Rethinking Hardware Investments For Small Businesses

Improve Your Business by Rethinking Hardware

Stephen Covey, American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker once said, “if there’s one thing that’s certain in business, it’s uncertainty.” Small businesses have always been at the forefront of business agility, adapting to shifting business landscape. It is incredible to see companies pivot to entirely new products, supply chains, and customer base overnight – for example, distilleries making hand sanitizers and boat makers sewing masks.

Similar to the rapid adoption of work from home technologies, as business re-emerges, the adoption of subscription-based technology purchases, both from software and hardware perspective, may have sped up.

As the lead for Webex Hardware as a Service (HaaS), I talk with many of our smaller business customers and want to share some of the common reasons that small businesses are looking at HaaS to provide them with the agility to succeed in these uncertain times.

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Latest Technology to Unlock Workforce Productivity

It is unimaginable six months ago that almost a quarter of the US workforce can shift to work from home, overnight.* What’s even more unfathomable is that an uplift in productivity accompanies this monumental workplace transformation. Although current technology has enabled this change, savvy leaders know that it will make tomorrow’s technology to empower their workforces to their full potential and stay competitive in a changing landscape. With HaaS, businesses can upgrade their collaboration devices as quickly as three years, staying in sync with the pace of technology change.

Worry-Free Solution for Business Continuity

Smaller businesses are rooted in their founders’ passion for providing the best products and services for their customers. Although smaller businesses recognize that collaboration technology is a crucial enabler of their business, it is not their business’s core focus. Organizations want a working device that is compliant with the latest security protocols to enable their productivity, and at the same time, protect them and their customers for cyber-attacks. For this reason, Cisco has included TAC access, software center access, software maintenance releases, and 10-Day Advance Replacement as a part of our hardware subscription, so our customers can focus on their core business.

Align Hardware Purchases with Business Need

In a recent Webex Community Live session, we polled the attendees on a timeline of when their organizations expect to return to offices. The most popular response was “unsure.” Additionally, there’s a large amount of uncertainty on what the new work environment will look like. This has changed organizations’ mentality around collaboration technology purchases from bulk planned purchases to smaller gradual purchases. Without a minimal purchase quantity, HaaS has become a popular option to allow organizations to scale their collaboration technology needs at a comfortable pace for them.

Improve Cashflow without Going to the Bank

As businesses are planning for the road ahead, preserving cash has moved up on the priority list. With historically low-interest rates, small businesses have many options to convert large capital expenditures to lower monthly payments. Those who are interested in HaaS find the simplicity in acquiring their collaboration technology investments through HaaS, especially attractive. For most, it is as simple as placing a purchase order through their authorized Cisco reseller. As a side benefit, the consistent payment terms of a HaaS contract offers a welcomed predictably in an unpredictable market environment.