6 Amazing Computer Repair Tips for Struggling Small Businesses

Desktop Computer Repair Tips for Every SMB

Recent research conducted by Intel found the average small business employee loses approximately one work week per year because they work on an out-of-date PC.

Additionally, the study also noted:

- Repairing a PC older than 4 years costs 1.3 times more than repairing PCs younger than 4 years
- Employees lose 21 more hours per year due to maintenance and security issues when they use PCs older than 4 years
- 8% of small businesses in the US (the largest percentage of all countries surveyed) use PCs older than 5 years – compared to just 5% worldwide and 1% in India

So yeah, maintenance is clearly a problem. But, it’s not always easily solved. Your business may already have a tight profit margin, struggling just to survive.

What to do about this computer hardware repair dilemma

Here are some ideas:

1. Keep your PCs under 4 years old – So, let’s start with the obvious one. If your budget allows for it, replace all PCs 4 years old and older. You spend a little money now, but save more over time.
2. Keep those PCs humming along longer – You’re used to pushing everything in your small business to its limit, so do the same with your PCs. If they have a couple years of age under their belt, and they’re slowing down a little, buy 2-4 GB of memory. You’re not paying much in return for the performance boost you get, and you’ll get more out of them until they turn 4.
3. Use virtualization as much as possible – As your PCs age, you can squeeze more efficient use out of them by running images out to the desktops until they get to the 4-year mark. That saves you from performing some computer repair in the meantime because you’re not relying on the PC’s resources exclusively.
4. Use a PC configuration management tool – You’ll have to decide which one will work best for your business, but Gartner claims these tools reduce costs by $87 per year per user.
5. Get as much done automatically as possible – Rather than having someone visit your business and performing the repair on-site, or having your own staff do the repair manually, have as much computer hardware repair as possible performed dynamically. If patches or new drivers are updated, have them run remotely or after business hours.
6. Monitor pro-actively – Monitoring tools, when you have someone experienced using them, catch problems before they happen. Instead of waiting for a server hard drive to crash and then dealing with all the resulting issues, test each hard drive (and your other hardware) and quietly replace faulty hardware before it fails.

It’s not easy being a small business, but if you follow these tips, you’ll minimize your costs, and hopefully get your company to a healthier, more stable place.

Time & Material Repair

Great Lakes Computer offers on-site repair on a per incident basis, which is great for small business owners. The same team of experienced service engineers that provide full service to our contracted customers, also perform time and material services. Labor rates are competitively priced and the labor “meter” begins only upon technicians arrival at your site.