itSynergy: Blog
The Cost of Ignoring Pesky IT Issues
The Cost of Ignoring Pesky IT Issues
When you eliminate friction points within your IT infrastructure, you gain productivity. Common points of IT friction include using technology incorrectly, poor training, and living in the never-ending break-fix cycle.
On top of the blow to your peace of mind, IT friction takes its toll on your business’ bottom line.
Here are 3 areas where you can reduce friction and save money.
- Really know and use your software
By implementing an app’s features to their fullest potential, you gain productivity. Increased productivity equals increased revenue.
Office 365 is a great example of software most users do not fully implement. Next time you open O365, click on the waffle icon in the top left corner of your browser. How many of those applications do you actually use? By fully utilizing O365, you can design workflows to make your business more efficient and save money.
Even simple tools like learning keyboard shortcuts results in productivity gains. Although mousing over to save or copy-and-paste takes very little time, using Ctrl+s, Ctrl+c and Ctrl+v, you will save time.
Client Showcase
One of our law firm clients implemented a new app for printing, thus reducing print time by 15 minutes every week. That’s 13 hours a year. And, with an average legal billing rate of $250 per hour, that’s a cost savings of $3,250!
- Keep all systems connected
When business systems and software applications are disconnected, your labor costs rise. A good way to check your connectivity is to count how many different places you have to enter new customer information.
Ideally, you only have to enter this info once. But, more commonly, this mainline information has to be entered in several places: project management, accounting, customer relationship management, merchant processing and on and on.
Real life cost savings example
Say you have an employee who does nothing but maintain the disconnectedness of your IT business systems. By integrating and connecting your applications, time is saved and you’ve opened up the opportunity for that individual’s skills to be put to better use. Data entry errors, customization and software upgrades add to the costs of disconnected business systems.
- Don’t let downtime happen – it’s a real drag
AppDynamics compiled the real costs of downtime and found the average total cost of unplanned application downtime per year is between $1.25 billion and $2.5 billion for Fortune 1000 companies.
Actual downtime damage
A pediatric practice’s fax server recently went down for an afternoon. Without a functioning fax server, the employee tasked with sending faxes had to wait until 8 p.m. to do the work she normally would have done during the regular work day. She missed time with her family that evening and had to work incredibly late.
Beyond the actual costs of downtime, like the overtime hours indicated above, there also are negative effects on employee morale. If this happens often, employees may decide it’s not a conducive work environment and find another job. You then have the added cost of recruitment, hiring and training a new employee.
To recap: Downtime costs include lost productivity, reduced employee morale, and the high costs of turnover.
It is possible to reduce IT friction in your organization. At itSynergy, we focus on your IT infrastructure so you can focus on your business. Get in touch with us at 602-297-2400 or online.
