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.

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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.

 

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

Four print productivity boosts you could be missing out on

As the Government injects £37 million into ground-breaking new research for solving the productivity puzzle, we spoke to our partners Brother UK to find out the top five ways in which IT leads can help to save time and ground efficiencies via their print estate.

In August, the Government unveiled a £37 million plan to open a new UK Productivity Institute in Manchester, in a bid to strengthen recovery post-Covid, level up wages and improve living standards across the country.

It’s the latest in a line of efforts from government, academics and businesses to crack the productivity puzzle: how can we ground efficiencies that help workers to focus on more productive tasks?

Research from Brother UK has revealed that almost all IT decision makers see technology as essential in improving productivity, and 84 per cent now view it as their priority focus. Read the full research results here – Solving the productivity puzzle.

We spoke to Sara Diggle, head of SMB laser & scanner business unit at Brother UK, to discuss how a piece to the puzzle lies in firms’ print estates.

Having complete oversight of networks, using faster performing devices, embracing mobile print and staying print secure are each simple ways businesses can save time, and money.

1) Get complete oversight of your print network

Now more than ever, gaining complete oversight of systems and networks can feel like an impossible task for IT leads. This is especially true with the emergence of the ‘hybrid workforce’ post-lockdown, as employees continue to mix working between the home and office.

But having oversight of print estates is simple. With solutions such as Brother’s proprietary BRAdmin platform IT leaders are able to monitor and manage printers wherever they are. This means support teams can stay in one place, with employees not having to wait around for issues to be resolved. It’s a great time-saver for IT and office managers juggling the needs of a decentralised workforce.

2) Stay secure and prevent lost time

When replacing, upgrading or expanding print estates, speak to your supplier about the level of security devices offer. Even a minor security breach can seriously impact productivity, and older, cheaper models are often an easy back door through which criminals can access a business’s IT network.

Brother’s suite of print solutions are loaded with state-of-the-art security features that help users protect systems against cyberattacks and data misuse – boasting features like automatic intrusion detection software, end-to-end encryption and PIN and ID-card-protecting printing.

3) Consider if slow printers are sapping productivity

Old devices could be costing businesses more than they think, as employees queue to collect documents slowly released from legacy hardware, creating knock-on effects for lost time.

Flagship SMB laser printers for business, like Brother’s high-performance MFC-L9570CDW, are combining fast and reliable printing with high yield toners and impressive paper-handling features to ensure that they work more quickly for longer.

4) Use enterprise platforms to maximise workflow efficiency

Creating seamless end-to-end workflows really helps to improve employee productivity, and platforms like Microsoft SharePoint and Google G Suite have come into their own as businesses adapted to lockdown life.

Brother’s SMB print and scan solutions are compatible with a wide range of enterprise platforms – whether on-premise or cloud based – including SAP, Citrix, Kofax ControlSuite, Papercut and SafeQ6, allowing integration with an almost endless list of popular cloud software. This is helping lots of tasks, from barcoding to CRM, to be easily integrated with print systems.

Making the day go faster

Ultimately, a fresh look at print estates can help to unlock lots of opportunities to save employees time, helping staff to carry out tasks that bit quicker. These bits of saved time add up through working weeks and whole teams to give companies a big productivity boost.

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

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Give us a call on 01274 396 213 to find out how to order and claim your cashback.

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See how Complete IT Systems and Brother can help your business here.