What Is The Cost of Cheap Computer and Network Equipment

What Is The Cost of Cheap Computer and Network Equipment

Do you run your own business? Are you thinking to yourself, what is the cost of cheap computer and network equipment?

Many times business owners try to go as cheap as possible when purchasing computer and network equipment. There’s nothing wrong with trying to save a buck here and there, but it should be saved and spent in the right places. Most people think all tech is the same, but that is not true. There is a reason why some items are sold at such a cheap price and there is always a tradeoff to going cheap. That tradeoff is usually performance and reliability, so you might be thinking, “my employees only run Word or create emails”, however, every computer out there is always doing more than that. Many times there is an antivirus program running in the background protecting the machine from internet threats and also hopefully you have some software backing up your data, that program also uses the PC resources, not to mention the various resources Windows or Mac OS uses.

Now you’re probably thinking “if I purchase cheaper computer equipment, I will save a lot of money” However that is almost always not the case, in fact cheaper equipment breaks down more often, costing you more downtime and money in repairs.

The Actual Cost of Cheap Computer and Network Equipment

There is another factor almost no one considers. If just one staff member has to wait 30 seconds to open a word document due to cheaper equipment and if that task is performed, even just 60 times a day, they have wasted 30 minutes per day on that one simple task. Of course no one does just one task many times a day, which means they are wasting even more time waiting for things to happen on their “cheap” computer.

A perfect example of this was a client we welcomed in 2013; it was a commercial printing service provider with 2.7 million dollars in revenue and 15 employees. They had both a slow network and slow computers; this was because they tried to save money in all the wrong places on their I.T infrastructure.
Prior to us rebuilding their computer and network infrastructure, some of the staff had to wait 4 minutes for a file to open up across the network, while working inside the office and up to 20 minutes to open that same file while working outside of the office. Of course that was ridiculous to have to wait that long to open a file.

The Actual Cost Savings to Quality Computer and Network Equipment

After we spec’d out the computer and network infrastructure for their office needs, we then set it up and the changes where dramatic. The same user that had to wait 4 minutes to open the file inside the office, could now open it within 5 seconds and it only took 10 seconds or less to open that file when working outside of the office. (The biggest remaining delay for remote work was that the client had limited choices for internet speed based on their location at the time and the file server had room for improvements.)

These changes to the computers and network translated to staff being much more productive, in fact one staff member told us, she used to take over 8 hours a day to complete her daily tasks at the office, which of course meant she had to stay late often, this lead to poor moral. However after our project was complete, she was able to do her daily tasks within 5 hours per day, this allowed her to take on new work and get more done, just because she didn’t have to wait for things to happen and her moral also went up, thus making her even more productive.

Your business runs on computers and networks, never underestimate the importance of your I.T. infrastructure, there are untold riches in spending a bit of money in your business.

So the next time you ask yourself what is the cost of cheap computer and network equipment? Maybe you should ask yourself how much can I save if I purchase quality equipment and labour for my I.T. infrastructure, click on the button below to get started on saving money

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Roadrunner I.T. Solutions services areas such as: West Vancouver, North Vancouver, Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam. New Westminster.