Laptop Shortages

One severe consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic is the shortage of laptops both new and refurbished. With the guidance from the government being to work from home if you can, many employees are facing this change having never considered or prepared for it before. Not every employee has a study or a fixed location they can work from so laptops are the obvious choice.

Tablets have been quietly eroding the home PC away for the last 10 years so many households find themselves without a single PC or laptop. Even if the employee has their own device, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) generates a plethora of hurdles to overcome from a data security and information governance perspective.

Thousands of employees potentially capable of working from home are being forced to work in a limited capacity due to the inability to procure suitable devices. Sadly, many companies will be stockpiling old, redundant devices which could be suitable, purely as an insurance policy for their own perseverance.

As the world adapts to this new normal and directives change, this problem will subside, but with forecasts of 2nd peaks and localised lockdowns, this problem is unlikely to disappear overnight.