AUGUSTA
TEK
Shop Your Tech Greg Baker
I love going out to Best Buy and looking at the newest gadgets. I love holding them in my hands, turning them over and pressing the buttons. All the time I’m thinking, “Wow! This is amazing! I can’t believe they have something that can do this!” So you would think that in my business, I would always be looking to do a technology refresh on everything from the coffee pot to the copy machine. In reality, my outlook toward buying business technology is more in common with the business owners we serve. I really don’t enjoying buying new technology for my office. At first glance, that may not make sense. But think about it. The typical business owner is generally only worried about making sure their customers are provided the best service possible. Cool is not part of the vocabulary. If you don’t believe me, walk into any Augusta business owner’s office and inform them they need to perform a server upgrade in order to support the latest release of their accounting software. Please make sure you include the many cool, and very useful, features of Windows 2008 R2. No matter how convincing or how persuasive you are, I guarantee their first question will be, “Do I have to update my software?” Intuitively, business owners understand what technology helps provide service to their customers and what technology simply keeps the office running. In the first case, the decision process is careful and deliberate. Capability is integrated with the business strategy. Nothing less than the life of the business is at stake. However, most of the time, the desire is to get the problem out of the way as quickly and as cheaply as possible. This brings me to a trap that business owners face when dealing with “routine” technology purchases. It begins with a purchase or lease, often times significant in price, that is required to perform an office function. Over time, the cost of the technology needed to perform the function drops, but the price this business owner pays does not. Since it’s not directly related to the delivery of services, there are no additional competitive bids or price comparisons. If it works, don’t fix it. This scenario plays out on a regular basis when we engage new customers. Recently, we encountered a situation where a customer was tied into a five-year lease for a piece of network infrastructure that they could have purchased for 25 percent the total cost of the lease. You might ask, “How in the world did they get into that lease?” The response: It’s just always the way it had been done. Don’t allow your technology purchases to take the path of least resistance. Periodically check the internet. Occasionally get multiple quotes. We are all trying to do more with less. Technology should enable your success. Not prevent it. Spotify Revisited — A couple of weeks ago I offered a free Spotify subscription to a devoted reader that could convince me their life would end without Spotify. Congratulations to Anthony for a very persuasive argument. You should have received your Spotify invite by now, and I hope your collection of vinyl can finally follow you wherever you may go. Congratulations to the 61 new students from the Augusta area who will be attending Georgia Tech this fall. The Georgia Tech Alumni Club of Augusta will be hosting a send-off party for the new Yellow Jackets on Thursday evening, August 11, at the Jones Creek Clubhouse. All are welcome to show support for this next generation of technology leaders. Give me a holler for more details. Gregory A. Baker, Ph.D., is vice president and chief rocket scientist for CMA, which provides information technology services to CSRA businesses and nonprofits. V. 22 | NO. 51
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