Q: I need to invest in my IT but don't want to commit all of the capital that I have. What, if any, are my options?

A: I would assume that you have come to this decision based
on a health check of your IT? A pro-active IT company will
perform some checks to identify 1) where you can pro-long
the life of existing equipment for very little investment 2)plan for future expenditure based on some performance monitoring over a short period of time.

Apart from not investing, and potentially putting your business at risk,there are 3 options:

1. Hardware-as-a-Service (HaaS) ? For a fixed monthly price you will have the latest technology with unlimited support included. If the item later fails you will receive an immediate replacement at no cost. Your IT support company owns the equipment and takes full responsibility for this. The cost is treated as an operating expense freeing up capital and eliminating peaks and valleys of spend and the overhead of managing multiple IT vendor relationships is a distant memory. At the end of the agreement you can then refresh your equipment and benefit again from having the latest technologies.

2. Leasing ? Up until recently this has been the traditional way of renewing your IT without committing capital. Whilst leasing gives you predictability of spend and you own the asset(s); support and replacement costs are more difficult to forecast with separate agreements needed. The total costs could be more than the HaaS
option, as well as leaving you dealing with multiple vendors; time which could be better spent dealing with your core business.

3. Outright Capital Purchase ? Not many businesses now have the capital or want to commit too much of it to any one business expense. Like leasing, you will own the asset(s), which will depreciate in value over time. Additionally a separate agreement for on-going support will also be needed whilst having the outright cost for any replacement hardware.

The effects of the banks not lending to small businesses are now being felt by many despite the efforts of the Government to bail out the banking industry. This is disappointing as businesses do need to invest in IT in
order to continue to be able to function normally without unnecessary disruptions because of poor performing IT.

Businesses only have a finite amount of resources at their disposal. By maximising these for your commercial advantage whilst at the same time improving your cash flow forecasting will give your business a good platform to trade from.