There will come a time when your business will need to acquire hardware like monitors, server units, workstations, networking components, and other technology. It is your responsibility as a business owner to make educated decisions about how you go about upgrading your gear, but it’s not always immediately obvious what the correct path forward is.

Let’s go over some of the challenges your organization might face, as well as questions that must be asked if you want to optimize chances of success when implementing new hardware.

Before we jump into the hardware acquisition process, we should preface this by saying what not to do when it comes to replacing technology. The biggest pitfall that so many businesses fall into with technology replacement is relying too much on break-fix IT. They only replace technology when it is so broken that it cannot be repaired, and even worse, they wait until the technology breaks before they replace it. The reason this is particularly unforgivable is due to the downtime that this approach causes.

For example, if you wait for the server unit to fail before you replace it, then how are you accessing the data found on that server? If a workstation breaks beyond repair, how are you going to get work done? All of this time spent waiting around while you make a decision about replacement is wasteful and unnecessary, especially when preventative maintenance and a technology roadmap could have prevented it all.

The first question that needs to be addressed is, “Should you consider new hardware in the first place?” Oftentimes businesses find themselves upgrading needlessly just to have the most up-to-date model of something. If your current technology works perfectly fine, then there is a good chance that maybe you don’t need to upgrade immediately and can instead get by with technology that, while not the top-tier hardware, will get you through the workday without incident. When your technology starts to cause disruptions to operations, on the other hand, you will have to make a decision about an upgrade or replacement.

The second question is, “What will this hardware be used for?” For example, hooking a video editor up with a thin unit or your standard office workstation probably is not going to cut it. These types of graphic-intensive devices need to have powerful specifications so that the user can fulfill their duties. If you don’t consider what the end user will need the device to do, you are going to be setting them up for failure and establishing unrealistic expectations for them, which is never a good way to implement new technology.

Third and finally, you should ask, “What is the timeline for replacing this hardware?” By this, we are circling back to earlier in this article when we mentioned a technology roadmap. This is a policy that showcases when and how you plan to approach upgrading your organization’s technology. It might include a schedule of upgrades that happen at specific points in time so that they stay current while minimizing the chances of hardware failure. This might feel a bit like preemptively replacing technology even when it is no longer needed, but it’s different in this case, as you are actively planning for it rather than making a spur-of-the-moment purchase.

Regardless of your hardware implementation strategies, you can rely on Argentum IT to help steer you in the right direction. To learn more about how we can help your company adopt new hardware solutions, reach out to us at (502) 473-6407.