Small and medium businesses (SMBs) that use PCs or laptops older than four years, spend around $1,279 (INR 93,500) per device on maintenance. With this cost, the enterprises can purchase three or more modern PCs.
The data comes from a research by Techaisle, commissioned by Microsoft and Intel. There are more than 51 million SMBs in India, accounting for 95% of enterprises in the country. These enterprises have a workforce of more than 114 million and contribute over 30% to the GDP of country.
Around 43% of SMBs witnessed security and data theft breaches related to computers. Use of old PCs costs more and is a risky business on security front. Instead of this, 49% of larger SMBs and 31% of small SMBs are using older PCs.
“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,” said Priyadarshi Mohapatra, Country General Manager – Consumer & Devices Sales, Microsoft India.
Benefits of embracing modern workplace strategy
66% of SMBs who adopt modern workplace and newer PCs experienced improved efficiency which made it easier for them to embrace cloud and mobility solutions.
Around 63% of SMBs found that modern workplace allows them to better secure and protect data. Whereas, 58% said that it reduced overall maintenance costs.
Further, 41% SMBs felt that adopting newer PCs made their employees more productive.
“Computers and connectivity have opened the gateway for digitization and automation of SMB’s, increasing returns, scale and output. It is vital for these businesses to invest in upgrading their processing power by deploying PC’s that can support complex tasks and enable expansion,” said Prakash Mallya, Managing Director – Sales & Marketing, Intel India.
“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.”
The research further states that 61% of PCs used in SMBs are still running on older Windows versions. If they upgrade to Windows 10 modern device, it will provide more familiar, secure, and productive experiences.
“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,” added Priyadarshi Mohapatra.
Key barriers to embracing modern workplace
The study found that the key barriers in shifting to newer PCs are the concerns of legacy applications not being able to work on a newer operating system. SMBs also counted lack of budgets as a main barrier.
However, the weightage of benefits of embracing modern workplace is very high as compared to the concerns. The problem is that SMBs are focusing on short-term costs. This approach can be valid in some cases, but at times it can lead to situations that cost them more.
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Anurag Agrawal, Chief Analyst, Techaisle, concluded: “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.”
