It is possible to save a bit of money on your technology, but cutting too many corners causes problems of its own, and downtime is expensive. Here are a few ways to cut costs without creating something worse a year later.
1. Do not be afraid to replace
Got an old machine that keeps causing trouble? Older technology tends to cost more to run, so after a while it is cheaper to buy new hardware than to keep pouring money into something that breaks every other week. If the budget is tight, refurbished hardware from a reputable seller is worth a look.
2. Encourage energy efficiency
Using less power during the day shows up on the electricity bill. Switching to LCD monitors makes a real difference if you are still running CRT dinosaurs, and so does a company-wide habit of turning monitors and workstations off at night.
3. Stop dealing with vendors
When you hire people, you want them doing their job, not sitting on hold with a PC manufacturer because a hard drive died. Businesses lose a surprising amount of money paying staff to go round in circles with vendor support.
IT firms like Coast IT already have the relationships with those vendors and can get things moving faster. Issues get resolved sooner, and your staff never have to deal with unhelpful support desks.
4. Stop paying your phone bill
Yes, you read that right. Get rid of the phone bill by moving to VoIP.
Investing in VoIP can save small businesses up to 80% on their telephone communication expenses. With a VoIP system your people take their phones anywhere and use them at any time, and because it is nearly always cloud based there is no hardware on site to manage.
5. Get proactive monitoring and maintenance
Almost every day to day IT problem can be avoided with regular maintenance. Coast IT provides this to clients, and it is what keeps their downtime down.
With traditional computer support, problems only get fixed once they have already happened. Proactive monitoring and maintenance means fewer of them reach your business at all, and everything stays looked after rather than waiting to be noticed.
Where to start
The two that pay for themselves fastest are usually the phone bill and the maintenance. Have a look at how a cloud phone system works and what a managed agreement covers, or get in touch for a no obligation quote on what your setup would cost to look after.