You might consider using Section 179 to improve your business while reducing your taxable income – this is a wise decision, but you should be wary of making IT purchases rather than investments. This blog will highlight the importance of a strategic IT plan and evaluate three main areas of IT infrastructure to consider upgrading for a major Return on Technology (ROT): phones, servers and computers.
Have A Strategic IT Plan
At Weber TC, we work with our customers to ensure they have a vision for their perfect IT infrastructure, and we ensure that all purchases are a step toward realizing that vision. We do not want you to waste money on lateral purchases that do not bring you any closer to your goal.
If you don’t have an internal vision for your perfect IT infrastructure, reach out to us. We can help you assess where you are and explain what you need to accomplish your business goals. You can book a call with us anytime.
IT Infrastructure To Consider Upgrading
Your IT infrastructure is an interconnected network of hardware and software. Your business is built on your IT infrastructure and optimizing it can have a huge positive impact on efficiency, productivity and profitability. Three areas of your infrastructure that can significantly influence productivity and cost savings are your phone system, servers, and computers.
1. Traditional Phone Systems Vs. VoIP
Traditional telephone systems are expensive, difficult to maintain and not easy to scale. They are also not flexible enough to support a distributed workforce. VoIP or a cloud-based telephone system could be a wise investment. Not only is VoIP cheaper (savings range, but usually you save between 30-50% compared to your current system), it also helps increase employee productivity with integrated features like voice recording, transcribed voice mail, etc. With VoIP, you have the flexibility to easily add or remove lines, eliminate hardware costs (unless you want a physical handset), and allow your employees to answer their calls from anywhere they work.
2. Private Servers Vs. Cloud-Based File Storage
Server hardware and maintenance costs can add up quickly, especially as your business grows. Depending on your type of work, switching to a cloud-based storage solution could lead to significant cost savings and enable your employees to access what they need to work from anywhere. However, if your company is better suited to have its own physical servers on your premises, there is still the possibility to optimize with hardware upgrades. In collaboration with an IT provider, we can evaluate your current system and find suitable ways to invest in your data storage infrastructure to give you that ROT.
3. Sticking with Vs. Upgrading Employee Devices
Whether your employees have desktops laptops, or other mobile devices, the efficiency of their computers correlates directly with their efficiency. Ultimately, time is money, and you want your employees to do their jobs quickly and efficiently without their device lagging, crashing, or ultimately going down. Planning upgrades gives you the time to find the perfect device that meets your employee’s needs, find a reasonable price, and switch over their data to it.
Technology simplifies our lives and can have profound effects on reducing workloads, streamlining tasks, and increasing productivity and thus profitability. The difficult part is knowing what type of technology works for your business, where to focus your budgeted expenditures, how to determine effectiveness, and how to prevent it from becoming a liability. We can help you answer these questions. You can book a call with us anytime.
