The upgrading of IT is an important area that businesses are often ignoring, it has been suggested.
Ganesh Selvarajah, an adviser at the government-funded business support service Business Link, claimed that many are only upgrading systems when there is a failure issue.
"Most of the businesses we deal with, very few of them will actually have posh email services and be using BlackBerry's or equivalents when they are out and about," he said.
"It's very much still office-based equipment that we're looking at and the equipment [is updated] usually only when there's been a system failure."
The news is particularly useful to those in the supply chain, as a crashed computer system can lead to lost orders and a slowed work process.
Earlier this year, Forrester Research suggested that global purchases of IT goods and services by businesses and government will decline by three per cent in 2009.
According to cloud computing company Salesforce.com, many businesses are now looking at "less risky alternatives" to traditional expensive ways.
David Bradshaw, research manager at global intelligence firm IDC, said: "Cloud computing has advanced greatly in Europe and the economic crisis is probably going to increase this rise."
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