Overcoming barriers to productivity

Brother UK recently conducted a survey of 501 IT leaders at UK SMEs. With many workers furloughed and hiring frozen, productivity has never been more important. In a series of articles this autumn, we are using the findings of the survey to help our customers to improve their productivity in any way we can.

Our previous article looked at some ways IT leaders are working to solve the productivity puzzle. In this penultimate article of the series, we look at the barriers to productivity, and how they can be overcome with the help of the right technology.

Versatility has been the key to navigating 2020

Let’s just say that 2020 has been an unprecedented year, certainly in our generation. The versatility that businesses and employees have shown has been incredible, with the speed and scale of adjustment surpassing anything any of us have seen before.

Unfortunately, this is not the case for all businesses.

Many firms were willing and able to move quickly to adapt to what has become the ‘new normal’, and have maintained and in many cases even grown business during this time. Unfortunately, many other businesses have been held back by clinging to old-fashioned processes, legacy IT infrastructure, failure to embrace new ways of working, and a lack of skills and collaboration.

What barriers to productivity are your firm facing?

The 501 IT leaders surveyed by Brother UK also went into more detail about the barriers to productivity their firms are facing. These findings are also typical across many of Complete IT’s customers and new prospects that have contacted us in recent months.

The biggest barriers are the ongoing presence of legacy working practices such as excessive meetings (34%), and a lack of the right IT infrastructure or equipment (29%). Lack of training and development to update skills (26%) also featured highly – this is something we are also addressing in another series of blogs covering user cybersecurity awareness.

In our next article in this series we will look in more detail at how technology can improve productivity.

If you would like to find out more in the meantime or discuss the ways you can harness IT to boost productivity in an affordable way, we can schedule a call to do just that!

Find out more

Give us a call on 01274 396 213 to find out how Complete IT Systems and Brother can help your business. Alternatively have a look at our main Brother information page here.

 

Solving the SMB productivity puzzle

Recent research conducted by Brother UK asked IT leaders at 501 British businesses how they were working to improve productivity in the workplace given the current restrictions and the overall coronavirus pandemic.

This article provides a summary of those findings, and hopefully provide some value to your IT strategy and how you view technology investment as part of that.

Where does productivity rank as a priority?

93% of the business leaders named productivity as one of their key focuses. Productivity is such an important part of remote working, it was somewhat surprising to find that months into the pandemic, 23% of businesses have not yet identified any systems and opportunities to improve their overall efficiency.

5 pieces of the productivity puzzle

42% of the businesses who were questioned said that increasing turnover is the top priority of increasing productivity.

50% said that they wanted to make their employees happier using productivity. If companies and enterprises wanted to do this, they could provide their employees with technology and devices to help them connect with customers through video calling and messages/emails.

Another 50% of businesses said that they wanted a better work/life balance. They mean that they want to be more productive in their work hours and get more things finished, and have more free time without having to do any work (because they get more things done in their work hours, thanks to productivity.)

56% of the businesses said that they wanted to save money using productivity. This means that they wish to save their funds by improving their methods in working. They can also change their system for dynamic and energetic working for their employees.

59% of the businesses said that they wanted to increase their profit level. They mean that they want their profit to enlarge using productivity. They can do this by helping their employees to connect with customers.

Find out more

In our next article in this series we will explore how to overcome the barriers to productivity. In the meantime, you can find out more with in this short video from Brother.

 

Find out more

Give us a call on 01274 396 213 to find out how Complete IT Systems and Brother can help your business. Alternatively have a look at our main Brother information page here.

 

Time to focus on what counts

Brother UK recently conducted a survey of 501 IT leaders at UK SMEs. With many workers furloughed and hiring frozen, productivity has never been more important. In a series of articles this autumn, we are using the findings of the survey to see how UK businesses can improve productivity.

Our previous article addressed how smart leaders are investing to improve productivity. Here, we focus in on the investments that count the most, and can boost your business from survive to thrive mode during the coronavirus pandemic.

New ways of working

The changes that the whole world has seen during 2020 have been generation changing, and business is no different. While British businesses had begun a shift towards more flexible working arrangements even before the pandemic, the enforced changes and lockdowns have acted as a catalyst for making that process a lot quicker.

Reassuringly, Brother’s survey found that the majority of British SMEs are already underway with, or are readying plans to ramp up their IT investments. Underpinning this investment is the goal of improving productivity.

Technology and productivity

Of those IT leaders surveyed, it was clear that what counts is that users can continue to work as productively as possible – and in some cases even more so.

Four out of five of those leaders had active plans to invest in new technologies to support this drive for more productive working. So much so, that more than half (57%) also said that remote working has already provided productivity gains in their business. As a result, a comprehensive 82% stated that further technology investments are planned to support leaders and facilitate home working even further.

Focusing on what counts

Having identified technology as a means to underpin productivity gains, the leaders were then surveyed more specifically on what technologies would be the priority for their valuable budgets. Remote working tools (84%) and collaboration software (80%) came out on top, with modern hardware including printers also ranking highly on the list (75%).

It was also refreshing to see that not all the IT leaders felt the need to think only in emergency mode – far from it. In fact, 79% of those surveyed stated that the desire to experiment with tech was one of the main driving factors in their firms’ planned strategic IT investments over the next 12 months.

Find out more

In our next article in this series we will explore the SMB productivity puzzle in more detail. In the meantime, you can find out more with Brother UK’s handy guide – “a practical guide to productivity”.

Find out more

Give us a call on 01274 396 213 to find out how Complete IT Systems and Brother can help your business. Alternatively have a look at our main Brother information page here.

 

Complete IT Systems on the BBC red button!

We are proud sponsors of Bradford City vs Oldham this weekend!

Complete IT Systems are proud to be sponsoring the Man of the Match awards at today’s big second round FA Cup tie between Bradford City and Oldham.

As part of the sponsorship, we will be looking for choices on 4 Man of the Match nominations on social media, so stay tuned on Saturday!

Follow us on our Twitter feed and the hashtags #BCAFC #CityForAll and #EmiratesFACup to cast your vote on the 4 MOM nominations.

The match will feature on the BBC red button and kicks off on Saturday 28th November. Check out the preview of the big match here!

We are also sponsors of Bradford City FC for the duration of the 2020-21 season.

 

 

Office 365 Backup For Dummies

Microsoft Office 365 enables your enterprise to work anywhere, anytime, without the need to host your own email, files and SharePoint infrastructure.

For organisations running Microsoft Office 365, the first question is naturally – why backup Microsoft Office 365?

Even though Microsoft hosts the infrastructure, this doesn’t replace your responsibility to backup business-critical Office 365 data.

With Office 365, it’s your data — you control it — and it is your responsibility to protect it.

Did you know that 60% of sensitive cloud data is stored in Office documents, and 75% is NOT backed up? Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 gives you the power to securely backup Office 365 to any location, including on premises, a hyperscale cloud, or a service provider and:

  • Protect your Office 365 data from accidental deletion, security threats and retention policy gaps#
  • Quickly restore individual Office 365 email, files and sites with industry-leading recovery flexibility
  • Meet legal and compliance requirements with efficient eDiscovery of Office 365 items

Office 365 Backup For Dummies

Download and read the best guide for protecting Microsoft Office 365 data!

Find out more

For more information on how Complete IT Systems and Veeam can help your business call 01274 396 213 or email 

 

Smart IT leaders are investing in improving productivity. Here’s how

Brother UK recently conducted a survey of 501 IT leaders at UK SMEs. With many workers furloughed and hiring frozen, productivity has never been more important. In a series of articles this autumn, we are using the findings of the survey to see how UK businesses can improve productivity.

Our previous article addressed how smartly businesses are investing in their print estate. Here, we build on that by looking more closely at how smart IT leaders are making those investments, and the productivity gains they are seeing as a result.

Investing wisely in productivity

Brother UK’s survey found that 79% of the firms polled have allocated specific budget to improving productivity.

Of those, the main investments have been in collaboration software such as Microsoft Teams and project management platforms (82%), remote working tools such as laptops and cloud applications (82%), and hardware refreshes such as printers and tablets (74%).

The crucial role of IT in productivity

Armed with this knowledge that there are productivity gains to be made from smart investments in IT, a comprehensive 98% of those leaders surveyed indicated that they think infrastructure investments can improve productivity.

In addition to the investments they had already made, those leaders were focused on providing more collaboration software for their users (41%), remote working tools (37%), and more modern hardware refreshes such as printers and tablets (28%).

As we mentioned in a previous article, “invest to save” is one of those terms that risks becoming part of the furniture and losing all meaning. But these findings indicate that some investment for productivity is not only a smart move in the present time, but it is an almost essential move.

Businesses looking to weather the coronavirus crisis and even thrive in it need to be thinking slightly differently about how their users go about their work, and the tools they have to do it. Flexibility and efficiency are the keys to this, and good, modern infrastructure underpins this.

Find out more

In our next article in this series we will explore in more detail how to focus on what counts. In the meantime, read more about how you can boost productivity your organisation in Brother’s Guide to Improving Your Print Productivity.

Find out more

Give us a call on 01274 396 213 to find out how Complete IT Systems and Brother can help your business. Alternatively have a look at our main Brother information page here.

 

Have you invested smartly in your print estate?

“Doing more with less” is one of those terms that has been around for years. For so long in fact, there is a risk that it stops meaning anything. In fact, a search for “doing more with less” on Google brings up 2.4 billion results.

In this article, we will put a little more meat on the bone, and use a recent survey of 501 IT decision makers by Brother UK to examine how investment in your company’s print estate can enhance productivity during these times.

During the coronavirus pandemic, many businesses have needed to look for creative ways of enhancing the productivity of existing employees rather than hiring and creating new roles. With more and more pressure on people to work from home and balance family life with work life, this is not an easy task.

The survey found that awareness of the benefits of enhancing productivity are widespread and well understood. Almost three quarters (77% to be precise) of those businesses leaders surveyed have systems in place to identify opportunities to improve and eliminate wastage. This is real life “doing more with less” in practice.

Yet this still leaves 23% of businesses that have not identified processes and systems to try to improve from within.

Improving productivity is a key focus for SMEs.

An interesting finding in the survey was that 93% of the business leaders surveyed recognised the need to improve productivity. However, what practical steps businesses are taking to improve productivity varies by company size.
82% of the companies surveyed by Brother UK with more than 500 employees monitor or measure productivity. This number reduces to 77% of the companies with less than 500 employees.

Productivity and investment in your print estate

As we know, there can be a gap between recognising and saying something, and actually doing it in practice. While Brother UK’s survey results showed that SMEs are quite clear that there are gains to be made through productivity, only 21% are focussing on making additional IT investment to address it.

Brother – designed for productivity

Legacy printers can be one of the biggest time constraints and administrative burdens for SME employees. From trying to print from slower machines to the time spent on ordering supplies and carrying out maintenance, ageing printers really can be a burden to productivity.

Read more about Brother’s cloud-based managed print services that offer benefits such as automated supplies ordering and remote maintenance.

In our next article in this series we will explore in more detail how smart leaders are investing in productivity. In the meantime, you can find out more with Brother UK’s handy guide – “Solving the SMB productivity puzzle”.

Read more about how you can boost productivity your organisation in Brother’s Guide to Improving Your Print Productivity.

Find out more

Give us a call on 01274 396 213 to find out how Complete IT Systems and Brother can help your business. Alternatively have a look at our main Brother information page here.

 

IDC Report: Microsoft Office 365 backup is essential

More than ever during the current pandemic with users working from home, Microsoft Office 365 is the center of business productivity for many UK businesses.

But without a well thought out and executed backup strategy, business data in companies of all sizes is exposed to many risks.

Read this IDC research paper to learn why:

  • Backup for Office 365 is essential and it should be a key 2020 priority
  • Relying on Microsoft’s native Office 365 backup capabilities is a risk strategy
  • Protecting Office 365 data is imperative for security, compliance and business continuity

Find out more

For more information on how Complete IT Systems and Veeam can help your business call 01274 396 213 or email 

 

 

Unlock your organisation’s productivity

According to the Federation of Small Businesses, across 6 million businesses, SMEs in the UK represent 99.9% of the country’s business community. The category also accounts for 61% of the country’s employment, and 50% of its business turnover. With almost 17 million people and £2.3 trillion turnover, the SME sector is the engine room of the UK economy.

Room for improvement

Yet while the sector is undoubtedly powerful and a driving force of the UK economy, it does not compare well to other European or US sectors when measured for productivity. The fact is that when measured by the key statistic of the amount of work produced per working hour, the UK’s SME sector underperforms.

During 2020, almost every business has had to make changes and adjustments to its way of working. Whether adjusting to working from home, increasing innovation of products and services, or changing the way key business functions are carried out, the coronavirus crisis has acted as a catalyst for change in the way that many companies use technology.

In many cases, the results have been positive, and productivity has increased.

Transformation through technology

Through the pandemic, the most successful SMEs have identified that changing nothing and freezing all investment is not a viable solution. With no end in sight to the crisis, simply battening down the hatches and attempting to ride it out is unlikely to yield positive results. Unfortunately, those businesses that fail to move with the times risk being left behind.

The key to managing the crisis is to focus on productivity. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, productivity is “the effectiveness of productive effort, especially in industry, as measured in terms of the rate of output per unit of input”.

In other words, it is working more efficiently and flexibly.

Recognising this is one thing; but recognising how it applies to your business or IT department, and taking positive action to address it is another.

Realising potential

In a survey of 501 IT decision makers in 2020, Brother have published the results with the aim of sharing some of the innovative and strategic thinking that is taking place in boardrooms up and down the UK.

The survey focuses on productivity, and how the most successful firms are investing in IT as a means to increase it. Whether refreshing legacy infrastructure, moving to cloud-based applications and technologies, providing users with the modern collaboration tools they need, or in more efficient hardware such as printers and scanners, the need to invest for productivity is real.

Brother – designed for productivity

Legacy printers can be one of the biggest time constraints and administrative burdens for SME employees. From trying to print from slower machines to the time spent on ordering supplies and carrying out maintenance, ageing printers really can be a burden to productivity.

Read more about how you can boost productivity your organisation in Brother’s Guide to Improving Your Print Productivity.

Find out more

Give us a call on 01274 396 213 to find out how Complete IT Systems and Brother can help your business. Alternatively have a look at our main Brother information page here.

 

References

https://www.fsb.org.uk/uk-small-business-statistics.html

Break free from legacy backup with Veeam

IT departments can easily get overwhelmed – we know. You’re managing your own IT with limited time, smaller budgets and fewer resources. You’re forced to do more with less. This is why you need a backup solution that just works and can save you valuable time and money.

Veeam offer a single platform for cloud, virtual and physical backup that is:

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Check out this short video