- At least one month a year of IT managers’ time is lost in dealing with incidents
- Nearly 70 percent of presentation teams have experienced equipment failure
- Casio launches guidelines to help businesses make cost effective equipment decisions
 
LONDON, 28 July 2010 — Casio unveils research today that shows less than half (43 per cent) of British businesses keep track of the impact of meeting room support and maintenance costs. This costs the average business £12,500 a year, meaning UK PLC is losing some £103 million[1] a year supporting and maintaining equipment such as projectors, laptops and monitors.

The study, conducted on behalf of Casio by independent UK research company, Dynamic Markets, highlights the need for British companies to understand the impact boardroom equipment can have on the balance sheet. The study also reveals the gruelling strain this maintenance places on IT departments and IT managers’ waistlines. The average round trip between an IT support desk and meeting rooms is 92 metres. With 70 percent of presentation teams saying they have experienced equipment failure, each year this sees IT Managers covering a lot of ground — nearly equivalent to the London marathon, or from Tower Bridge to Gatwick Airport.

On average, 34 presentation equipment incidents are dealt with every month, with each taking over 23 minutes. Across a year, this eats up nearly 23 days of an IT manager’s time - well over a working month and around 10 per cent of their annual capacity.

Understanding the costs

In response to the findings, Casio has launched a set of guidelines for businesses feeling the pain of maintaining meeting room technology. For many companies, IT refresh is now a priority in the next 12 months, as many meeting room technologies have had their lifecycles extended as a result of the recession. Casio’s guidelines, available here www.casio.co.uk/itmarathon are designed to help companies buy smarter when it comes to office technology and select products that offer reduced maintenance, ease-of-use, low procurement costs and high performance.

“The results of this study are startling,” says Daniel Laurenson, UK IT manager, Cofely-GDF Suez. “In the current financial climate all companies need to justify the cost of hardware spending. But as we discovered, and this study supports, strategic investment in easy-to-use, low maintenance meeting room technology is the most cost effective and efficient decision. Viewed in isolation, the burden seems small and the problems simply a nuisance — looking across a year they represent a huge financial and productivity drain that businesses would be foolish to ignore.”

The technology need — reliable, low maintenance and easy to use

A major drawback is equipment complexity. More than half of presenters report trying to fix problems themselves before they call IT — and 93 per cent of IT managers say that these self-help remedies either make the problem worse or cause totally new ones.

Factoring in the costs of incident delays to attendees pushes the bill to business even higher. The study found that average time lost by meeting attendees amounted to nearly three days per year — assuming an average of five attendees per meeting and based on an average corporate manager and senior official’s salary of £47,186[2], this adds nearly £25 million in business costs. With 56 per cent of presenters reporting feelings of embarrassment and/or frustration, equipment failure has other costs too — particularly when presentations are delivered to an external audience.

Nieve Cavanagh, Head of B2B Marketing, Casio said:  “Presentations are a fundamental part of modern business, but it’s clear that, rather than providing companies with effective solutions, equipment can actually lead to huge costs, reduced productivity and lost business opportunities. Casio’s new guidelines are designed to help companies navigate the minefield that is procurement of front end hardware, helping them make cost-effective buying decisions without sacrificing on the performance the business needs.”

The projector solution — Casio GREEN SLIM

Research shows that projectors are the worst culprit, with 46 per cent of presenters experiencing problems in the past year — and one of the biggest problems with conventional projectors is the maintenance requirements that go hand in hand with high pressure mercury lamps.

Casio has responded to this demand with its GREEN SLIM range of projectors. Lamp and mercury free, the innovative 2,500 ANSI lumens light source offers a 20,000 hour life expectancy— ten times that of conventional projector lamps. There are no filters to clean or expensive lamps to buy (or safely dispose of) so general maintenance is minimal.

With single lead HDMI connectivity, automatic vertical distortion correction, superb colour rendition and no loss of brightness throughout the life of the light source, GREEN SLIM projectors remove the causes of presenter problems — and the need for the IT support marathon.

The Casio commissioned study, carried out by the independent Dynamic Markets Ltd, looks at the challenges faced by IT managers in large British companies in supporting company meeting room presentations. It also explores the issues faced by British employees from large companies who get involved in formal presentations as part of a presenting team, either in their own company’s meeting rooms or in those of another company.

[1] Source: a total of 8,265 large companies in the UK.
The UK Office of National Statistics, BIS (Department for Business Innovation and Skills) Small and Medium Enterprise Statistics 2008; BIS Enterprise Directorate Analytical Unit.
[2] Source: staff costs based on Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE); Analysis by Occupation (4 digit SOC), Table 14.7.