Business continuity trumps tech costs

Organisations' focus on IT systems delivering business continuity is greater than the concern over the price of technology, according to a survey.

Lenovo commissioned a survey to define the impact of the 2009 global financial crisis on PC replacements and upgrades.

The company says the survey also aimed to define key considerations prior to purchase, and new technological and corporate trends such as PC standardisation policies, energy efficiency, and cloud computing.

The Corporate PC Trends and Buyer Behaviour Survey was conducted between November and December last year.

It covered 956 IT decision-makers from multinational companies and government organisations with more than 500 employees across the emerging markets region, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, India, Hong Kong, Middle East and Africa.

“With price having a weighting of only 37.9% in respondent listings of key considerations affecting decisions about technology investments, compatibility of devices with current applications (42.8%), the quality of after-sales service (41.6%), and the ability to run future applications (38.3%) were deemed more important,” says Lenovo.

It adds that other factors included total cost of ownership at 32% and reputation of the brand or vendor at 35.4%.

“The survey's results show that 80% of respondents have recovered from the recession, with some 12.2% actually having used the financial crisis to accelerate their business strategy by aggressively ramping up on technological investments to pull ahead of competitors.”

Overall, respondents indicated they are getting to grips with the expected proliferation in the workplace of alternative and personal devices such as thin clients, smartphones and tablets, says the company.

According to the survey, the most eagerly-anticipated IT devices are those that offer ubiquitous connectivity and secure access to data, either through current technologies or via the cloud.

“Perceptions towards the cloud remain lukewarm, however. A third (32.8%) of respondents see cloud computing as inevitable, but many (34.8%) remain uncertain of the correct approach and prefer to be in charge of their own processing and data. More significantly, 82.6% are still reluctant to trust their data to the cloud.”

Lenovo SA country manager Henry Ferreira says PCs won't become obsolete, but will become cloud-ready clients.

“We expect form factors to change, with organisations eventually having a mix of fat clients, stateless devices, and zero PCs.”

Respondents varied in their PC purchasing policies, from a centrally-driven decision to adopt a single brand to ensure uniformity and manageability (33.8%), to a flexible approach where employees are given a choice of selected PC brands (11.8%).

However, Lenovo says the most flexible arrangement, available in about 6% of organisations, utilises a co-ownership approach by setting aside funds for employees to buy their own PCs.

Ferreira warns that although this may herald a new wave in IT policy within large organisations, such diversity in computing arrangements may not work in all environments.

“Every IT decision should always be implemented only in the context of a broader PC management strategy.”