The wealth of off-site and third-party IT services available today has made it possible for many companies to do away with having a full IT department. This has been especially good news for small companies as many couldn’t get off the ground with the necessity of funding an entire additional department. However, this loss of in-house IT professionals has also led to some challenges.
One of the biggest challenges that IT professionals face is convincing their clients of the necessity of regular, routine maintenance. When there’s an emergency, something is going wrong, systems are going offline, etc., clients are often quite willing to concede that their systems need attention. However, it’s also important to engage in routines that prevent IT emergencies.
What Is Regular Maintenance in the IT Context?
The practice of IT maintenance refers to servicing, examining, and making adjustments to keep all systems running smoothly. These adjustments can also make your systems more efficient over time.
Routine maintenance is the opposite of reactively responding only when the IT systems or software are not working properly. The point of regular maintenance is to reduce the possibility of an IT disaster in the future.
What Are the Advantages of Regular Maintenance?
When companies neglect to perform or schedule regular maintenance, it is often a short-sighted attempt to reduce costs. However, when you look at the real benefits of regular maintenance, you quickly see that it’s a cost saver. Despite the small investment required to perform it, regular maintenance of your IT systems will save you money in the long run. Here’s why.
It Reduces Equipment Costs
Study after study has shown something that probably comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with IT: preventative and routine maintenance has been proven to extend the length of time equipment functions.
The benefit of this with any type of system—not only IT—is obvious. However, it has special significance in IT where the failure of one part of a system can have catastrophic effects on the rest of the system.
It Reduces the Cost of Labour
Critical IT failures often result in the need to pay overtime to IT workers. While routine maintenance takes a minimal amount of time, a sudden failure can result in days or even weeks of extra payroll costs.
Lost Production Time Is Minimised
It’s not just overtime costs that result from an IT failure. There’s also the fact that operations are very much dependent on IT today. Unscheduled shutdowns can do irreparable damage to a company’s budget, not to mention the company’s reputation.
Company Revenue Improves
Fewer breakdowns, fewer shutdowns, and less overtime add up. Routine maintenance can be the key to boosting your company’s revenue.
It Improves Efficiency
Regular maintenance can catch potential problems ahead of time and identify ways in which the system can be upgraded, improved, or enhanced. Knowing ahead of time allows the company to schedule these upgrades in the least disruptive manner, which leads to better efficiency.