Why you should replace your IT equipment before it fails

Why would you replace your IT equipment before it fails? The answer is because it’s under $3 per day to remove the risk.

I know times are a little tough globally at the moment, and it’s a great idea to reduce spending. But we are seeing an alarming trend in small businesses that are running hardware until it fails.

It’s time to rethink why we replace IT equipment and look at where we are (or aren’t) saving funds.

In the fifth and sixth year of a PCs life, the physical device is of no real value. Certainly extending the life of equipment reduces expenditure on products, but what is it doing to maintenance costs and productivity? Now I’m not endorsing consumerist behaviour, and I detest the creation of landfill from IT waste, but despite that, I am a business person, and I know that the total cost of ownership is still important to the bottom line. This is the ultimate measure of business health over the long-term, so I look at the cost of using inefficient, unstable computers in businesses where the highest cost is labour.

If your business is in the professional services space or if your computers are used by professional staff in your office, then your cost per hour for a staff member is more over two hours than the value of a computer in its fifth year of service ($20 or less). Although a new PC with software and set may seem expensive, the cost per day over a three year span is probably well under $3 per day, and under $2 per day if you get a fourth year out of it.

How many more minutes of work per day do your staff need to accomplish to justify the $3 expense?

So now, let’s look at the potential cost, not of a slowdown but of failure. When IT equipment fails it stops us in our tracks these days. So for each occurrence of downtime we have loss of productivity, distraction of others and potentially, loss of income. If it takes a couple of days to replace our $20 device, we could lose revenue of hundreds, or in some cases, thousands of dollars. If data is lost in the failure, it could be a great effort of time and money to retrieve or reconstruct the data – more days and dollars lost. In the case of servers, this amount can grow to tens of thousands of dollars.

I will also mention that new versions of operating systems and software can offer additional benefits and features that we previously hadn’t considered necessary. And so, there can be additional bonuses from upgrading. For example, I now use Outlook via the internet from anywhere, without needing to use Outlook Web Access or a VPN – all thanks to my new Windows 7, Office 2010 laptop. This has been a big step forward as I only need to keep track of how to use one system, and I have no barrier to entry.

So is there an upside to running old PCs?

• Certainly if they are performing well, it’s hard to see that the risk justifies the expense of replacement. But are they really running that well for you?
• Buying well in the first place to ensure a third and fourth year of use reduces the cost of moving from one machine to another, however, no matter how well the migration is done there is always an impact on the person in front of the PC.
• Reducing landfill is a huge bonus.
• Energy of creation is also reduced, although offset by running costs as new machines tend to be more efficient.
• Some of us still get emotionally attached to our devices – especially if you have cool stickers on them!
• While some of you will work with volunteers, and don’t need to increase their productivity, there is no cost to workers. But is there respect for their sanity?

Really, I am struggling to see a reason for hanging on; do you have any?

David Markus is the founder of Combo – the IT services company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth. We win awards for the service we offer, so if your IT environment is slowing you down, contact Combo on 1300 726 626 to organise a complimentary consultation with David.