Dynabook has revealed the results of a study conducted in partnership with Walnut Unlimited which shows that many European SMEs are still struggling to overcome hybrid business challenges, with two-thirds (64%) still fully improving their IT solutions to do so.
the report A guide for small and medium businesses to make hybrids durable, Which polled 1,200 IT decision-makers in small and medium businesses in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy, reveals that IT budgets are on the rise overall. The UK is the country where most SMEs (54%) have a higher IT budget this year than last year. Almost half of SMEs (48%) in France reported an increase in budgets, closely followed by 46% of budgets in Spain. However, only 22% of respondents reported a reduction in their IT budget.
Top priority areas for IT investment over the next 12 months include cybersecurity infrastructure (46%), cloud-based solutions (46%), IT support/remote assistance (44%), and staffing (40%).
For SMEs, the transition from a traditional office environment to a hybrid business model has posed several operational challenges, with employee productivity and IT downtime revealed to be ongoing concerns.
Nearly half of European SMEs lose at least seven hours per employee per month due to IT downtime (the equivalent of 12 days per year) with only 16% believing they have enough IT resources to support their workforce.
Security remains a top priority, and according to the study, 45% of SMEs considered security to be the most challenging IT element to manage during the pandemic. This is split between network security (24%) and device security (21%), highlighting the need for security to keep every element of the IT infrastructure, from the network core to the hardware in the hands of employees.
Damien Jaume, President of Dynabook Europe GmbH, explains that SMEs “are operating in an ever more complex computing environment, where hybrid business continues to pose challenges in safety, productivity and reliability. Although there is no one-size-fits-all approach, it is clear that Budgets have to stretch a lot as we face challenging economic times. It is imperative that SMEs prioritize investing in and implementing reliable, cost-effective and secure technologies, as their goal is to make hybrid change permanent.”
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