We all cut corners, sometimes to save money, sometimes time. Me, I buy cheaper shoes. They fall apart faster but I can’t stand the idea of dragging hundreds of dollars’ worth of shoe on the ground.
As IT consultants, we’ve met a lot of companies with the technology equivalent of my shoe buying habits. And, more often than not, we’re meeting them because they’re having a very, very bad day and they need help.
When you cut corners on your technology, it isn’t just as simple as hot gluing the heel back on your boot (and then later using epoxy … and then using a drill … all of which I’ve done to continually revive a pair of boots). Your computer systems go down, you’re in anguish trying to bring everything back up, and you might be turning your pockets inside out to your IT providers to make it happen fast.
Time is Money
Maybe your systems are running but they’re slow or they need constant care and feeding. Who’s spending their time waiting for progress bars? Who’s sitting vigil over your wheezing server? Can that person’s time be better spent elsewhere?
If you’ve got your team on five-year-old computers trying to edit videos, they’re spending a lot of time getting coffee and chatting by the watercooler while their computers process the commands. Your skilled workers are costing you money – their time should be spent wisely. If your IT person is constantly putting out fires, how are you going to allow them to implement the right technology to push your organization forward?
We touch on that and additional other sticking points with keeping old hardware in this blog post that you most definitely should read.
So, Less Time = More Money?
Another common way we see this go sideways is by trying to spend too little time on it, whether that be your own or minimizing using experts like us. As my boss Craig likes to say, “Fast, cheap, or good: pick two.” Are you cutting corners to get something rolled out faster or are you putting off addressing an issue because you don’t want to spend time on it? That is probably having a cascading effect on the rest of your organization.
Your losses may not be in real, calculable dollars and cents but in yours and your team’s time and loss of overall organizational progress.
Money is … well, it’s Money
Budgets drive business. To run your department or your business successfully, you’ve got to keep your budget in balance. That’s what drives many to opt for the most economical technology solutions they can find.
Usually when you pick the most economical (okay, the cheapest, I’m just trying to be diplomatic), it isn’t the right solution. Maybe the storage isn’t big enough or fast enough, maybe the support isn’t the most robust, maybe you bought a used server off eBay or from some website … there are a million ways that it can come back to bite you.
For example, if you go with the IT guy whose rate is half of that of an experienced person, you might be paying him for twice as long (or longer) to do the same thing. Then you’ve saved nothing and lost out on more of your time.
I had a client tell me recently, “If I had just bitten the bullet and bought the right thing in the first place, we wouldn’t be here.” And sure, hindsight is 20/20, but that’s why I’m here writing this for you now. Maybe I can save future you from heartache.
This is all to say: you can allocate a bit more budget on the front end for the right technology and peace of mind or you can wait and see if disaster takes hold – and there’s no way to budget for the latter option.
Striking a Balance
“That’s helpful, lady, to just tell people not to be tightwads,” you must be thinking. Well, yeah, I know you’ve got budget numbers to hit and ends that must meet. So how do we strike a balance?
This is where Mirazon comes in. The reason we’ve been successful for the better half of two decades is because we know what we’re talking about, we’re straight shooters, and we can work with you to pick something that will make you successful and keep your budget in line. We do our projects efficiently because we have the right expertise and we look out for you in all your IT endeavors.
I hope you take these words to heart (and maybe I will, too, when I’m replacing my flapping shoes) and if you want help making the right IT decisions, we’re here.