In my experience, people in business know when they need new IT systems but lack the technical nous to explain why, and the IT / business skills to justify the additional expense.
So, when it feels bad they spend a little bit of money to try and speed up the system to make the bad feeling go away. When this fails, they feel even worse about the money wasted and stick their head in the sand hoping they don't have to spend more soon.
So, it's the new financial year, and like every other year, you've probably failed to budget for IT and you know your systems are failing your business. You also know that you can't blame anybody for this situation. You made a small profit last year, but you have to hang onto it to get through the tough times we all know lie ahead before the financial storm is over. You can even remember a time before the financial storm, when IT was hard to justify spending money on, and now you are really suffering because of the poor planning and decisions you made back then.
There are a lot of reasons why old computers slow down. Of course, there is some stuff that can be done to make them limp a bit quicker, but we all know the real solution is to give them the bullet and move to new equipment – set up and fine-tuned to work better than the old stuff.
So how do you move from here to where you need to be?
First of all, stop spending money on your current systems. You're probably throwing away good money. Assess how much you are spending on the systems you have, and on keeping them running. Here is the hard part – I want you to include the cost of downtime by multiplying the number of staff you have by the number of hours of down time by the average salary or your hourly charge rate if you know it. Also include the cost of services you are using to remedy the IT problems.
If your computers are not crashing, but are just slow, try to figure out how many hours a week are being wasted by how many people. And, if there are things you just can't do, figure out what it would be worth to your business if you could do them.
This will help you establish a budget. If you are spending nothing and there is nothing to save, you need to reach deeper to find the budget.
Think about it like this though – how many staff are you likely to upset and lose if you do not update your systems? How many prospective clients will you miss out on? How many existing ones will you lose? Can you track billable hours of your staff better to recoup more fees or can you get more stock turns through better inventory management? Keep thinking about why you use computers, and where they can return on your investment.
Specifically, ask yourself:
- What are the must-have improvements you need?
- What will generate the most profitable results?
- What will improve efficiency the most or reduce lag times the most?
- Can you account for more services or stock?
- Can you improve margins or improve services?
What will you need to achieve this?
Start with the software you need to achieve the outcome, then move onto the hardware to support it, and finally find a services team that will make it all work for long enough to give you the return on investment.
If you need help with any part of this journey, find a trusted advisor who can help you understand your business from an IT perspective and develop the right plan to move forward so you can stop wasting money on the wrong solutions or resources, and start investing in a profitable future.
And, remember, now's the time to do it – take advantage of the ever so low interest rates, lock in a lease and invest in new systems. There is a good chance it will put you ahead of your competition when the financial climate improves.
Click here to read more IT Systems expert advice.
David Markus is the founder of Combo - the IT services company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth.
No comments:
Post a Comment