Economic Impact of Mac in the Workplace: Forrester Study

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Many businesses rule out Mac for one simple reason: it looks more expensive upfront. However, the economic impact of Mac in the workplace tells a different story once you measure it properly. Forrester Consulting looked into exactly this, in a study commissioned by Apple. The figures turn out to be rather more favourable than the initial sticker price suggests.

At Setek, we work with businesses across manufacturing, finance, retail, healthcare, education and logistics. We do this in Spain and the UAE. That’s why we know decisions like this rarely come down to purchase price alone. In this article, we go through what the study found, what the figures actually say, and what they mean for your organisation.

What is Forrester’s Total Economic Impact (TEI) study on Apple?

The study is called The Total Economic Impact™ Of Apple Mac At Work. It was produced by Forrester Consulting, an independent research firm, on commission from Apple. That’s worth bearing in mind. When reading the figures, it helps to remember that source of funding, rather than treating the study as a fully neutral source.

The methodology, though, is solid and fairly standard for this kind of vendor-commissioned study. Forrester interviewed 11 technology leaders and surveyed a further 265 people. Among them were 208 IT decision-makers and 57 end users. From that data, Forrester built a composite organisation: a representative business with 7,500 employees worldwide. The aim was to reflect a realistic case, rather than a single, unrepresentative example.

This kind of methodology, known as TEI, isn’t exclusive to Apple. Forrester uses it across different vendors to quantify both direct and indirect benefits. So, although Apple’s sponsorship calls for some caution, the analytical framework itself remains useful well beyond this one study.

The key numbers: ROI, NPV and payback period

Here are the core financial results the study found for that composite organisation.

TCO, or total cost of ownership, covers all the spend tied to a device over its working life. This includes the initial purchase, technical support, maintenance and eventual disposal. According to the study, each Mac generated $760 in savings compared with the PC alternative, once all these factors were added up.

NPV, or net present value, measures how much value an investment generates today, once future cash flows are discounted back to their present-day worth. A positive NPV of $10.1 million suggests, according to the study, that the project generates considerably more value than it costs to implement. The payback period of under six months, meanwhile, shows how quickly the investment pays for itself.

The impact on employee productivity

Beyond the financial figures, the study measures something many businesses underestimate: time. According to Forrester, each employee gets back roughly 100 minutes a month by using Mac instead of a PC. Over a year, that adds up to more than 20 hours per person.

That time splits into two specific areas. On one hand, 45 minutes a month that used to go on start-ups and system updates. On the other, 55 minutes no longer spent troubleshooting technical issues alone. Multiply that across thousands of employees, and the time recovered becomes a far from trivial figure for any HR or finance department.

Less strain on the IT team

The study also quantifies the operational relief for the IT department. Specifically, it points to a 55% reduction in support tickets linked to these devices. That figure matters, since technical support is often one of the hidden costs hardest to justify to leadership.

As a direct result, each IT technician can manage 300 additional devices without the team needing to grow. This doesn’t just save on staffing costs in the short term. It also frees up the technical team’s time for more strategic projects, rather than repetitive, low-value troubleshooting.

Security: fewer breaches, less risk

Security is, arguably, the finding with the biggest long-term weight. Forrester found a 45% reduction in the likelihood of breaches from external attacks when using Mac. For lost or stolen devices, that reduction reaches 80%.

These figures don’t come from nowhere. Native encryption capabilities and Apple’s security model help explain them. On top of that, sound MDM management narrows the real attack surface of each device. Ultimately, fewer security incidents also mean lower costs. However, that saving is harder to spot at a glance than a hardware invoice.

Avoided costs and residual value

The study also identifies costs the composite organisation simply stopped paying. These include $2.4 million in PC software licences and $3.4 million in hardware. On top of that, there’s a further $72,000 in energy costs over five years.

There’s another factor many businesses overlook when comparing prices: residual value. According to Forrester, a Mac retains around 30% of its value even after four years of use. As a result, reselling or redeploying the device internally brings an additional saving. That saving, too, rarely features in the initial purchasing analysis.

What these figures mean for your business

It’s worth clarifying something before drawing hasty conclusions: these figures describe a composite organisation, not a universal guarantee for every business. Your actual results will depend on your size, your sector, your current device set-up and your level of IT management maturity.

Even so, the analytical framework itself is replicable for your own case. You can apply the same logic: TCO, productivity, support workload and security. That way, you build your own business case, rather than simply comparing catalogue prices. In fact, that exercise often reveals savings that the purchase price alone would never show clearly.

To start, it helps to gather some concrete internal data. For example: how many support tickets your current fleet generates, and how much time IT spends on each incident. It also helps to know how many device-related security incidents you’ve had in the past year, and how much of your hardware budget currently goes on replacements rather than genuine upgrades. With that groundwork, Forrester’s framework stops being someone else’s report and becomes a useful template for your own decision, one you can update as your fleet and your risk profile change over time.

The economic impact of Mac in the workplace, by sector

Not every sector feels the economic impact of Mac in the workplace in the same way. In retail and logistics, for instance, the drop in support tickets matters especially when devices are spread across dozens of locations. Every avoided technician visit saves both time and travel.

In finance and healthcare, the weight falls more heavily on security. A 45% reduction in breaches from external attacks carries clear added value here. After all, the data being protected is often medical records or sensitive financial information. In education, meanwhile, recovered productivity and lower support costs matter most. Both factors let smaller IT teams support more users without growing headcount. And in manufacturing, TCO savings and residual hardware value matter particularly. They help justify fleet renewals to an exacting finance department.

How Setek helps you build your own business case for Mac

At Setek, as an Apple Premium Technical Partner, we help businesses turn data like this study’s into a concrete analysis for their own fleet. Our goal is for the economic impact of Mac in the workplace to stop being a theoretical figure and become an action plan. We assess your current device estate, your support workload and your security policies before recommending any change.

We also integrate that strategy with our device management and cybersecurity services. This way, potential benefits such as less support, fewer incidents and higher productivity turn into real outcomes. They stop being just a figure in a report and start showing up in your bottom line. Crucially, we don’t stop at the initial rollout. We keep monitoring support workload and security posture afterwards, so the gains a study like Forrester’s describes actually hold up once the devices are in daily use.

Conclusion

The economic impact of Mac in the workplace, according to Forrester’s study, goes well beyond the price tag. TCO savings, recovered productivity, lower support workload and reduced security risk all add up together. As a result, the economic impact of Mac in the workplace ends up carrying more weight than expected. The business case, in turn, proves sturdier than many businesses assume by default.

If you want to build that analysis for your own business, Setek can help you review it using real data from your own operation. This way, the economic impact of Mac in the workplace stops being a generic figure from a report and starts reflecting your actual situation. Get in touch with our team, and let’s start by understanding where you stand today.

Read the study in Forrester

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