Your maturity result: BeginnerIntermediateAdvanced

Beginner

Your score means your PC purchasing strategy is only at the beginner stage.

• Your PCs are replaced/updated with limited regularity.
• Your PC buying priorities often misalign with employee demands.
• Your PCs often do not empower your employees to work in a hybrid setting. 
• Your distributed work strategy goals do not align.

To elevate your PC purchasing strategy, you must:

• Begin building a new internal coalition around the importance of PC performance. In a world of increasingly distributed anywhere work and hybrid work, new influencers will play a role. Employee experience leaders (often in HR), recruiters (also in HR), business leaders, and even C-level leaders need to be part of the conversation around PC performance and stability and how it drives key goals like employee productivity, retention, and recruitment. It’s important to use both the increasing mobility of the workforce and generative AI as hooks.
• Build a business case for PC replacement. If you don’t have a formal business case, you will need to create one to circulate to your new allies in HR and the business. It should begin to model potential improvements in employee productivity as well as IT-specific productivity; for example, by reducing the number of help desk calls, IT teams can work on higher-value tasks and be more productive, directly and indirectly.
• Bring employees into an advocacy program. Your employees will do the best job of articulating how stable, high-performing PCs can drive value. Talk to those with the early “seed” devices that you distribute or even BYOPC users; perhaps they notice higher-quality videoconferencing. Also include early generative AI users. Collect their testimonials to add to the business case you develop.

Intermediate

Your score means your PC purchasing strategy is at the intermediate stage.

• Your PCs are replaced/updated with some regularity.
• Your PC buying priorities often align with employee demands but not always.
• Your PCs often do not empower your employees to work in a hybrid setting.
• Your distributed work strategy goals align at times.

To elevate your PC purchasing strategy, you must

• Build a data-rich business case for PC replacement. If you don’t have a formal business case, you will need to create one to circulate to your new allies in HR and the business. It should begin to model potential improvements in employee productivity as well as IT-specific productivity; for example, by reducing the number of help desk calls, IT teams can work on higher-value tasks and be more productive, directly and indirectly. If you do have a business case, add detail by comparing data from recently replaced PCs with older ones in your fleet.
• Build an employee testing program. Build an employee testing program. As you evaluate new PCs, seed them to volunteer employees willing to track and share their stories: strengths, weaknesses, and wish lists. Solicit inputs from a wide array of roles: What a professional in sales wants from their experience may be different from the needs of an engineer. Ask about their use of generative AI (genAI) tools and begin to track the use of and interest in genAI tools. Place these insights at the forefront of your continued strategic refinement.
• Redesign your refresh cycle strategy. In the past, we picked a number: four years to replace every PC. But with mobile, hybrid, and remote work and the surge in use of genAI tools, this approach now falls flat. Instead, look at subgroups of employees and determine their needs. Employees who are highly mobile and/or who use genAI tools will need access to the latest AI PCs in a year or two. Eliminate one-size-fits-all thinking and embrace users’ needs and behaviors.

Advanced

Congratulations, your score means that your PC purchasing strategy is advanced!

• Your PCs are replaced/updated with regularity.
• Your PC buying priorities align well with employee demands.
• Your PCs empower your employees to work in a hybrid setting.
• Your distributed work strategy goals align well.

And compared with low-maturity organizations, your investments in stable, high-performing PCs mean you are:

• More likely to see improved employee productivity.
• More likely to see higher IT employee experience (EX) scores.
• More likely to experience increased employee retention.

To continue to maximize your PC purchasing strategy, you should:

• Build bridges with EX. leaders. Whether they sit in IT, HR, or business units, EX leaders will play a key role in evangelizing how PCs can help drive the employee experience. They will become advocates and allies during budgeting cycles. They can also incorporate PC and technology stack performance into their EX models. Educate EX leaders on the growing generative AI (genAI) space and help them understand the implications for employees.
• Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) and data tracking. Your behaviors and goals are topnotch, but are they translating into the business results you want? Most companies, even advanced ones, lack systems for tracking outcomes. Where there are gaps, explore qualitatively: For example, employee retention could be stymied by trends outside the PC and technology stack. Link the data to strategic plans to better use PC buying as a lever for improvement. Add genAI use to your KPI list, track its adoption and use closely, and then accelerate refresh cycles accordingly.
• Build systems for long-term success. You already embrace the importance of PC performance and stability alongside a commitment to mobile work. But it’s not a one-and-done exercise. For example, advanced firms should consider their PC refresh cycles and improve the budget to reduce them. GenAI users will need faster refresh cycles. And PC as a service might support updated hardware, too.