IT & Technology: 2 words that often strike fear into the non tech savvy amongst us. Love tech or loathe it the fact remains its made most of our lives easier, simpler, more efficient and safer. The same is true of small business, so why do so many small businesses languish with old systems and out of date mindsets? Invest in IT to grow your business
We at The Red Penguin Group believe tech can elevate your business to a new level, read our top 5 reasons on how to invest in IT and as always if you need our help get in touch
IT investments save time
How long do you wait for your computer to boot up or your Sage accounts software to load. Are you waiting minutes for Outlook to show your email? Chances are this rings true for many.
It may seem trivial but if we told you an employee earning a completely average £20k a year who has just 10 minutes worth of computer or IT delays (waiting for email / Boot up etc) would effectively cost the employer £500 per year in wasted wages. Consider you have 10 employees all with the same issue then that’s £5000 a year! You are literally paying £5000 a year for staff to sit and stare at a computer screen twiddling their thumbs!
The above example is a cheap example, for employers with dozens of users or higher earners this lost money could be tens of pounds a year.
Its worth noting that downtime (periods where 1 or more critical systems are offline) costs on average £7235 per employee!
By taking time to invest in IT and using modern, fast and reliable systems with appropriate recovery plans in place you can significantly reduce the chances of any downtime and any downtime you have can be resolved faster.
More often than not these small delays can be rectified for a fraction of this cost. An entire day (8 hours) to have one of our engineers onsite resolving issues and improving speed would cost less than £500, considering the potential for yearly lost money in wasted wages that seems like a no brainer. Check out our IT support page for more info.
Long-term Benefits
Consider this, You run a chauffeur business and have a fleet of executive cars taking customers to and from airports and meetings etc. Now as a customer you would not expect someone to turn up in a ten year old car that was noisy, thread worn and generally looking ‘old’ , as is to be expected you renew your fleet every 3 years – Yes its expensive but its a cost of doing business in the industry.
Likewise you would not invest in 10 new iPhones for your sales staff and expect them to keep them for 5-10 years. For the same reason renewing your IT equipment has to be an ongoing evolving process.
Invest in IT. This follows the same ethos, almost all businesses relay on fast computing for day to business. Be it e-commerce website orders, Payroll and HR or running CRM systems. Now given how reliant you probably are on computers and online systems its only logical to upgrade and renew equipment when your business grows.
By regularly assessing and renewing where required your technology be it new laptops for your sales team or a faster fibre internet connection for your warehouse you are ensuring the business has the foundations required for the staff to do what they do best.
Cost-effective Solution
Compared to most other business expenses investing it decent technology is actually not only good value but it’s relatively cheap to maintain. Consider our chauffeur business owner mentioned above. How much would renewing the vehicle fleet cost? £30k per car?
Lets consider you have a very inefficient Payroll system with old computers running old accountancy software. As a result you need to employ two book keepers to run your finances, payroll etc. How much is the 2nd person costing you – £16k a year?
How much would it cost to get a decent Payroll software package that automatically links into your bank accounts and can reconcile invoices etc automatically? – Answer probably less than £2000 and that is every few years not £16k a year!
So you have some older computers that are running a bit slow and maybe take a while to move data across your network. More often than not we can come in and make a simple change such as swapping the old mechanical hard drive to a new digital SSD drive – typically these cost just £60 plus an hour or so to fit and the result is a computer system that is FASTER than when it was new (typical SSD upgrades result in a 10x speed improvement) and by swapping to a digital solution you have also massively increased that computer’s resilience to future crashes.
We are currently offering a completely FREE onsite survey for new customers who may want to invest in IT, we can come and take a look at what you have and put forward a detailed tailored report on how we can improve your setup with detailed info on costs / time etc. Get in touch to find out more
IT offers security benefits
By using newer equipment or just upgrading your current equipment you can significantly increase your resiliency to online threats and data hacking. As we all know GDPR regulations state fines of 4% of turnover for failing to secure your data. Invest in IT to help mitigate online threats.
Do you run up to date Anti-Virus? Is it business or enterprise grade ? (a PC world anti-virus box ain’t gonna cut it) Is your data onsite secured with encryption? Is your network connection protected with a firewall? Do you have encrypted backup drives that regularly get taken offsite (in case of fire)?
All of the above concerns and questions relate directly to how heavily you invest in the correct technology for your business.
We have over 20 years experience of support small businesses and have the knowledge, resources and connections to get you the setup you need. We only ever suggest systems that reflect your need and your budget. We can help move you to cloud hosting for email and data, Source new computer equipment and servers, Fit state of the art encrypted backup systems and supply business grade fibre internet connections as well as leased lines.
Investing in IT is staff-friendly
By investing in new computers and equipment you are investing in your team. Your staff probably spend most of the working time in front of a computer screen so by investing a small amount of cash on some nice looking and FAST equipment you are showing your staff that you are actually investing in them.
This in turn is reflected in your staff, They become happier which means more efficient and more likely to go above and beyond the call of duty. Happy staff stay for longer, so investing in IT can help reduce your turnover rate too, and the cost of hiring new staff is a cost most businesses want to avoid!
Invest in IT today
If your business is looking to invest in IT and technology, take a look at how our IT services can help, as well as our other services. If you have any further questions about the benefits of investing in IT, please contact our team!