PRINTITRESELLER.UK 37 Finding and retaining talent (23 per cent) and managing a diverse hybrid workforce (22 per cent) were also noted as key issues, slightly lower than the rest of Europe at 27 per cent for both. Stuart Sykes, Managing Director at Sharp UK, said: “Despite understandable concerns about rising costs in the UK, businesses here are investing strategically in technology and seeing its value, even at a time of uncertainty. “Organisations of all sizes are dealing with a host of issues in a hybrid working environment such as IT and security challenges, ensuring that technology is planned to support these issues now and in future.” Security is biggest technology challenge As with other SMEs in Europe, IT security is the biggest technology challenge UK businesses feel that they will face over the next 12 months, with a third (33 per cent) highlighting security as their top priority. Interestingly tech challenges varied between business sectors in the UK. Hybrid working technology issues was flagged as the most critical issue for almost two thirds of SMEs surveyed in the legal sector (63 per cent) and for nearly four in ten of the healthcare industry (38 per cent). Employees’ ability to use software was reported as the primary challenge for the healthcare sector (50 per cent). Colin Blumenthal, European Vice President, IT Services at Sharp Europe, added: “The past two years have reshaped the way businesses run, how their employees work, and expanded their threat landscape. “The continued shift of workloads, processes and data to the cloud and on-premise infrastructures are enabling enterprises to create a value proposition that supports a new generation of workers and will be key to hiring and retaining the best talent possible. It’s encouraging to see that SMEs across Europe are realising the opportunities for growth through investment in IT. Those priority projects that will receive funding over the coming months will deliver greater efficiencies, better management of diverse hybrid workforces, and support in delivering improved IT security.” Primary motivations UK SMEs in the legal, finance and healthcare sectors intend to invest the most in IT in 2023. When asked how their 2023 IT spend will compare to 2022, 75 per cent of SMEs in the legal sector, 55 per cent in the finance sector and 50 per cent within healthcare planned to increase their investments. Improved IT security and business continuity, new/upgraded servers and enhanced business intelligence/ management information were all cited as the primary motivations behind the spend. In contrast, only two per cent of all UK SMEs surveyed planned to invest nothing at all in 2023. www.sharp.co.uk Sharp’s research surveyed 5,770 SMEs across Europe, including 502 in the UK, on their top business and technology challenges and IT investment priorities for the next 12 months. The study revealed that almost half (44 per cent) of UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) plan to increase investment in technology this year, despite serious concerns over rising costs. Key areas for investment In terms of investment levels, over 50 per cent of UK SMEs plan to invest more than £20,000 on IT this year with five per cent expecting to invest more than £100,000. Businesses also shared that they intended to invest in new hardware (33 per cent) and server upgrades (28 per cent) over the course of 2023. This is in addition to security and business continuity (34 per cent) which were also highlighted as key areas for investment. Surprisingly, cloud migration was a lower priority for UK businesses (21 per cent) than SMEs in Europe, where almost a third (31 per cent) of firms planned to embark on cloud migration projects as they continue to deal with the challenges of hybrid working. However, IT, education and awareness may be a specific challenge for UK SMEs to address, with implementing cyber essentials (25 per cent) and improving on business intelligence (23 per cent) being amongst the top investment priorities. General business challenges SME investment in technology was analysed against more general business challenges, with rising supply costs (39 per cent) and the cost of living in general (41 per cent) being of greatest concern in the UK in comparison to the rest of Europe. RESEARCH Research commissioned by Sharp finds that across Europe and in the UK, SME technology investment is set to continue to rise. The biggest area of investment is focused on IT security, hardware upgrades, and server updates UK SMEs set to increase IT investment Stuart Sykes Colin Blumenthal
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