Businesses lose 65 employee hours daily due to IT failures

• Research from Epson reveals 75% of UK businesses believe lack of strategic IT spend is compromising ability to compete and be efficient

• Print technology failings equate to over a quarter of IT downtime in the UK

Over 65 hours of employees’ time are lost each day, within the average UK business, as a result of IT systems and hardware downtime¹, reveals new research from Epson. The survey of 1,250 IT decision makers in medium and large businesses across the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain² found, for the average UK respondent, IT underperformance is presenting a significant resource and productivity drain. 

Within this context, 75% of UK respondents believe the amount of money having to be dedicated to reactive IT maintenance, rather than longer-term strategic spend, is negatively impacting their business’ ability to both compete and operate efficiently. According to respondents, only 28% of UK IT budgets is spent on longer term strategic IT review and renewal. Throughout the UK, there’s the recognition that too much is having to be spent on maintaining hardware (25% of overall IT budgets), ad-hoc product and tech updates (19%) and responding to immediate short term pain points (16%) – as IT spend acts as a further barrier to business performance rather than a means of support and enablement.

IT decision makers in the UK were most concerned by the ramifications of this for business performance – Italy was the only country to see a greater recognition that a lack of strategic IT spend compromises their company’s ability to compete (76%) and be efficient (76%).

“This research illustrates the cumulative danger of IT underperformance for businesses,” says Peter Silcock, Business Manager - Business Imaging, Epson UK. “13 minutes is being lost each day, per employee, from IT downtime. This might not sound like a lot but scale it across any mid-large business, and the impact on performance will be felt. It’s encouraging a vicious circle in terms of IT spend as well, with levels of downtime demanding reactive, ad-hoc IT maintenance at the expense of more strategic funding and investment.”

The research also found that over a quarter of this IT downtime (27%) is related to printers, equating to more than 17 hours lost each day, per business, as a result of underperforming print technology. This is, understandably, causing discontent amongst employees, who report clearing paper jams (43%), slow print speeds (32%) and difficulty in accessing printers from mobile devices (28%) as the main frustrations when using this equipment.

“Throughout this year, we’ve heard a lot about the growing economic prosperity within the UK and 2014 being a time of competitive growth. To capitalise on opportunity, however, businesses need efficiency throughout their operations, driven by appropriate technology,” says Silcock. “Immediate cost savings and ROI are important, but businesses also need to invest in the technology that will deliver longer-term benefits with minimum total cost of ownership. Recent additions to Epson’s business inkjet range reflect this change in mindset, removing the need to regularly replace consumables for example, as companies look further ahead to drive sustained business growth and competitiveness.”

Epson’s new WorkForce Pro Replaceable Ink Pack System (RIPS) virtually eliminates the traditional frustrations of business printing, such as wasted time, needless expense, lost productivity and needless environmental impact. Find out more by visiting www.epson.co.uk/rips