Datalyst Blog

As IT administrators, we spend our days securing networks and managing cloud migrations, yet one of the biggest budget leaks often sits right in the corner of the office: the printer.

If you haven’t taken a serious look at your organization’s printing costs lately, the numbers are staggering. The average organization spends between 1 percent and 3 percent of their annual revenue on printing. That comes out to roughly $750 per employee every year. With a strategic digital transformation, however, these costs stop skyrocketing; they start vanishing.

It’s easy in IT to see a large IT invoice and think something needs to be done about it, but have you ever stopped to think about how much lost productivity is costing your business? Chances are, it’s even more than what it costs to receive IT support. Today, we’re exploring this invisible tax you pay due to poor IT performance (and what you can do to stop it).

Moving to the cloud is supposed to be the action any business can take to help them scale aggressively. For most companies, it comes with a fair amount of waste. Imagine signing up for a pay-as-you-go gym, but they keep charging you for classes you forgot to cancel and lockers you aren't using. That’s effectively what cloud waste is; a sad, empty locker you pay for.

You want to know what’s scary? Anytime your company’s IT fails and you’re left wondering if you can afford a new piece of hardware or the maintenance to fix what’s broken. When you rely on break-fix IT, you’re basically living in a horror film; you never know when the slasher is going to leap out of the shadows and strike. With managed IT, you can sidestep the scaries and know with confidence you’re taking care of your business’ future.

Here are three reasons why managed IT is the superior option for managing your technology solutions.

As the backbone of modern business, an effective technology department is less of a cost center and more of an essential investment. But what exactly makes up those line items in your IT budget?

Understanding the different categories of IT expenses is crucial for strategic planning, controlling costs, and demonstrating the true value of IT to the rest of the organization. Let's break down the major types of expenses that form a comprehensive IT budget.

Most of us have at least heard that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In other words, proactivity is pretty much always the better strategy. Despite this, we’ve observed that many businesses still avoid investing in their IT until something breaks—the exact opposite of proactivity—and wind up losing in terms of downtime, recovery time, and reputation, along with the financial implications these factors introduce.

This is precisely why we’ve designed our services to serve as preventative measures against the root causes of downtime, helping you be more proactive and reduce overall costs.

How much control do you really have over your IT assets? Oftentimes, businesses will consider other priorities, like sales, operations, and customer service, before they focus on IT systems and resources. The problem with this is that it creates a significant burden for your business, both in terms of the hidden financial drains and serious security vulnerabilities that undermine your business’ stability.

You open the company credit card statement, your eyes glazing over. There it is again: a swarm of charges—potentially, a few you don’t even recognize. Each is a small monthly fee, but together, they represent a significant, untamed expense.

This "SaaS sprawl" is a silent profit killer. If this sounds painfully familiar, you're not alone, and there's a clear path back to control.

In the movie Moneyball, Billy Beane and the Oakland A's changed baseball forever. Faced with a tiny budget in the early 2000s, Beane ignored traditional scouting and used data to find talented, undervalued players. This sabermetrics approach allowed a small-market team to consistently beat rivals with much bigger budgets, proving that data, not just money, can lead to success.

Today, those same principles apply to every business. In a competitive world, companies of all sizes and industries can use data to make smarter decisions, optimize resources, and build a stronger business for less.

Does your business really still use that old fax machine? Chances are, it’s just taking up space and costing your business valuable time, money, and resources that would be better spent elsewhere. Let’s look at how a fax machine can actively hold your business back, both in terms of operations and budget.

The more you’ve invested in anything, the more critical it feels for you to get a return on that investment. So, what happens if you keep pouring money into these efforts in the hope that it will eventually work out in your favor?

These kinds of skewed choices come about thanks to the sunk cost fallacy—the tendency human beings have to be swayed toward illogical decisions based on what we’ve already spent. 

Let’s discuss how to avoid this in your business by working through the logic, free of the emotional context that the sunk cost fallacy introduces.

Surprises can be exciting, but one part of your business where you don’t want them is in your IT. A server crash, a wireless connectivity outage, or a security threat can all create multiple surprise problems that you simply aren’t ready to handle—particularly in the realm of your wallet. Instead of spinning the wheel and gambling on your IT bill, you can instead treat your IT like a predictable utility cost, and it’s all thanks to proactive managed IT services.

Do you have your finger on the pulse of your business’ subscriptions? Not many business owners do, and it can negatively impact operations and budget lines. This tech sprawl can get out of control, which is why your business needs a plan to combat it. Thankfully, we’re here to help you get your subscriptions under control… both the known and the unknown.

You notice it, don't you? The random freezes, the slow-loading files, the constant reboots. You likely write it off as a minor annoyance… but what if it’s not minor? These small moments are death by a thousand cuts—a hidden “productivity tax” that is silently bleeding your business dry. This isn't just an inconvenience; it's a budget line item you're paying every single day, and it can easily add up to the cost of another employee.

Let's expose it.

In business, it’s tempting to think, if it's not broken, don't fix it. This is especially true for technology. Your computers turn on, emails go out, and things seem to work… so why bother with constant maintenance?

What if I told you this safe approach is actually draining your profits? It’s a hidden expense, and understanding it can completely change how you see your IT.

The way many businesses handle their IT budgets is fundamentally broken. With global IT spending projected to hit $5.61 trillion in 2025, its importance is undeniable. Yet, too often, IT is treated as a mere "cost center"—a necessary evil whose budget needs constant trimming. This isn't just outdated accounting; it's a strategic blunder that stifles innovation, increases risk, and holds your business back.

It's time to shift perspective. Your IT budget isn't just an expense; it's a powerful investment that can drive growth, efficiency, and competitive advantage. The problem isn't just how much you spend, but how you spend it.

Here’s how to fix your approach:

Nothing is more frustrating than when technology should work, but doesn’t for any number of reasons. Of course, it’s also expensive when your technology doesn’t work, which means you’re incurring costs during this downtime period. Today, we want to address the consequences of downtime and what you can do about it to minimize its impact on your business.

Over the last few years, we’ve seen some very significant price increases for computing hardware. Back in 2011, major floods in Thailand caused a hard drive shortage and caused prices to shoot upwards. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, work-from-home peripherals like webcams, headsets, and docking stations were sometimes hard to get and sold at a premium. When the crypto world started buying entire data centers of Nvidia GPUs, the cost of high-end PCs and gaming PCs started to skyrocket.

2025 in particular is going to be an interesting year when it comes to the cost of typical office hardware, and experts are urging that business owners get ahead of the game to avoid exceeding their projected budget.

I’m about to state the obvious here, but when it comes to running a small business, anything that costs money is probably going to feel like an expense.

That’s obviously the definition of expense, but hear me out, we’re talking about feelings. Particularly, we’re talking about that gut feeling that business owners get when they have to sign a check.

Occasionally, the money you spend will feel more like an investment; when you feel like this is going to help move the business forward. 

For many small business owners, IT is often seen as just another expense—something that’s necessary but not necessarily a driver of growth or profit.

But what if we told you that investing in managed IT services isn’t just about keeping the lights on—it’s about making your business more efficient, secure, and profitable?

So, what’s the real return on investment (ROI) of managed IT services? Let’s break it down.

The clock is ticking for Windows 10. Its end-of-life date is October 14th, 2025, and that will be here sooner than you think.

This means it's time to plan your migration. You need to upgrade any Windows 10 machine within your organization to Windows 11 before support ends.