Tag: print

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.

 

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