UK Business Productivity Levels Increasing Thanks To Tablets

Tablets are helping to drive productivity levels upwards in UK and Euro businesses, according to the latest piece of research into slates in the workplace.

The study in question was conducted by Dynamic Markets (for Panasonic Toughpad) and surveyed over 2,300 tablet buyers and users across European firms with 50 or more employees (including companies in the UK, France and Germany).

In the UK, 70 per cent of employers said that their staff had benefited from “substantial” improvements to productivity from using tablets, and the estimate of how much productivity levels had risen hit no less than 44 per cent. The latter was the highest reported figure of the nine European nations surveyed (although the former percentage only placed the UK in fifth, with Turkey leading Russia on 80 per cent and 79 per cent respectively, ahead of the UK’s 70 per cent score).

The actual staff members and tablet users themselves were less sure than execs, though, with 40 per cent finding substantial productivity increases, with their productivity improvement estimated at 32 per cent. That’s still an increase of a third, mind you.

The research also found that tablets are becoming important as specialist tools in certain industries – for example, being used as a barcode reader, or for taking customer payments.

Despite the mainly positive productivity news, there are weak points with the tablets out there, and 58 per cent of UK users indicated that they weren’t completely satisfied with their slate’s performance when it came to work activities.

Indeed, 93 per cent of tablet buyers said users had suffered issues with their slate over the past two years – and the major moans were battery life being too short (32 per cent), cracked screens (31 per cent) and overheating (24 per cent).

Jan Kaempfer, General Manager Marketing for Panasonic Computer Product Solutions, commented: “These research findings point to a productivity revolution underway as a result of the deployment of tablets in the workplace. However, the business tablet market is still relatively young and the feedback from users suggests that productivity could be further significantly enhanced by addressing some of their design and functionality needs.”

“As businesses begin to use tablets for ever more sophisticated requirements, there becomes a need for tablet manufacturers to tailor their devices to the different needs of vertical industries and their users. These needs include areas such as hot swappable batteries, daylight viewable screens, more rugged tablets and the opportunity to include or attach a range of peripherals to the devices, such as cameras, scanners, bar code readers and payment options.”