It would be pretty difficult to find something more frustrating than dealing with a slow computer. When you multiply that times all of the staff at your location, you can only imagine how much frustration is caused by poor performance — not to mention the lost productivity from your staff. However, purchasing a business computer — and perhaps servers, too — can be an expensive proposition. You need to be sure that you’re making the right decision before you dive into a computer purchase that will not meet the long-term needs of your business. These five tips from the computer pros at SymTec will help you find the right computers for your business.
1. Audit Your Needs
There is a massive range of different types of business computers: from high-end machines with plenty of heavy lifting capacity for video editing to light-weight machines that are ideal for accessing cloud-based software and doing some light typing. Before you begin heading down the path of purchasing computers, carefully audit the needs of your employees, focusing on what they truly need to do the job as opposed to the type of machine they may want to have. This includes looking at operating systems, too. If you primarily use Windows machines, someone requesting a Mac may need to do a little extra justification when you’re in upgrade mode. It’s much more difficult for onsite IT staff to stay up-to-date on everything from patches to common errors for two operating systems instead of one.
2. Determine Your Office Work Style
If you have people who travel a great deal or work from home a significant portion of the time, it may make sense to invest in a fleet of business laptops instead of desktops. This can be more cost-effective overall than buying two different sets of computers: one for those who travel and one set for those who work within the confines of your business environment. It could be that you need the majority of your computers to be desktop for speed and power, while a few users need a higher-end laptop to ensure that their client presentations are always crisp and clean.
3. Feel the Need for Speed
Today’s complex software requires a robust system to ensure that everything is running smoothly with minimal latency. That means upping the processor speed, sure; but you’ll also need to consider the number of cores in your processor and how many RAM chips you’ll be able to purchase. Each of these elements works together to ensure that your computers are humming along nicely on a daily basis. This is one of the significant differences between purchasing business computers vs. residential computers — you are more likely to need additional RAM chips and a higher clock speed for your business computer.
4. Buy the Best Computer Systems You Can Afford
While they may be more expensive, investing a little extra in your computers upfront may save you from having to upgrade again quickly in the future. This is particularly true if your staff need to access large, intensive files on a regular basis, such as videos, layered ads or images, audio files and more. Consider your business computers as an investment in the efficiency of your business. Reliability is also an important consideration when you are purchasing a business computer, as the cost to maintenance your laptops or desktops must be built into any value consideration of your business systems.
5. Screen Size
Businesses that are extremely versatile and who allow their staff to work in various locations may be more apt to go with a laptop that has a relatively modest screen size. This allows the team members to grab their laptop and head wherever creativity (or their meetings) leads them. If you have employees who spend a great deal of time looking at spreadsheets or programming, you want to find a larger screen size, even if that means going to a desktop computer instead of a laptop. You can also consider a laptop with docks that will support multiple monitors, a great way to add virtual real estate for busy staff members.
Regardless of the decisions that you make about your business computers, you need to know that your computers and data are well-protected at all times. At SymTec, our staff is constantly learning about new security threats and how to thwart them as well as new and creative ways to do business. Contact us today at 435-817-9471 or visit us online to learn more.