Microsoft Surface Hub – What’s the RoI?

Forrester puts the Microsoft Surface Hub through its paces, says Rufus Lunn of eBECS

Are you considering investing in Microsoft Surface Hubs for your meeting rooms?  If it’s on the agenda, but the costs are causing a few ripples amongst colleagues, it could be worth taking a look at a Forrester report published last year.

The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Surface Hub is an in-depth study of the impact on five companies and then, by creating a composite of all five, calculates expected return on investment (RoI) – which comes out as 138% over three years. This is with a gradual ramp-up over the first year and then aggressive deployment during years two and three.

It also shows that printing costs of around $25 per meeting can also be saved, along with 15 – 23 minutes per meeting. It’s estimated that, for an average one-hour meeting, an extra 20 minutes are spent on post-meeting tasks such as typing up whiteboard notes or taking pictures of the whiteboard, recreating paper annotations in a digital format, writing up text-only explanations or to go alongside a diagram or image. Of course, with Surface Hub, all information is automatically captured and put into OneNote for emailing.

You also need to take into account time taken confirming everyone is online – especially for those organisations with a different video, phone and/or screen sharing solutions. Waiting for participants to log-in can easily take ten minutes – yet using Surface Hub and Skype for Business, video, audio and screen-sharing happens with the touch of a button.  There’s also no quick clearing up of the room from previous meetings, erasing confidential notes on the whiteboard and so on.

Perhaps more surprisingly though is, on average, these companies saw a 20% uplift in sales pitched using the Surface Hub. It seems clients were impressed with the well-designed display and presentation devices and the high quality of the presentation itself. Clients can join in with the host business to draw diagrams or brainstorm a list, showing a new level of engagement and involvement.

The report covers more benefits including the fact that meeting room equipment costs can be avoided. However, one aspect it doesn’t cover is working with the right supplier. Although Surface Hubs can be bought from many IT hardware resellers, it’s far more advisable to go to a renowned Microsoft partner (such as eBECS) who will be able to use their knowledge to see the technology in context and as part of the wider business.  This way you can ensure the best RoI.

There’s no doubt that the successful businesses of the future will be those that are agile and flexible. To be these things you need to be able to first make fast decisions and second, innovate quickly to optimise opportunities. More rewarding and efficient meetings could help on all counts.

That said, it helps to have some statistics at hand when making such decisions. The Forrester Report should give some food for thought.

Interested in learning more about how eBECS provides the best return on the Microsoft Surface Hub? Contact Rufus Lunn via mobile (07764 794 450) or via email (rlunn@ebecs.com) for more information.