Smart Investments: How to Fund Your Technology Projects for Success

Did you know that renting or leasing your technology can be cost effective tool to reduce downtime and improve cashflow? All whilst building in better governance strategies in your IT Procurement. In this post, we will question why servers are more important than end user compute. We will discuss what downtime looks like from a user perspective. And how we can alleviate these reoccurring issues by using an OPEX model to procure IT.

Most businesses place more importance on maintaining server and storage warranties when compared to their end-user computing (EUC). Now that may make sense, but when you delve deeper and see that the average Server warranty period is 5 years and that EUC averages about 2 years of warranty coverage. It becomes apparent that there are many businesses using devices without warranty. What this does is create the risk for additional unforeseen downtime.

What is downtime? We all may think we know what downtime is, but it's important to consider what it looks like. Even without having the financial numbers, a CEO can visualize this issue and will begin comprehending the potential impact to the company, things like:

• Productivity loss
• Client satisfaction issues
• Employee stress and morale issues
• Potential revenue loss
• Possible loss of clients

And whilst some of these points are qualitative you can use quantitative metrics to show what real downtime cost is. Your message takes on real impact when you can share the “risk value” or “cost of downtime” with a downtime issue. Your ability to quantify the financial implications of a single user, a site office or even a few users a month being “down” is powerful. It says you understand the business impact, not just the technical impact; and this is a big difference.

Use our free downtime calculator to see just how much it can cost your business.

Now how is reducing downtime related to finance? When renting IT goods, it's recommended that the warranty covers the whole period of the rental. The reason? Because the equipment needs to be returned in working condition and the warranty will guarantee that as long as the devices don’t get lost or broken (more on this later). When your devices have a manufacturer warranty, this will reduce downtime.

The benefits of renting devices.

• Low maintenance cost
• Scalability
• Flexibility
• Forgo the upfront investment
• Latest technology

The two other strengths of rentals in particular is they increase the likelihood of updating your devices on schedule as it makes more sense to do so and your business is not responsible for the secure data sanitization of your user's data which saves your business time and money and eliminates any potential liability.

I can’t rent or lease because my users will damage the devices? Don’t stress, there are many industries and users that are more prone to damaging their devices. Here are just a few industries where it is common. Manufacturing, Construction, Mining and Education just to name a few. A method of managing expectations is building in a damage factor into the calculation which will make the finance company aware that it is likely some devices may be damaged. This protects your business from added costs and gives the finance company more information.

I don’t have any budget until Jan 1! No budget for 6 months? You can have your I.T solution today and make your first payment in 6 months. Or prefer to pay less for the first year and have the payments ramp up? Not a problem. A tailored finance strategy can give you the technology you need today without the huge capital investment.

This blog post was a collaboration between Zarbtech and Zeal Capital our IT financing partners. Zarbtech chooses to work with Zeal Capital for the deep understanding of both technology and finance. Allowing Zarbtech customers to benefit from having a panel of funders vying for their business and Zeal Capital have the expertise to create a payment stream that works for you and your business.