The Samsung survey, which was undertaken in partnership with Vanson Bourne amongst 1,000 UK respondents, has shown that 86 per cent of employees believe that with investment in better technology, they can provide an improved level of service to their customers. Forty one per cent think that the current investment should be doubled, creating a massive opportunity for resellers for both new sales and upselling.
Resellers can also look at supplying more of an existing technology to an organisation, with 32 per cent of the workplace sharing a printer between ten people. This seems to be standard across most of the verticals, apart from Government, where this figure rises to 50 per cent.
The survey highlighted that when it comes to making IT purchasing decisions, cost and reliability are key, with 67 per cent of respondents considering both to be major factors. The supplier brand was proven to be the least important, except perhaps in the financial services industry where 63 per cent questioned thought it did have some influence. Sixty six per cent of organisations ultimately want the acquisition of any new technology to reduce any costs that are associated with repair or outsourcing. This was the main factor across all the verticals, but again, highest in government at 70 per cent.
When it comes to looking in detail about an organisation’s expenditure on technology, again this comes down to cost predominantly, with 70 per cent of organisations citing this as a major factor. This is even more in the education sector, with 83 per cent.
Interestingly, environmental impact was not considered to be factor in this, with only 1 per cent of those in retail believing it to be. A total of 49 per cent of organisations said they are either already working to reduce their carbon footprint, or are planning how they can in the future. Thirty one per cent of companies began working towards a reduction in 2006, with the majority, at 71 per cent, encouraging their staff to recycle at work.
Adam Jubb, IT Marketing Manager, Samsung UK, commented on the research, “In today’s knowledge economy, most of us now use more technology than ever before in our jobs. However, our survey findings indicate that there is still a great deal of scope for organisations to improve on the technology they have, with many employees believing their IT knowledge skills can be further bolstered by both training and access to new technologies which could help us to do our jobs. Furthermore, many employees do not feel that they are given access to technology to actually complete their work. This would be a prime area for businesses to lose money through either loss of productivity or poor processes.”
Jubb continued: “While the majority of UK businesses already have technology in place to support their employees in their jobs, there is still scope for improvement. Our survey results suggest that organisations need to ensure IT policies are more closely aligned with employee activity and business strategy. This would help to enhance productivity and ultimately eliminate a major cause of employee frustration in the workplace.”