Many companies choose to replace their workstations and various IT equipment only when it dies. Their thinking behind this is that it saves them money by using that equipment as long as humanly possible. What they aren’t realizing is how much money is lost in keeping an aged piece of hardware functioning, and how much time is lost when running a slow machine. Creation of a hardware refresh cycle can curb many of these issues and provide other benefits at the same time.
Most consumer level hardware, the type of personal technology that one would buy at a typical technology retail store, consists of parts that are bottom shelf items, which aren’t designed to work for more than around three years. Business class technology is a little better, averaging around a four and a half year life-span. With that information in mind, you can create a refresh cycle that will replace your machines at the three to four year mark (around the expected life of the machine) to save headaches.
By scheduling your replacements you can budget and plan every year for those replacement costs instead of paying for upkeep on the old devices. The replacement costs would include: the hardware, the installation, accessories, software, licenses, and disposal of the old gear. In a business environment, this will reduce the time lost by an employee when their old machine is running slow or stopping work altogether when it’s down. By implementing a technology refreshment plan that is designed to give you new technology when the lifespan of your old technology is up, you’re going to maintain high productivity from your workforce by avoiding downtime from slow devices, and you’ll also have a better handle on your technology finances by reducing unwanted emergency technology fixes on out-of-date machines.
One of the services we offer at Intelligent Technology is to help customize and implement your business technology refresh plan. Each company technology need is different, and because of that we will asses where you are today and build you a roadmap to get you where you want to be tomorrow.