The Hindu Business Line : Sleek beauty is sure winner

The eternal debate between form and function is a bit of a chicken-and-egg question that continues to haunt designers across products and industries. Should form follow function or vice versa?

The small form factor or slim PC is a neat bundle that provides some answers. Formerly a factor of form, it was launched by some niche and boutique PC manufacturers targeting enthusiasts some years ago.

Today, functional benefits such as optimal space utilisation, low power consumption, and, of course, the need for better aesthetics are dictating a move to the small form factor (SFF) PC.

For a couple of years, the slim PC remained on the fringes of the technology world, with few takers other than enthusiasts and gamers. Recently, with the increase in performance, powerful processing abilities, and a wide choice of configuration, businesses are taking a serious look at this little box that can do so much to improve the work environment.

For IT and BPO companies serving mostly overseas customers, the key competitive differentiator is cost. For such players, every saving in the cost of operations and each improvement in the utilisation of resources translates into better margins and returns for stakeholders. In such a scenario, it is imperative that organisations optimise the space available and maximise their revenues from this limited resource.

While the small form factor (SFF) PC provides the obvious benefit of better aesthetics, the most important gains from deploying these slim machines include sizeable cost savings on precious real estate as well as power.

Real estate savings

Slim PCs can help make the difference to your organisation's bottom line. With space savings as high as 25 to 30 per cent, depending on the seating configuration, enterprises in software development, call centres, BPO, large corporate organisations, libraries, and cyber cafes have demonstrated remarkable gains in productivity by accommodating more people in the same space.

These productivity boosts can make a significant difference considering that the cost of land and building accounts for as much as 40 to 60 per cent of the total project cost. This is particularly true for businesses that need large numbers of workstations to accommodate thousands of knowledge workers.

Take the case of a large business process outsourcing (BPO) company with 1,200 people at its Bangalore campus. The company needed to add another 300 people to service a large customer. At stake was a multi-million dollar, three-year contract that would add big numbers to both, the top and bottom lines.

The only problem was that the campus was bursting at the seams with people and there was no room to expand. The only way out seemed to take on expensive leased space or buy some `extortionately' priced land. In either case, the time to market would be rather stretched.

One of the company's directors was familiar with the benefits of the SFF PC and asked a leading Indian vendor to make a presentation on how they could add more seats (and people) without having to buy more real estate.

The presentation showed how the company could add at least another 350 people utilising the same space better with the help of slim PCs. The company's existing desktops were already close to the end of their life cycle and due for replacement.

The BPO player decided to migrate most systems to the slim form factor. The result was that it could ramp up at a fraction of the cost and time that would be involved in adding on another centre. The customer, too, was highly impressed with the company's time to market in implementing this large project.

Slimmer power bills

These systems use special small-sized motherboards and a specially designed enclosure to dramatically reduce system size, ensuring cool, quiet, and reliable operations.

Due to this specially designed architecture, small form factor machines consume relatively lesser power, resulting in sizeable savings on account of power consumed, over the long haul.

A large Delhi-based call centre with 2,000 seats was running up huge power bills, a significant part of which was due to the power-hungry desktop PCs that were on virtually 24x7. While there was no scope for reduction in other power-consuming devices such as air-conditioning, lighting, etc, the company decided to analyse the benefits of using SFF systems.

Calling some multinational and Indian vendors to present proposals, the call centre finally went ahead with a reputed Indian brand that has a nationwide distribution and service network. The final configuration replaced as many as 70 per cent of the total desktop systems at the campus. Not only did this yield additional space for more seats, but within weeks the company was also realising the benefits of lower power consumption. Computing power requirements were down as much as 23 per cent, resulting in sizeable reduction in electricity costs.

Looks do matter!

The old economy was driven by the credo that form should follow function. Businesses, particularly in the manufacturing sector, were large warehouses and factories with blue and white-collar workers and executives at their machines or desks. Disorderliness was the order of the day and aesthetics was considered the domain of the hospitality industry. Even corporate headquarters were nothing much to write home about.

The arrival of computing and networking meant a PC at every workstation - increasingly, even on the shop floor! The bulky, unwieldy machines ceased to be desktops and were hidden out of sight below the desk with only the monitor on the work surface. The global Indian corporation today is focused on capturing market share overseas. With customers demanding world-class quality and processes, the look and feel of the workplace is taking on new significance.

Not merely IT and BPO companies, but even the so-called Old Economy firms are sprucing up their offices, taking a hitherto unknown pride in the beauty of their workplaces. This is not merely with an eye on overseas customer visits - although these are certainly important - but also to instil a sense of pride amongst employees and improve productivity by providing a pleasant environment. In this scenario, where corporate lobbies compete with luxury hotels in aesthetics, and centrally air-conditioned offices have top designers doing them up, the dinosaur-like PC does seem rather incongruous.

A mid-sized Mumbai-based biotechnology player was playing host to a top management team from a prospective joint venture partner based in Europe. The objective was to create a `wow' effect on the visitors. A top interior designer was hired to do up the factory, offices and the company guesthouse and give them an international and futuristic look and feel. With only a few weeks to go, a senior executive remarked that although the effect had been largely achieved, the old PCs were somehow not going with the new look. Following some quick consultations, the company decided to replace several of the old machines with the small form factor PC from a leading Indian vendor. The result was freeing up of more space to give several of their office areas a roomier feel. While staff morale was boosted, the visitors were impressed with the facilities and the futuristic vision of the management.

Although the SFF machines may have played a small role in the overall plan, they were a key factor in making the right impact.

With top-of-the-line configurations that provide computing power on a par with the larger desktops, noise levels down to a whisper and efficient, reliable operations, the slim PC is certainly the way forward for desktop computing.

As more organisations realise the benefits of better utilisation of real estate, lower power bills and great aesthetics for the workplace of the future, it may be time to do a cost-benefit analysis on how a slim PC could change the way your company works.

The author is Product Manager, Desktops, Wipro Personal Computing Division, Wipro Infotech.

Picture by Bijoy Ghosh