How Canadian professionals view today’s workplace | October 2015

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Toshiba’s The State of Canadian Business

A snapshot view from Canadians who work in business | October 2015

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About the Respondents

03 About the survey and respondents

04 Canadian business outlook

05 Worries facing Canada’s business class

06 Most loathed jargon

07 Workplace personalization

08 Influences on technology purchasing

09 Most interesting Intel technology

10 Technology trends and Canadian business

11 IT challenges

12 Toshiba notebook popularity

Table of Contents

To better understand Canadian business professionals, Toshiba Canada fielded the Toshiba Canada Business Class survey online in August and September 2015. The survey was sent to all subscribers of Toshiba Canada’s permission marketing database, promoted via social networks and distributed to subscribers of an Air Canada business-targeted email newsletter. We thank the 1842 Canadian business professionals who completed the survey for taking time to share their views.

Company Size

Mobile Operating System Android (76%) iOS (21%) Other (3%)

Device Used to Complete Survey Laptop/PC (78%) Tablet (7%) Smartphone (13%) Other (2%)

Desktop Browser Chrome (40%) Explorer (20%) Safari (36%) Firefox (36%)

1000 +

500 — 999

100 — 499

10 — 99

1 — 9

Prefer not to say

112

255

450

466

135

About the Respondents

3

Empl

oyee

s

380

375

While Canada fell into recession in the first half of 2015, 65% of respondents remain optimistic that Canadian business will continue to thrive in the future. This is an especially gratifying result given weak oil prices and tumultuous world financial markets.

This lines up with the Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Confidence Index. As of September 11, 2015, Canadians had a net positive view in terms of economic mood. The data is based on perceptions related to personal finances, job security, economic strength, and real estate value.

65% of respondents are optimistic about the future of Canadian business

4

Confidence in the future of Canadian

business

Extremely unconfident

Unconfident

Neither confident nor unconfident

Confident

Extremely confident

19

77

519

787

361

600

According to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, there are often two main aspects associated with work life balance – the first is lack of time and difficulty scheduling tasks, and the other is feeling overwhelmed, overloaded or stressed by the pressures of multiple roles. Given this description, it is not surprising then that the second most common worry selected by our respondents is related to pressure (stress).

Worries with Business

Work/life balance

Pressure to do more with less

Time management

Job insecurity

Finding and retaining talent

Company leadership

Cash flow

Growing revenue

Government regulations

Lack of progress

667

585

387

385

356

297

285

282

264

208

525

Canadian business professionals are worried about work-life balance (37%) and the pressure to do more with less (32%)

5

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100% of the people who say they give 110% do not understand math.Jargon is a reality in Canadian workplaces; technical terms have their place—but there are countless industry and company-specific euphemisms masquerading as jargon that seeks to muddy, spin, or mollify important concepts.When people hear someone using jargon-filled abstract language, they’re more likely to respect that person. That’s according to research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The findings suggest that if you want to seem powerful to onlookers, it is important to use abstract language to communicate the gist of the situation, rather than use concrete language to spell out specific details.

Most Loathed Business

Jargon

Given the chance, the respondents would remove the phrase “giving 110%” from the English language

6

Giving 110%

Low-hanging fruit

Human capital

Think out of the box

Deep dive

Take offline

Drill down

Scalable

509

347

259

173

125

110

106

85

450

Ideally, we’d all have comfortable, pleasant, secure places to get our best work done. Keeping your workspace organized and eliminating clutter are key. Having the control to make even small changes to your environment can increase job satisfaction.

Research published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology found that personal items such as photos, knick-knacks, and children’s drawings provided workers with a greater sense of ownership and control over their space.

How Workspaces are Personalized

7

Family photos

Plants

Freebies and promotional items

Pet photos

Sports paraphernalia

Retro toys

Other

612

380

246

179

174

110

48

525

Family photos are the most common way to personalize workspaces and just over 25% of respondents don’t personalize their workspace

Workspace Personalization I do (74%) I don’t (26%)

Together, brand (the sum of perceptions about a company’s products or services) and reputation (the sum of perceptions about a company’s corporate actions held by the public) have the most influence on technology purchasing decisions. Last year, Toshiba Canada ranked #20 in a list of Canada’s best loved global brands compiled by Canadian Business and The Reputation Institute.

Influences on tech purchasing

decisions

8

Brand reputation

Product build and specifications

Total cost of ownership

Peer reviews / rating

Up-front investment

Complexity of transition

IT buying committee

Media coverage and analysts’ reports

853

721

661

566

333

268

236

145

675

Aside from product build and specifications, brand reputation and total cost of ownership most influences technology purchasing decisions

Demonstrated at CES in early January, wireless charging stations could soon become common in airports, cafes, hotels and other public places. The technology can be easily fitted under existing tables or counter tops, which essentially makes them wireless charging pads. Remote device management allows IT teams to remotely diagnose, refresh, upgrade applications, services and operating systems.

Most interesting new / emerging Intel technology

9

Wireless charging

Remote device management

Wireless display

Wireless docking

RealSense 3D camaras

549

363

246

140

450

When it comes to emerging and new technologies from Intel, respondents were most interested in wireless charging and remote device management

470

The Business Case for Faster, Better Computers

Three Excellent Reasons to Buy New Business-Class Devices Older desktop and mobile devices can run slowly and cost your business in repairs and downtime. What’s more, they lack the latest security technologies, which may put your customer data at risk. Millions of business users rely on Intel-powered devices. 1. Increased productivity – faster performance

and the chance to modernize your business2. Hardware-enhanced security – safeguard

your business data devices and user identities

3. Broader choice – new innovations mean a range of designs. You don’t have to sacrifice flexibility for memory, storage drives, wireless cards, or number of ports as many of these options are fully configurable

A September 2015 report from research firm Gartner suggests that global spending on information security will total $75.4 billion in 2015, an increase of 4.7% over last year.“Interest in security technologies is increasingly driven by elements of digital business, particularly cloud, mobile computing and now also the Internet of

Things, as well as by the sophisticated and high-impact nature of advanced targeted attacks,” said Elizabeth Kim, a Gartner analyst.In response to such vulnerabilities, Gartner suggested that endpoint detection and remediation tools are becoming increasingly commoditized.

Impact of trends on business

Cloud computing

Big data

Cybersecurity

Crowd funding

Internet of things

Bring your own device

3D printing

3.12

3.30

4.50

2.21

3.11

3.22

2.39

3.75

Rated on a 5-point scale cybersecurity is the technology trend identified most likely to impact Canadian business

10

Technology is changing faster than ever and it’s making the role of IT more complex. Hardware manufacturers, like Toshiba, are helping IT specialists cope with their challenges by engineering reliable, quality products that

provide outstanding lifetime value. They’re also offering solutions and services for infrastructure and endpoint management freeing up time for IT to focus on business critical tasks.

IT Challenges

Outdated technology

Limited internal IT resources

Too much time spent troubleshooting problems

Increasing complexity of device management

Bulky and costly infrastructure

Not enough investment in security

Other

649

809

597

551

356

297

41

675

The combination of outdated technology and limited internal IT resources are the most common challenges faced by Canadians

11

Toshiba Canada offers laptops built for every size of business. Check out our buyer’s guide infographic for more details.

12

Canadians are fairly evenly split about which Toshiba business class laptop they’d like to use for work

31% 24% 23% 22%

Portégé® Z20t

Z-Series Satellite Pro R50

TecraW50

30

Innovative 2-in-1 versatility along with outstanding battery life and an exceptional handwriting experience

Toshiba Z-Series laptops don’t just look pretty; they are built for enterprise-level performance and security

An enterprise-class laptop priced for small- to medium-sized businesses

A powerhouse for engineers and designers who demand premium performance and graphics

Ultrabook, Celeron, Celeron Inside, Core Inside, Intel, Intel Logo, Intel Atom, Intel Atom Inside, Intel Core, Intel Inside, Intel Inside Logo, Intel vPro, Itanium, Itanium Inside, Pentium, Pentium Inside, vPro Inside, Xeon, Xeon Phi, and Xeon Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.

www.toshiba.ca

All Toshiba laptops mentioned in the report are powered by “Intel® Core™ Processors”