Have you noticed your computer has been running a little slower lately? Or how about those programs you normally run seem to be taking longer and longer to load? How long has it been since your last technology assessment?
You could be working with outdated equipment or systems that slow you down, and that could be costing you money. Here are some of the ways that those older systems can impact your bottom line:
Lower Productivity
With slower systems, your staff is not able to operate at the speed they are capable of. When you have to wait for a screen to load or program to open, that is time that they’re not able to move ahead in their tasks. It may seem minuscule – 5 seconds here, 10 seconds there – but the cumulative time spent waiting on programs or tasks can add up to minutes and hours. Multiply that by your entire work force and you’re likely to tally a significant loss in productivity. That doesn’t even factor the frustration of your team on having to wait for systems to load. When systems don’t operate smoothly or take longer than the staff thinks they should, they can grow irritated with the delays as well, causing them to look for workarounds or shortcuts to bypass the lag.
Sunsetting Technologies and Difficulty Getting Support
You’re not going to find someone to support your Windows 95 program anymore.
…As ridiculous as that analogy might sound, we commonly find systems in use that are either extremely outdated, or written as a proprietary program that no one can service. All that is a setup for issues down the road – if that system goes out all together, you’re stuck with the only option to build from scratch.
A more recent example are businesses or institutions that still use POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) phone lines rather than updated VOIP and SIP technologies. With the FCC calling on phone providers to sunset the support of POTS lines in the field, the continued support and contracts have increased significantly in cost.
By setting up current technologies and platforms you set yourself up for more options in the future.
Out Of Warranty
If one of your core switches were to fail, you might be looking at several thousand dollars for a replacement if it is not covered by warranty. Having equipment under warranty can be extremely helpful to keep a predictable budget and peace of mind.
Security Concerns
With outdated systems come the potential for vulnerabilities. If a system is no longer supported by the provider, security patches and updates are not usually developed, leaving you susceptible to cyber threats.
A Technology Assessment Can Help
Of course there are pros and cons to everything and conducting a cost/benefit/risk analysis is always a consideration …but your systems aren’t going to get faster over time, they’re only going to continue to slow, become more vulnerable (with lack of patches and updates available), or even crash. By developing a plan to move forward or even just begin the budgeting process is a step in the right direction for your continued success. Diamond IT can help.
With our Technology Assessments, we can help you prioritize your next steps in updating and upgrading your IT infrastructure. What’s more, we can work with you to implement those strategies, updates, and migrations. After all, when was the last time you conducted a technology assessment or audit?