A survey of British businesses commissioned by Casio has revealed that the majority are ignoring the burden of AV maintenance, which is costing them on average £8000 per year. According to the UK Office of National Statistics, that equates to over £103m per year across the country’s 8,200+ large businesses.
The study, carried out by Dynamic Markets, found that more than half of British businesses ignore the cost of presentation equipment maintenance – 57% said they kept no track of these costs. 10 per cent of IT managers’ time is spent dealing with them, and nearly 70 per cent of presentation teams had experienced AV equipment failure.
Responding to the survey, Daniel Laurenson, UK IT Manager for Cofely-GDF Suez said: “The results of this study are startling. In the current financial climate all copanies 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.”
Casio believes that one of the solutions is to take advantage of low-cost-of-ownership products such as its Green Slim range of projectors with high life expectancies. Nieve Cavanagh, the company’s UK head of B2B Marketing said: “Ineffective equipment can actually lead to huge costs, reduced productivity and lost business opportunities. It’s imperative that organisations start assessing the true cost of their technologies and the pressures it can put on employees.”
The research surely also makes a strong case for preventative maintenance, and proper asset management in terms of life-cycle tracking. What is probably most disturbing about the report is the admission by 57% of companies that they don’t even know what the issue costing them!