While out at a client site yesterday, I had a discussion with them about a simple idea, that many IT companies seem to miss sometimes. It’s the principle of ‘diminishing returns’. Now for the MBA types out there, this is likely something you’re already well aware of. However for us computer support types it’s something that’s often overlooked.

Let’s take a quick look at this in greater depth, and explain a bit of how it relates to keeping your computers running at their best.

In yesterday’s example, the issue at hand was that a printing/ scanning device wouldn’t scan. It would print fine, but scanning was a complete no-go, no matter what we did with drivers, software, or connectivity. It just wasn’t happening. Now, we were the 2nd company in to take a look at this same problem. On top of that, the company’s own internal IT staff also spent time looking at it. We even escalated a call to the device’s manufacturer support line, and got that ticket up to 2nd level support.

And still it wouldn’t work.

So at this point, there’s been no less than 4 hours spent working on this scanning device, and it’s STILL not working. Do you keep trying to fix it? This is where the ‘diminishing returns’ question starts to come in to play. If you figure that internal IT support is worth $50/ hour, and the outsourced support is worth $100/ hour, then you’ve already spent somewhere around $300 on trying to fix a device that stubbornly refuses to be fixed. And we haven’t even included the lost productivity due to the workstation being unavailable for it’s regular work.

Now what happens? You could keep working on the problem, and throwing more money at consultants, and losing productivity by staff. Or you could just buy a new device. A brand new multi-function device, virtually identical in capability to the malfunctioning one, can be had for about $300, or about the same as the amount that’s already been spent on the issue.

The same holds true for workstation computers (although not so much for servers). To reload a workstation from scratch can take anywhere from 1 hour to 6, depending on what you have to reload, and the technologies you’re using. So when you run into problems with the workstation, depending on the severity of the problem, sometimes it’s just more cost efficient to reinstall everything from scratch. As long as all the user data is backed up, why would you spend 3 hours trying to fix a problem, when you could just reload the operating system in 2 hours?

Being able to gauge when to say ‘enough’ is a tricky one though. And every situation will be different. Having the tools to quickly restore an operating system, or having a solid and reliable supply chain, are keys to the decision. So talk to your technical support folks and get things working properly again as quickly and economically as possible