I was able to propose engineer PC renewal to CEO & CTO and get approval, so I’ll share the articles that were helpful at that time.

Prerequisites

I’m in the position of a software engineer (not an executive or officer) working at what’s called a startup company.

Company overview

• Unlisted company (6th year since founding)
• Has raised funds from several companies
• About 10 engineers

My overview

• Development team leader (Engineering Lead)
• Reports to CEO, CTO
• Has 1on1 with supervisor every two weeks

Timing to propose PC renewal

• Company has cash reserves
• Actively recruiting engineers

When the company situation was such that I could say “I want PC renewal,” I brought up this topic in a 1on1.

Please renew PCs before hiring engineers

Cost of purchasing full-spec MacBook Pro < One month’s salary for an engineer

I think this comparison formula applies in most cases. Therefore, I talked in a 1on1 about “Before hiring new engineers, I want PC renewal for the purpose of improving productivity of engineers working with old PCs.”

As an aside, whether the currently used PC has been fully depreciated seems to be a concern, so if it’s been 4 years, internal approval should pass without problems.

• パソコン耐用年数について知っておきたい3つのこと｜BIZ KARTE

Other company examples of PC investment

One strong ally for getting internal approval is examples from other companies.

In my case, since I work at an unlisted company, I introduced an example from BizReach (unlisted) to CEO and CTO in a 1on1 some time ago and proposed engineer PC renewal.

[Source] 1人約70万円の投資--ビズリーチがエンジニアらに136台のiMac Proを導入した理由 - CNET Japan

“For example, even fixing one character causes waiting time (during build). When you consider doing ‘write a little and test’ 100 or 200 times a day, if there’s a 12-second difference, 100 times equals 1200 seconds, equivalent to 20 minutes” (Takeuchi). Market conditions also have an influence. “My rough impression is that for engineer positions, job postings for expert talent with 800,000 yen annual salary are seeing salary increases of about 500,000 to 1 million yen annually in current market conditions. This time we’re investing about 700,000 yen per person, but considering the salary difference with people who can achieve even higher performance, I don’t think this is a large human investment.”

Additionally, while these are examples from listed companies, it might be good to just send the URLs of the following articles:

• 貸与PCがいつでも交換可能になりました - 本質を考え、大胆にルール改変 - mercan（メルカン）
• サイボウズのPC標準機はどれもメモリ32GB積んでるって、正直ムダじゃないですか？ | サイボウズ式

That’s all from the Gemba where I want to regularly renew PCs to improve engineer productivity.