by Richard Lee
September 2020
Are you a business owner and wondering what you can do to save money on your IT spend? I'll talk about some obvious ways to do this and some less obvious ways. The savings can be immediate or may be apparent after years of usage. Other savings are from preventative measures.
Are your computer more than 4 years old? Are they still working well and with no significant issues that affect performance, security and reliability. If so fine and there's no need to do anything. However if thats not the case or you've already spent some money with upgrades, support even repairs, now may be a good time to look at buying a new computer. You could also source a refurbished computer at cheaper rates.
However they typically come with less warranty and are more prone to issues/defects than new computers.
Adopt the proactive maintenance mindset. That is look at doing regular maintenance on your computers. Don't wait until there's a problem or issue before calling for support. At stake is performance, productivity even security may be at risk if you take the "wait and see" approach. In general aim for maintenance 3 to 6 times a year per computer. Although you're spending on the maintenance the benefits are that you'll be on top
of updates, performance and productivity. This will more than repay you in the long run.
The measure should minimise the need for expensive ad hoc support on a major issue.
Outsource I.T. Support rather than trying to fix things yourself or even getting staff to contact call centres such as vendors or ISPs. You (and your staff) can spend your time more productively than trying to deal with I.T. issues yourself. Let the experts take care of I.T. issues for you.
While it can be attractive to buy cheap no name brand hardware, the drawbacks can come back to bite! More calls for warranty and out of warranty support. That would cost you not only in terms of servicing but also due the downtime. What about having
to replace the systems more often as well!
Consider replacing hardware with better quality known brands that have very good to excellent warranty and back up support even onsite same day support. While this would mean paying more up front the benefits over the life of the system will more than outweigh the costs.
This could be due to a reduced need to use warranty services, less downtime means greater productivity, and greater productivity means more satisfied staff and clients.
Are you making long distance calls regularly? If so you may want to implement a VoIP solution. VoIP is voice over IP and it means using the internet to route voice calls. This can amount to substantial savings to calls.
Switch off computers/monitors and other hardware if they don't need to be left on all day/night. This can amount to significant energy savings and money over the course of the lifetime of the device. Set devices to use auto power off or standby after being idle for a while.
Laptops consume far less power than desktop computers. This can be often as much
as 90% or more less. By using laptop computers you can save a lot of money over the
course of the life of the system. Although one draw card for using desktops are that
they tend to be more ergonomic and support better posture for users.
I've just discussed the main ways that you can save money in the long run on I.T.
expenditure. Call us to discuss any of these requirements. We can tailor a solution to
fit your needs and budget.
There are a few more ways to save money on I.T. As I've discussed in a previous blog
one way is to regularly back up your data. Without a back up you are risking data that
may take many days/weeks/months to reconstruct if that is even possible! Some data
may be emails or photos and may not be so simple or even practical to reconstruct. Also
considering cost of retrieving data from a failed device such as hard drive or memory
card can amount from multiple hundreds to thousands of dollars!
Ensure your staff are all adequately informed about company security protocols. This
can be in terms of: - in bound calls
- emails
- bill payments
This is a preventative measure to ensure there is no potential for loss through exposure
to security/malware/phishing/improper payments to cyber criminals.
Are your business operations heavily reliant on the internet? If you're more than a solo
preneur and you've got several staff working under the same roof, then consider implementing a 4G internet router back up solution (if it isn't already the case).
This will ensure that you can still work when and if your main internet goes down. That could be due to issues at the telco or physical line down for instance. The solution uses a 4G wireless dongle attached to your router. The 4G dongle connects to the ISP wirelessly much like a mobile phone can. (The 4G dongle would require configuration in the router interface to work properly) Although this method would normally slow down internet speeds its better than no internet access while primary internet is down. Remember that each hour of downtime could potentially cost your business $000s.
However if you're only a solo preneur with no staff reliant on you, then you could already use your mobile phone and set it up as a hot spot to connect to during the outage. Call us if you need to implement a suitable redundant internet solution.
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