IT Investment Even During a Downturn
Bigger, better and faster systems have the potential for significant return on your investment in the long term, but during a downturn it is difficult to motivate large capital expenses. Most companies have been affected by the COVID-19 lockdown and for many this is simply a bridge too far. For several companies that rely on fast IT systems, ‘time to insight’ is their competitive edge, but we know that does not come without a hefty price tag. Some vendors try to entice customers with long service contracts, which tie you in to running business applications on outdated equipment. This is very risky. The importance of considering cost effective, scalable leasing solutions is becoming more important today, as a mechanism to help finance and purchase the technology needed to run businesses efficiently and keep equipment up to date.
Leasing Advantages
Besides the obvious preservation of cash flow, there are other benefits to this approach, like having a fixed interest rate instead of a floating rate and keeping pace with technology and upgrading to the latest models at the end of the leasing contract. This also reduces downtime as you are no longer reliant on old fragile IT systems. When a business owns assets, the burden to recycle or dispose of the equipment, once it eventually becomes obsolete, rests with them. With leasing, however, this hassle is removed and most often falls solely on the leasing company. It becomes their responsibility to take care of it, not yours. Following an environmentally compliant disposal process is more than just the removal of hardware, it often involves decommissioning, collection, data destruction, certification, and recycling and can be a costly exercise in itself.
Leasing Considerations
With economists predicting a long recovery from the effects of COVID-19, some questions to ask yourself regarding your IT equipment investment decisions will need to be reconsidered:
- Have you explored avenues to ease cash flow?
- Do you have cash tied up in assets that could be released by a sale and leaseback package?
- Is selling your IT assets at book value and re-renting the same technology at a significantly reduced cost is one way of accomplishing this?
- Do you need to upgrade or refresh your IT systems with new equipment whilst maintaining a conservative approach?
- Is aligning a rental period to your current business requirements in order to cut down on your IT spend and preserve your cash flow a viable solution right now?
Start the Process
Technology leasing should be a carefully researched consideration and can be overwhelming because all options need to be thoroughly investigated. The team at Breakpoint are here to equip you with price comparisons and valuable financial data to help ease that process.