Why ASUS Canada’s Vernon Coutinho believes the single biggest mindset shift for Canadian business leaders is to stop treating technology as a cost line — and start treating it as an enabler.
In 2026, as AI moves from pitch deck to desktop, the laptop has quietly become three things at once: a collaboration hub, a security layer, and a retention tool. On the latest episode of the CanadianSME Small Business Podcast, host Kripa Anand sat down with Vernon Coutinho, Country Manager of the ASUS System Business Group in Canada, to unpack what that means for Canadian SMBs. Coutinho brings nearly 30 years of global experience; under his tenure, ASUS Canada has grown its consumer market share from 5% to 20%.
Canadians Buy Value, Not Price Tags
Coutinho has managed businesses across several regions, and Canada behaves differently. “Canadian customers are more open to ideas,” he said — a receptiveness he links to the country’s immigrant makeup and the fact that Canadians travel, arriving already familiar with global brands.
But openness is not the same as easy money. Canadian buyers are “very value focused,” he said. “It’s not just about price, it’s what it’s going to do for them.” In a market dominated by small and medium businesses, where every dollar is scrutinized, that distinction matters: cheap is not the same as economical.
From Background Expense to Strategic Asset
Why has hardware become a boardroom decision rather than an IT line item? Coutinho points first to the obvious force. “I’ve heard people tell me AI is coming,” he said, “but I hate to break the bubble — it’s already here.” The second force is quieter: “the computer is so much more powerful now that it’s no longer just a base device.” Work that once needed a workstation now runs on a laptop, often in a client’s office. Business users are mobile in a way consumers are not, and their hardware either keeps up or becomes a bottleneck.
Cutting Through the AI PC Hype
Ask Coutinho what an SMB should expect from an AI PC and he inverts the question. Do not go shopping for AI — go shopping for a problem. “What can it streamline for your business? What can it make you more productive?” The mistake is trying to “shoehorn” AI into a company that has not defined what it wants solved.
Two practical points cut through the noise. First, the premium has largely evaporated: “The price gap now is actually almost negligible for an AI PC.” Second, on-device AI carries a security dividend, because sensitive business information never has to travel to the cloud — and much of it works offline.
The everyday value is immediate: transcription, so you can hold the conversation instead of taking notes; translation; and summarization that turns 25 pages of email into a single page. His verdict is blunt: “I can’t go back to a laptop without AI once you start using it.”
One ASUS: Innovation That Travels
ASUS runs what Coutinho calls a “One ASUS” philosophy: consumer, gaming, creator and commercial teams that deliberately borrow from one another. A dual-screen design built for productivity migrated to gaming; lessons from business notebooks flow back the other way. The engineering that keeps a gaming laptop cool under load is what keeps a business fleet reliable.
That design capability is the least understood thing about the company: roughly 600 engineers focused on design alone — cooling, materials, exclusive finishes, even which colours will matter next year. “We look at how is this going to be better than what’s already out there,” he said, invoking the company tagline: In Search of Incredible.
It is also why he warns against buying on a spec sheet. “It’s very easy to buy a laptop just on specifications,” he said. “They don’t always perform the same.” Identical CPU, RAM and storage can deliver very different thermals and battery life in the real world.
Building B2B Trust in Canada
ASUS Canada’s commercial focus rests on three pillars: small and medium business, education, and, increasingly, government. “Trust is earned,” Coutinho said, “and it’s earned over a period of time. We do not want a transaction, we want relationships.”
The company is putting capital behind that conviction, recently buying a roughly 60,000-square-foot office — more space than it needs. “We don’t actually need that much space right now,” he said, “but my plan for our business in Canada has five years of growth.” Service is the other half of the promise: in a country this large, turnaround time and parts logistics decide whether a laptop is an asset or a liability.
The Bottom Line: A Tool, Not a Cost
Asked for the single biggest mindset shift Canadian business leaders should make, Coutinho did not hesitate: “View technology as a productivity tool rather than as a cost.” There is a purchase price — but the return, he argued, is a multiple of it. That makes it an investment, not a necessary evil.
His final nudges: trust the younger staff already fluent in AI, and let hardware reflect the business itself. For Canadian SMBs planning their next refresh cycle, the takeaway is twofold — buy for what the work requires, not what the spec sheet says, and stop asking what the technology costs. Start asking what it returns.
To learn more, visit canadiansme.ca, and visit the CanadianSME Small Business Foundation at smbfoundation.ca. A special thank-you to podcast partners UPS and ADP for their ongoing commitment to empowering small businesses across Canada.
Disclaimer: This article is based on publicly available information intended only for informational purposes. CanadianSME Small Business Magazine does not endorse or guarantee any products or services mentioned. Readers are advised to conduct their research and due diligence before making business decisions.
