New research: How IT leaders drive business benefits by accelerating device refresh strategies

Increased security, productivity gains and enhancing innovation are among the reasons IT leaders are modernising their device fleets more frequently, new research reveals.

Most organisations typically refresh both desktops and laptops on a three to four-year refresh cycle. Yet nearly a third of the 416 IT leaders who responded to a recent survey by Forrester Consulting for Dell stated that their organisation planned to shorten this within the next twelve months.

According to the report: “Our qualitative interviews indicated many companies are looking to recycle devices at the end of their lifecycles if they don’t already, and they are open to reducing the time it takes to refresh if it reduces cost over time.”

Security is one key factor in this trend, with 71% of respondents reporting that their organisation had experienced a breach or security compromise in the last twelve months, while 30% had experienced eleven or more.

This chimes with findings in Foundry’s 2023 State of the CIO report, which found that security management had become the number one short-term focus for CIOs, above improving IT operations and systems performance.

Forrester’s research found that 55% of firms prioritised security at the hardware level when refreshing. Meanwhile, 57% said that security vulnerabilities introduced by software updates was a key business-related consequence of sticking with outdated hardware, with 44% selecting increased capex or opex on security as another.

Ease of management is another crucial driver. When asked what would enable your company to adopt an accelerated two-year refresh cycle, 62% selected improved management capabilities, while 55% chose improved analytics on the current fleet.

IT leaders clearly believe that a shorter refresh cycle could result in devices that weren’t just more secure, but also less onerous to manage.

What’s more, they see an opportunity to improve the end-user experience and boost employee productivity.

The research found that 59% thought a shorter refresh cycle would enable new, innovative end-user features, while 50% felt it would give employees access to better collaboration tools.

Furthermore, 49% believe outdated hardware hinders employee productivity. Asked to select the technical benefits that might come from adopting a two-year cycle, improved app performance, and higher system reliability were cited by respondents (both 69%).

Asked what business-related benefits they have seen or expect to see from a shorter refresh cycle, 74% of IT leaders mention increased organisation-wide agility, while 78% say that it has resulted in an increase in their employee Net Promoter Score.

An accelerated cycle comes with challenges around investment and deployment, but here companies can benefit by working with partners to manage their device lifecycle and refresh processes.

These partners can take over day-to-day maintenance along with the recycling of old devices.

Accelerated refresh goes hand-in-hand with a device-as-a-service approach. Businesses also don’t need to go ‘all-in’ on a two-year cycle.

The approach could be limited to specific employees or departments, while technology teams can also refurbish devices and move them to a different role within the same organisation thus boosting sustainability.

To see the Forrester report in full, and find out more about accelerated refresh, visit Dell.com