Thinking about keeping up with these tech times? Making IT choices for business is challenging. It is hard to figure out if spending money on I.T. is an investment or expense. Here are some tips on how to lower costs, reduce pain, and mitigate risks in managing your technology.
1. Use Business Grade Computers
We read the flyer's and see the prices at Staples, and Best Buy, but not all computers are created equally. There are computers that are intended for home use and home environments with great graphics cards and have lots of toys that come with them. They usually have a one year warranty and support is not local or North American.
Business computers may not have the latest graphics cards or games, but they are known as workstations because they are easier to maintain and have fewer compatibility issues with your other business software and usually have 3 year support warranties. They are designed for work to do work.
2. Calculate Your Downtime Costs
Spending money can be painful, however losing money is torture. Downtime is the BIGGEST IT expense. Disasters come in all shapes and sizes at any given moment. Floods and fires can disable a companies entire IT infrastructure. The loss of momentum when systems are down hurts. The inability to deliver service is embarrassing and in excusable with technology today. See our Calculating downtime costs calculator for help.
3. Back it up & Back Up the BackUp!!
Keep your cash flow safe! Keep you business safe. .There is a 3-2-1 rule in IT.
3 Copies of critical data
2 Separate pieces of hardware
1 Copy Offisite
Accounting files, production files and your contacts are your business' intangible assets. Insurance is not going to cover those losses and no amount of money can replace it. Just because you have one back up, does not mean you have a Disaster Recovery Plan.
Disaster Recovery Solutions have evolved immensely, are cheap affordable for all business sizes. Your Disaster Recovery solution is designed to keep your business running so that if your servers crash, or if you are waiting on replacement parts, or if you are reloading and reconfiguring all of your softwares your business is still operational.
4. Lease I.T.
You wouldn't pay your employee 3 years in advance. Same for your I.T. When you lease, you can begin making IT a fixed operational cost, you get the technology you need right away, and chances are your 3 year lease is going to coincide with your 3 year warranty. If you do a lease to own, at the end of the leasing term when you own your equipment you may have the option of extending your hardware warranties for a couple of years.
Accounting is simplified and it is easy to plan and forecast.
5. Update in Bulk
When all of your systems are the same brand, it is easier to support. Think uniformity - it is easier to test, configure and manage when all tools are the same. Using multiple brands/models multiplies problems because each brand has its own way to fix things. Think of how different cars are from each other, same applies to computers.
6. Welcome Cloud Services
It is the way the technology is going. Cloud services are monthly subscriptions to applications and utilities from your vendors for services that you use daily. They are scalable so when you need more, you get more, immediately. The same is true when you need less. Think of your monthly utilities, hydro, water, gas, etc - same concept. It is cheaper to use CDN Technologies Hosted Exchange service than to install and maintain your own exchange server.
7. 24/7 Monitoring
If your business is open from 8-6, Monday to Friday that means there is 70% chance there will be a technology failure outside of business hours. Network monitoring acts as your eyes and ears alerting you to any issues related to your network. This includes monitoring and reporting of workstations or server uptime and downtime, hard disk space, critical services and event logs. Monitoring tools can be customized to deliver quite granular reports to both the tech support team and the business owner.
8. Out with the Old - Replace Aging Systems
Unfortunately in these tech times, it is cheaper to replace than repair. It's that simple. According to a study by www.wipro.com:
-Business stand to save a whopping 52% in PC support costs with new PCs compared to supporting and maintaining a 4 year old system
-In year 4, supporting costs are higher than the cost of a new mobile or desktop PC.
Updating hardware and replacing PC's in the office reflects well upon the business' appearance, employee moral and productivity in addition to eliminating spikes in IT spending.
9. Invest in your Internet Gateway
If your Internet gateway is not correctly configured you could be vulnerable to hackers, identity thieves in addition to legal penalties for a security breach. Your gateway devices (firewall and router) act as your security and safety systems to the Internet. These devices:
- block bad websites
- provide reports on internet usage per employee
- provide bandwidth reports
- ensure your connection is used for business applications; not for skype, you tubing, netflix,
- block male ware, phishing attempts, hacks, virus', etc
10. Find an IT Partner
Everyone needs a friend. We believe an IT Partner is someone who brings clarity to technology challenges. High level business technology advice is different than maintaining day to day operations, and smooth day to day management of your IT is is crucial for business survival and growth.
Having a dedicated team to provide you with IT strategy eliminates bottlenecks, mitigates risk and increases profitability. (All measurable variables)
We believe the role of an IT Partner is to provide your business with proven IT strategies. After all IT is supposed to be pleasurable and make things easier for business to be profitable.
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