Posted by Mumbai: SMBs (small & medium businesses) in India with a PC (personal computer) or laptop older than four years might be spending the money around Rs 93,500 ($1,279) on each device that is equivalent to the replacing cost of ageing hardware with three or more new PCs, according to Techaisle research findings commissioned by Microsoft and Intel.
The cost according to research is enough to replace the ageing hardware with three or more new PCs. The study surveyed 2,156 SMBs across India, Australia, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea establishes a direct cost implication for SMBs from loss in productivity and security risks resulting from outdated devices.
India is home to more than 51 million micro, small & medium enterprises (SMEs), which have a workforce of over 114 million and contribute over 30% to India’s GDP. Techaisle revealed that despite the cost implications and security risks, 49% of larger SMBs and 31% of small SMBs are still on older PCs.
(Fig 1. Cost of owning an older PC)
On the other hand, SMBs who have already embraced a modern workplace strategy have experienced better productivity, reduced costs, and enhanced security.
-66% of SMBs saw improved efficiency by adopting newer PCs that enabled them with new experiences powered by cloud and mobility solutions
-63% of SMBs felt that they were able to better secure and protect their data on newer PCs
-58% of SMBs found that adopting newer PCs reduced overall maintenance costs
-41% of SMBs agreed that newer PCs made their employees more productive
“PCs are the productive engines for most SMBs in India, where organizations rely heavily on their devices for their day-to-day tasks. However, 3 in 10 SMBs in India surveyed have PCs that are older than four years, which significantly increases maintenance costs. Microsoft is invested in extending a secured and productive computing experience to SMBs across sizes and geographies of India, enabling them with a modern workplace,” said Priyadarshi Mohapatra, Country General Manager – Consumer & Devices Sales, Microsoft India.
“With Windows 10, we are continuously working towards empowering these businesses and their employees with a platform that ensures best ever mobility and support to business applications. We are also continuously working with our OEM partner ecosystem for PCs and laptops across price points that offers SMBs relevant options depending on their size and requirements,” added Mohapatra.
Increased security and reliability with a modern device
The new study revealed that in the last year alone, as high as 43% of SMBs experienced PC security and data theft breaches, with only 12% of them actually reporting these attacks.
Addressing business priorities with a modern device approach
“SMB’s constitute 95% of enterprises in India, and employ almost half of the workforce in the country, yet many of them still have PC’s that are more than four years old. We believe that by having them move to a modern PC powered by an Intel Core processor, they can unlock greater productivity for their business while reducing IT management time and costs,” said Prakash Mallya, Managing Director – Sales & Marketing, Intel India.
Respondents in the study identified their top business priorities as increasing business growth, business productivity and profitability. The study highlighted that SMBs are looking at IT as a response to address their business issues. The top IT priorities included investing in mobility as well as cloud solutions and managed services.
“We found that the key barriers in migrating to a newer device were concerns of legacy applications not being able to work on a newer operating system, along with the lack of budgets. However, the benefits of adopting a modern device strategy outweighs the concerns. Too often, SMB owners focus on short term costs and while in most cases this approach is absolutely valid, at times it can lead to situations that cost them more. The choice between maintaining older PCs and replacing them with newer PCs is one such area,” said Anurag Agrawal, Chief Analyst, Techaisle.
“However, these SMBs should re-evaluate their decision given the higher cost of maintaining older PCs which has a larger cumulative effect on the budget than purchasing newer PCs with latest technology. SMBs in the country should seriously consider making the shift to a newer PC in the immediate future,” added Agrawal.
In India, more than 61% of PCs used in SMBs are still on older versions of Windows today, according to the study. Upgrading to a Windows 10 modern device will offer experiences that are more familiar, safe, secure and productive.
The Microsoft-Intel Make the Shift study was conducted in August 2018, and involved 2,156 respondents from 5 markets in Asia Pacific (Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea). Respondents were IT and business decision makers. Sample included SMBs across various sizes, which were classified as small (1-99 employees), medium (100-499 employees) and large (500-999 employees).