Business PCs versus consumer PCs – top tips for your business

In the technology-driven economy of today, your IT choices can directly impact the productivity of your workforce and consequently your company’s bottom line. The secret to getting your IT strategy right is to plan carefully and invest for choosing the right breed of PC for your business.

In partnership with Lenovo, we’ve outlined some of the top tips and things to look out for.

The appeal of consumer PCs

Many startups and emerging companies tend to pick consumer PC when buying for employees. This may happen for several reasons, including:

  • Lack of awareness of the rigours of business computing
  • Unclear of the differences between consumer PCs and business PCs
  • Overemphasis on aesthetics or price

Most importantly, the seemingly more economical cost of consumer-grade devices make them appear to be the right choice, but the total cost of ownership (TCO) of PCs is far more critical, much like the cost of spares and service for a car over its lifetime.

According to Gartner, a significant bulk of costs associated with PCs appear months and years after purchase, often exceeding the original price. TCO for a PC includes purchase costs plus the cost of spares, service, and support needed to keep them operational over a defined lifetime. Reliability and durability are fundamental to ensuring lower TCO of PCs. Business PCs score much higher than consumer PCs on all factors especially.

Designed to enhance business benefits

Business PCs are purpose-built to perform reliably, efficiently and with ease, even in the most challenging work environments. They are better engineered and equipped with features that are not usually found or needed in consumer-grade devices.

Better productivity: Business PCs come with CPUs optimised for work-related software and tasks, and faster memory and hard drives to prevent performance bottlenecks. They can be customised to suit specific business functions and offer battery life that allows working for hours at a stretch. And better cooling technology ensures business PCs can run faster and for more extended periods of time, without incurring internal damage or performance losses from heat.

Better Reliability & Mobility: On the road, a business PC is visibly better at WiFi and mobile broadband connectivity because of superior antenna design. And because they are built of sturdy and light materials, like carbon fiber and metal alloys, they can withstand years of wear and tear. They also undergo a series of rigorous testing to ensure durability in any work environment and are equipped with rapid charging technology for 80% charge in just sixty-minutes, so you are not dependent on a power outlet.

Better Security and Manageability: Business PCs are quick and easy to deploy, and are designed with security in mind. They offer security features such as self-encrypting hard drives, anti-theft technology, biometric user authentication and more. More importantly, most business PCs come with a comprehensive portfolio of services that include 24/7 technical assistance, extended warranties and on-site visits, if necessary. Unlike most consumer PCs, business PCs can be serviced anywhere in the world.

Planning for the future

The stage at which your organisation is at also needs to be taken into account when selecting PCs, as the benefits that the PC should bring to your business and how it can help the company move forward are essential.

Startups:

PCs purchased at this stage of growth need to be sufficiently equipped to sustain the long hours of work necessary to take a business off the ground. Also, the PCs chosen should be very reliable and easy to use as most startups do not have full-time IT teams.
Look for MIL-spec reliability testing, extended warranties, and accidental damage protection.

High-growth businesses:

Businesses that sustain around 10 percent growth every year tend to be more sophisticated in their IT requirements. The workforce is more diversified and demanding. The PC solution should be matched to different working styles and tasks, and be upgradeable without hassle. Plus, a smartly selected set of accessories for the PC can help employees and the company derive the maximum value from its PC investment.
Look for hot-swap drives, batteries, graphics cards and tool-less access to memory.

Mature businesses:

Mature business need devices that don’t just cater to their current needs but can also meet future requirements. They should opt for the top of the line products that offer top performance and a future-ready feature set, reducing the need for frequent upgrades.
Look for the latest generation of CPU, operating system, display technology, and storage.

Once you have a clear understanding of your requirements, you are better equipped to look for business PCs that best fit your business needs.

From durability and security to customised features and applications for business, and a comprehensive service offering, a business PC will provide you with the confidence necessary to expand your business and focus on what matters – your future.

Check out this handy infographic to help you with your planning depending on the stage of maturity your business is at.

 

As Lenovo Platinum Solution Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the Lenovo range and how it could be effectively deployed in your business. To find out more give us a call on 01274 396 213 or email  and we’ll get back to you promptly.

 

Effective collaboration – here to stay or just another buzz word?

It feels like everyone is talking about collaboration these days. How can businesses improve customer experiences, enhance cross-team engagement and increase productivity through collaboration and what tools need to be deployed to make that collaboration effective? 

In a recent survey conducted by Harvard Business Review, findings highlighted the two most important areas that collaboration needed to address within the workplace as delivering ‘effective team communication’ and ‘fostering collaboration both inside and outside an organisation.’ With teams becoming increasingly dispersed, the challenge for managers can be centred on making remote workers feel included and not isolated.

As part of the research, Robert Cross, a management professor at the University of Virginia, shared findings recently that showed a 50 percent increase in ‘collaborative intensity’ over the last 10 years, citing that today’s managers spend between 90 and 95 percent of their working hours in meetings or responding to emails compared to 60 to 65 percent little more than a decade ago.

So how does technology fit into this environment? We have an increasing global workforce whose office ‘fits in the palm of their hand’. As consumers, our mobile devices enable us to connect with people via a wide variety of apps, whether its Skype, Facebook, Snapchat or WhatsApp. We can manage our lives from our mobiles, even control the heating in our homes remotely and the business environment is starting to catch up. There is an increasing amount of business applications designed to improve our productivity such as OneNote, Office 365 or Evernote whilst there is a plethora of web based conferencing tools from Skype for Business to Google Hangout – we can now have virtual video meetings, bringing the right people into the meeting at a click of an icon rather than long laborious phone calls. Video conferencing can also mean that we can connect with more people than ever before, reducing the need for lengthy travel time to hour long meetings…

But with more time being spent in meetings than ever before, how can technology help improve the meeting experience? Interactive devices have exploded onto the market with the emergence of the ‘collaboration board’, a term used to describe large format, interactive displays that form the core of the collaboration hub, huddle or zone.

Improved productivity and greater work efficiency is a result of contribution and meeting room technology should facilitate this. We can collaborate every day on tablets, laptops and ‘individual’ screens but true and effective collaboration happens on a ‘shared’ screen, meaning a screen multiple users in the same room can view, absorb information from and contribute on then the workgroup can achieve better results.

The entrants into this new market include industry giants such as Microsoft with the Surface Hub, the Google Jam Board or the Cisco SparkBoard, all launching to the market in the past 18 months. These solutions provide users with an environment that enhances the work place by delivering a solution designed to improve communication within teams and customers or capture meeting findings and actions, increasing productivity. The downside to some of these platforms is that they are ‘locked down’ to the propriety software / applications pioneered by the manufacturers. That’s why the solution from Avocor is so unique, designed with ease of use in mind, they enhance cross-team collaboration and improve productivity by offering a simple user interface. Powered by an on-board internal Windows 10 PC, getting meetings started is straight forward by just hitting the recognisable Windows icon, gaining instant access to familiar applications available for mobile or desktop use.

Because Avocor promotes an open platform, the possibilities when considering a solution that is bespoke to customer requirements is endless. With a wealth of connectivity available including RS232 controls, the solution is the core of your integrated visual platform, enabling elements to be added to the solution as and when required. Adding a web camera and connecting via cloud based applications such as Skype for Business or Google Hangout can enhance the meeting experience for remote workers, making them feel more included whilst tools like Adobe Connect provides complete web conferencing solutions for webinars, online meetings and even virtual classrooms.

In short, we live in a digital age, that’s non-disputed. But we should remember that we work in one too and organisations need to provide their workforce with the best tools that have been designed to increase productivity and break down communication barriers. The collaboration tools that are chosen need to be easy to use and available on a variety of devices, facilitating people to be effective in their functional capability, regardless of location.

So, is your organisation ready for effective collaboration?

Want to learn more?

Complete IT Systems have a team of Avocor specialists on hand to demo the solution, discuss business benefits and help you understand how the technology works for your organisation. There’s also a great range of resources available on the Avocor blog.

Give us a call on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form to discuss your requirements with us.