Small Business Technology Innovation

Technology inefficiencies can creep into your small business over time—oftentimes, almost unnoticed. Employees waiting for minutes for their PCs to boot up each morning, computer crashes, data breaches, and technology that simply can’t keep up with resource-hungry new applications can all affect productivity and the bottom line.⁴

The Hidden Cost of Older PCs

Ever notice how the time to start up your computer seems to get longer the older your computer is? It’s not your imagination. Older computers do take longer to boot. In fact, research from a J. Gold Associates report commissioned by Intel, Older PCs in SMB cost study – selected results,⁵ estimates that a PC that’s less than one year old takes, on average, less than a minute to start up. At more than five years old, that average startup time jumps to just over four minutes. Add that up over the course of a year, and employees can waste up to 11 hours waiting for an older PC to start up.¹

But it’s not just time wasted waiting for computers to start up. The J. Gold Associates research also notes that small businesses estimate that more than 40% (43.42%) of their personal computers more than five years old break or malfunction every year. That’s in comparison to just over 5% for PCs less than a year old. The cost of the malfunctions for older hardware can add up to about $662 a year for each failure.⁶

Add it all up and older PCs can make employees 29% less productive² and cost up to $17,000 a year in lost productivity per worker.³

And that’s not all. Older computers can also be more vulnerable to cyberattacks. And those can be extremely costly, especially for a small business. J. Gold reports that respondents said their older PCs have been hacked more than their newer machines on average. Globally, respondents estimated that on average, 5.92% of their PCs that were less than one year old had experienced malware attacks or other hacks. For PCs more than five years old, that percentage jumps to 34.47%.³

What does that mean in terms of the potential financial costs to a small business? The average cost of a single data breach worldwide is an estimated $35,745 per employee when an employee’s PC is more than five years old.⁷

Keeping Up with Cutting-Edge Technology

The hidden costs of older computers go beyond slow start times and malfunctions—and even security breaches. The reality is that many software applications are being upgraded often and these upgrades, while they deliver more and better functionality, may also require more computing power.

RJ Martino, CEO of Scale Technology, says, “If you don’t have the latest hardware, some features of new, or updated software simply cannot work. In a worst-case scenario, such as an update to the operating system, it might even slow down your computer’s performance.” Today, upgrading your PC hardware even every two years may not be often enough. Martino concludes with this: “Bottom line, if you want to be on the cutting edge of technology, you better make sure you’ve got cutting-edge hardware.”⁸

Learn more about key hardware components ›

Refresh for a Power Boost

How much power do you need? Modern computing devices powered by 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i5 processors with Intel® Optane™ memory can boost the responsiveness of everyday tasks up to 2.5 times faster⁹ and load large media files up to 3.8 times faster, compared to a computer that’s at least five years old.¹⁰

Mobile devices such as 2-in-1s, laptops, and thin and lights using 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i5 U series mobile processors can give you up to 1.8 times better web performance¹¹ and up to 2 times better overall system performance.¹²

To help maximize your employee productivity and the power of the latest business applications, talk to a trusted partner about whether it’s time to upgrade your PC hardware. The cost savings and productivity gains you may achieve could significantly outweigh the hidden costs of trying to squeeze more life out of the PCs you have now.¹³