PC fixes are a drain on your company’s budget

Security

Security professionals should be beefing up your network security, implementing advanced firewall software, and identifying risks for possible breaches. In reality, they spend a huge chunk of their time troubleshooting issues on individual personal computers (PCs). That workflow is not ideal, but that’s what normally happens in many organizations. At what cost? Read on to find out.

Cost of fixes

According to a survey of technology professionals, companies waste as much as $88,660 of their yearly IT budget as a result of having security staff spend an hour or more per work week fixing colleagues’ personal computers. The ‘wasted amount’ was based on an average hourly salary of IT staff multiplied by 52 weeks a year. Other than knowing how much time is wasted, what makes things worse is that IT security staff are among the highest paid employees in most companies.

The fixes have mostly to do with individual rather than department- or company-wide computer problems that don’t necessarily benefit the entire company. The resulting amount is especially staggering for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) whose limited resources are better off spent on business intelligence tools and other network security upgrades.

Other costs

All those hours spent on fixing personal computers often means neglecting security improvements. The recent WannaCry ransomware attacks, which successfully infected 300,000 computers in 150 countries, demonstrate the dangers of failing to update operating system security patches on time. It should be a routine network security task that, if ignored, can leave your business helpless in the face of a cyber attack as formidable as WannaCry. It didn’t make much money, but had it been executed better, its effects would have been more devastating to businesses, regardless of size.

Profitable projects could also be set aside because of employees’ PC issues. For SMBs with one or two IT staff, this is especially detrimental to productivity and growth. They can easily increase their IT budgets, but if employees’ negligible computer issues keep occurring and systems keep crashing, hiring extra IT personnel won’t do much good.

What businesses should do

The key takeaway in all this is: Proactive IT management eliminates the expenditure required to fix problematic computers. Bolstering your entire IT infrastructure against disruptive crashes is the first step in avoiding the wasteful use of your staff’s time and your company’s money.

Even if your small business has the resources to hire extra staff, the general shortage of cyber security skills also poses a problem. Ultimately, the solution shouldn’t always have to be increasing manpower, but rather maximizing existing resources.

Having experts proactively maintain your IT eliminates the need to solve recurring small issues and lets your staff find a better use for technology resources. If you need non-disruptive technology, call us today for advice.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org.

Previous Blogs

Benefits of a Privately Hosted Exchange Server

Benefits of a Privately Hosted Exchange Server

When clients decide that it’s time to retire their aging, on-premise Exchange servers, questions often come up on where to go with their next Exchange server.  With few exceptions, the answer is the cloud due to uptime requirements for email flow and minimal cost...

read more
Data Center Upgrade and Move Announcement

Data Center Upgrade and Move Announcement

Russell Technologies has exciting news to share. We are upgrading and moving our primary data center in St. Louis, moving it from 210 N Tucker to 710 N Tucker. After almost 6 years in 210 N Tucker, this was not a decision that we made easily, but the move gives us...

read more
Security policies for your business

Security policies for your business

Businesses rarely address cybersecurity in their company policies. With cybercrimes becoming more prevalent, it’s important you inform staff about the threats they could be exposed to. Make sure your business and employees are safe with these security policies. Internet In today’s business world, employees spend a lot of time on the internet. To ensure they’re […]

read more