In this video, we're going to talk about IT Support in businesses.
In particular, we're going to focus on computers.
When should you repair, when should you upgrade it, and when should you replace them.
Good day Dan, how are you going?
Doing good.
So let's talk about IT Support in businesses.
In particular, you run an IT Support company.
So you probably got some good things to say.
Let's start off with computer, business computers.
What's the life cycle of a standard computer, even if you get the best thing right now today?
What can you look for in terms of how that's gonna age?
Look, we generally say the life cycle of any computer that sits on the desktop is somewhere
between 3 and 4 years.
That's kind of a good amount of time for you to turn your computers over and either upgrade
them or buy new machines after that kind of 3 to 4 year mark.
Okay. So let's start with the easy part which is repairs.
Let's say someone, I don't know, chucks a cup of coffee on the keyboard.
What sort of repairs do you see coming up that are worth doing?
Yeah, so the types of repairs that we would see most often are, you know, more in the
software side.
So, if there's a problem with the software a fairly simple repair that we would do is
just the re-install of Windows, take all the software off
and put on your software back on.
Maybe upgrade a hard drive and insert some new graphics cards into a computer.
But these days, we tend to not spend a lot of time fixing old computers.
We just don't find that it's worthwhile for the person that owns that computer to spend
hours trying to fix a problem that really should be fixed by buying a new computer.
Okay. So, let's go backwards for a second.
What proportion these days of business computers are laptops vs. desktops?
Because if we're looking at what you just said for example replacing a graphics card,
this is a piece of cake in a desktop machine.
But in laptop machines, surely it's more limited.
So what are the proportions?
We generally see, it probably is still a 50-50 mark.
Half would have a desktop and half would have a laptop.
Quite often, people have got more than one device as well.
So, yeah.
It is much more difficult to do a repair on a laptop.
If a laptop has got a physical problem with it and it's out of warranty, we tend to say,
and unless it was a hard drive, anything other than a hard drive, we tend to say throw it away.
Buy a new laptop.
Crikey, alright.
So, with the repair that - so we're now getting a sense that repairs that are really serious
just go again, what about the upgrade part?
Let's say you hit 3 years, what sort of upgrades are worth doing and what sort of ballpark
amount are they gonna cost?
Look, when it hits that 3-year mark, you've got the choice, yeah.
Buy a new computer or do the upgrade.
If you choose to go ahead and do the upgrade, adding a bit of RAM, and another hard drive,
and maybe taking the Operating Systems to the latest operating system as well.
It's probably about a 6 or 7 hundred dollar repair.
Maybe half the value of buying a new machine.
So, it maybe compelling for somebody to buy, you know, to go ahead and do the upgrade rather
than buying a new computer.
Because you're saving, so to speak, half the amount.
But then again, once you've done all of that, you've upgraded those components you mentioned,
you probably only bought what, another year or two?
Yeah, I wouldn't expect to get another 3 years out of a computer like that.
You might get another year to 2 years out of it.
But then, certainly after that you'd wanna buy a new machine.
So, whether you get to the 3-year mark or the 5-year mark, time to buy again.
What sort of benefit can you expect if you know, outright replace
all the computers around your business?
Look, certainly at the 5-year mark, and particularly if you haven't done an upgrade earlier on,
you're gonna expect to see that by 5 years, things are going really slow.
And the users are complaining about slowness, they can't do their job properly.
By the time you then replace all the work stations, you should expect that the users
are much more productive.
The speed of the machine is sped up quite a bit.
And it helps them do their job more effectively.
I can see how if you have, let's say a hundred people working and you'd slow them down even
just 5 percent, those numbers add up really really quickly.
That's right, over the large amount of people.
It's not only the lack of productivity not being able to do their job, but it's also
the lost time, it's the lost wages that you happen to pay to people who'd be sitting around,
you know, effectively you're just waiting for the computer to start up.
I've heard that on the phone many times, you know, you call up, I don't know, Insurance
Company or something.
And you're looking for information, "Oh, computers are running slow today."
How often do you hear that?
Yeah, that's right.
So, just being able to speed it up as you say even 5 or 10 percent
can make a dramatic difference.
Let's talk about IT support from a different perspective.
How can you use technology to grow your business?
Look, there's several ways you can use technology to grow your business.
It really comes down to what that business wants to achieve.
If they are a business that wants to be able to export, and be able to send their product
overseas, they certainly be able to develop a website, and integrate that with their database
and with their supply chain.
So that they can effectively promote themselves as a much larger business than what they are.
And pitch themselves to businesses overseas to be able to buy their products.
So the cloud enables us to be able to, you know, position our products into newer, different
markets that we never had before.
Sounds good. Terrific.
For those of you who'd like to find out more, perhaps get in touch with SaberVox to sign-up,
please find us online at sabervox.com.au