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.
