for more flexible access to business services from multiple locations. Secondary devices are most commonly a phone or tablet, but could also be a home PC with access to the corporate network.
• Workers may rely on secondary devices daily for a reduced set of basic business services, such as e-mail access and content consumption, gaining incremental productivity in the process.
• IT support includes securing data and information delivery, with lower expectations for data availability and productivity.

The Risks of Aging Devices

The Risks of Aging Devices 

Today’s IT organisations are juggling constant change. The environment is rife with new security threats, and consumerisation has brought an influx of personally owned mobile devices into the workplace. Employee expectations around technology have changed; users now want the same level of flexibility with services and devices that they experience at home. Complicating matters are aging devices that can’t guard against the latest malware, run advanced software, or deliver on portability and speed. And newer, more sophisticated applications can easily slow performance on older systems, becoming a drag on user productivity. 

Manage costs and increase productivity 

Businesses are often faced with the difficult decision to either spend money upfront upgrading their devices, or stick with their old PCs. While using older devices can save you money in the short term, businesses risk lower productivity by sticking to older, slower devices.

How older devices affect your business:

29% of office workers say lower productivity is often caused by PC problems

53% try to fix their PC problems on their own, leading to a loss in productivity

3 days are lost each year waiting to boot or load a 4-year-old PC