Small and medium businesses (SMBs) across Europe are still grappling to overcome the challenges of hybrid working, with two-thirds (67%) yet to fully optimise their IT solutions for this.
This is one of the findings in “An SMB Guide to Making Hybrid Permanent” commissioned by Dynabook in partnership with Walnut Unlimited, which surveyed 1 200 IT decision-makers at small and midsize businesses (SMBs) across the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium and Italy.
The study also indicates that IT budgets are generally on the rise across the region. This is most notable in the UK, where 54% of SMBs revealed they have a higher IT budget this year compared to last year. Almost half (48%) of SMBs in France revealed increased budgets, closely followed by 46% of those in Spain.
Meanwhile only 22% of respondents reported a decrease in their IT budget. Subsequently the top three areas of priority for IT investment in the next 12 months include cybersecurity infrastructure (46%), cloud-based solutions (46%) and remote IT support/assistance (44%). Equipping employees with devices is also a popular investment priority (40%).
“It is evident from our research that businesses are operating within a more complex IT environment than ever before, as hybrid working continues to present security, productivity and reliability challenges for Europe’s SMBs,” says Damian Jaume, president of Dynabook Europe. “While there is no one-size fits all approach, it’s clear that budgets need to stretch far and wide as we navigate challenging economic times. It’s essential that SMBs prioritise investing in and deploying dependable, cost-effective and secure technologies as they aim to make the hybrid shift permanent.”
For SMBs, transitioning from a traditional office setting to a hybrid working model has presented many operational challenges, with employee productivity and IT downtime revealed to be two pressing concerns.
Almost half of European SMBs are losing at least seven hours a month per employee to IT downtime – equal to 12 days per year – with only 16% believing they have sufficient IT resource to support their workforce.
For the remaining 84%, the most commonly lacked resource is personnel – 36% indicated they don’t have enough IT security staff, while 34% say the same for broader IT staff.
With resource spread so thinly, it’s no surprise to see SMBs turning towards more affordable and reliable technology solutions, which can simplify IT management while maintaining security and productivity throughout the workforce.
Devices are at the heart of this, with 64% of SMBs considering purchasing decisions around laptops to be more important now than before the pandemic. Equally, emerging technologies like Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDIs) (55%) and edge computing solutions (52%) rank highly in this category given their ability to deliver a highly secure yet productive remote environment for employees.
Last but not least, security remains a major priority as businesses contend with a constantly evolving cyber threat landscape. The research found that 45% of SMBs considered security to be the most challenging element of IT to manage during the pandemic. This is divided between network security (24%) and device security (21%), highlighting the necessity for security to underpin every element of the IT infrastructure, from the network core through to the hardware in employees’ hands.