October 2009 Newsletter
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Does your IT Provider "Provide" Your computers?
A good IT provider's main objective is to get paid without getting a phone call. That sounds like we're all a bunch of listless, lazy people who want to get paid for doing nothing. While getting paid for doing nothing may have its appeal...at least for a little while...it makes sense that getting paid to keep things running and not breaking down in the first place might just be worth a second look in your monthly IT budget.
I few months ago a client of mine, an accountant, expressed interest in replacing all her slow computers with faster ones. Apparently, she had done some calculations and figured out something like this:
| Number of Employees | 15 |
| Slow Computer | 30 |
| Deal with Spam | 5 |
| Fixing Your Own Problems | 5 |
| Total Minutes Spent Each Day per User | 40 |
| SALARY | HOURLY | COST per DAY | COST per YEAR | TOTAL ANNUAL COST |
| $15,000 | $7.21 | $4.81 | $1,250.00 | $18,750.00 |
| $20,000 | $9.62 | $6.41 | $1,666.67 | $25,000.00 |
| $25,000 | $12.02 | $8.01 | $2,083.33 | $31,250.00 |
| $30,000 | $14.42 | $9.62 | $2,500.00 | $37,500.00 |
| $35,000 | $16.83 | $11.22 | $2,916.67 | $43,750.00 |
| $40,000 | $19.23 | $12.82 | $3,333.33 | $50,000.00 |
| $45,000 | $21.63 | $14.42 | $3,750.00 | $56,250.00 |
| $50,000 | $24.04 | $16.03 | $4,166.67 | $62,500.00 |
| $55,000 | $26.44 | $17.63 | $4,583.33 | $68,750.00 |
| $60,000 | $28.85 | $19.23 | $5,000.00 | $75,000.00 |
| $65,000 | $31.25 | $20.83 | $5,416.67 | $81,250.00 |
| $70,000 | $33.65 | $22.44 | $5,833.33 | $87,500.00 |
| $75,000 | $36.06 | $24.04 | $6,250.00 | $93,750.00 |
| $80,000 | $38.46 | $25.64 | $6,666.67 | $100,000.00 |
| $85,000 | $40.87 | $27.24 | $7,083.33 | $106,250.00 |
| $90,000 | $43.27 | $28.85 | $7,500.00 | $112,500.00 |
| $95,000 | $45.67 | $30.45 | $7,916.67 | $118,750.00 |
| $100,000 | $48.08 | $32.05 | $8,333.33 | $125,000.00 |
As you can see, a firm of 15 employees with an average salary of $35,000 is wasting about $43,750.00 year for people to wait for their slow computers to catch up to them. Not only is this costly but people get frustrated, bored and even angry every time their computer locks up, runs slowly, needs to be rebooted or just plain doesn't work right. Start doing the math for your employees.
"But I don't have it in the budget to replace slow computers right now" you say. That's ok, if your provider is like Abacus, they'll buy the computers for you, install them, support and service them for the next three years for one flat, monthly fee. These are branded, business-class machines that are designed to run for the client without generating expensive support calls to the provider.
At the end of three years, you'll be given the option of upgrading to newer equipment or keeping the equipment you've been running usually at a price close to or the same as the price you're currently paying.
Why have obsoleted, run-down assets on your books. Let me put them on my books.
How to Find Stuff on a Cluttered Desktop...Fast!
I was recently at a client's office and needed to find an icon on his desktop. The problem was, he has a lot of icons on his desktop. Since I needed to find the icon for his HP program (first letter of the icon name is "h"), I simply pressed the "h" key (no quotes). The first icon to "light up" was the wrong one. I pressed the "h" key a second time and boom. There was the program I needed.
Think about how much time you have spent staring at your screen looking for something that is right in front of you. Now you just need to press the right key a couple times.
By the way, this also works in the Windows explorer window. For example, if I have a folder open with a lot of files and folders in it and I need to zip down to a file called myquickbooks.qbk. I just select the first file or folder in the list, and start pressing the "m" key until myquickbooks is selected. This is much more efficient then hunting around and wasting valuable time.
Hope this was helpful.
