IT Budgeting

Join the team at MIS Solutions for episode #10 of DIY-IT, IT Budgeting. In this insightful episode, host Jason from MIS Solutions is joined by Duane vCIO, Nate Jewett vCIO, and Megan Sullins Chief Strategy Officer. The conversation covers the importance of strategic planning and preparation for technological upgrades and replacements to avoid disruptions, the benefits of dual monitors, and the potential impact of virtual reality technology. They also delve into the role of managed IT services and the hidden costs and efficiency brought by technology upgrades.

Key Highlights:

  • The impact of new technology on business operations and associated costs.
  • The role of managed IT services for cost control and unlimited help desk support.
  • Budgeting considerations for technology upgrades and cabling requirements.
  • Creative ways to finance equipment purchases for small businesses.
  • The significance of annual licensing and keeping equipment current to support technological advancements.

 

Timestamps:
00:01:20 Discussion on the benefits of dual monitors and potential future impact of VR technology.
00:05:34 The role of MSPs in cost savings and availability compared to internal IT.
00:06:57 Importance of getting ahead of system failures with timely upgrades.
00:10:32 Budgeting considerations for technology upgrades and cabling requirements.
00:14:11 Debate on the increasing weight and capabilities of access points.
00:16:12 The potential of embedded neural chips and the human race transitioning into cyborgs.
00:19:21 Hidden costs and efficiency brought by technology upgrades.
00:22:58 Creative ways to finance equipment purchases for small businesses.
00:26:27 The importance of budgeting and planning for equipment expenses to avoid sudden large capital spending.
00:28:39 Benefits of annual licensing and keeping equipment current to support technological advancements.

Join us to gain insights into effective IT budgeting strategies and how it can optimize your business operations. Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe to stay updated with future episodes of DIY-IT by MIS.tech!

Jason Null: [00:00:00] Welcome to DIY-IT for small businesses. Today our topic is IT budgeting and I have a host of new people, some old, one new I should say. We actually brought a female in this time to take over the do male dominated industry. We have old, just was just. Awesome. I didn't mean it like that. I know. So since you're talking, you might as well introduce yourself.

Go ahead.

Duane Taylor: I'm Dwayne Taylor vCIO. I am Nate Jewett. Also vCIo

Megan Sullins: Megan Lins, chief Strategy Officer.

Jason Null: Wow. Big time here. So I'm Jason, all your hostess with the Mostess Vice President MIS Solutions. So thanks for coming. So today we wanna talk about budgeting and it and how these guys, and even Megan, how with her department and everything that's rolled out with, with the vCIO office, how you guys work with our partners to make sure that they're budgeting.

Planning budgets, spending, how they spend [00:01:00] down their money, whatever they're doing, however you frame it. Maybe what tools you guys are using. So let's kind of start with just budgets in general. When you guys walk into most small businesses, do they have budgets for it at all?

Duane Taylor: Typically not, no. It's usually handled internally and poorly.

Yeah. And then that's, that just causes problems down the road when you're. You know, have a, a roadmap to, you know, predict what you need to spend.

Jason Null: Yeah. I could imagine that when you're first walking into a small business and you're sitting down with them, you start talking about spending money on it. I can imagine the panic coming right off the, the top, right?

And so you guys sitting down and getting their finances, Or not even finances, beginning of their expenses. Right? I'm sure you guys are gathering up internet bills, phone bills, trying to figure out ways you can save, and then what kind, what type of things do you start looking at from there? You know, [00:02:00] kind of gimme a framework of what you guys start doing.

Obviously you're pulling in bills. You might be doing this. You start looking at equipment needs.

Duane Taylor: U usually just start with you know, equipment, you know, getting the inventory straight and figuring out, you know, what the, what their, what their buy cycle is. You, you try to try to figure out what they do and what they're accustomed to doing.

And then if, and then you, you kind of try to wean them off of that if it's a bad idea. And you, and you, you lead them with, you know, any software that you're purchasing down to your licensing, your Adobe, your Bluebeam, and all those things. And we can put together a complete budget of your total IT spend.

They will share the information. Yeah. So I think it gives them a good overview. It gives them a good overview because most small businesses don't know. They're just getting, oh, you're your license. Think about it for the next year now, and it's $5,000, or, you know, they just, they just, they're always getting caught with, with, with [00:03:00] invoices that are big.

And if you can show them that in over a two year period, this is what your IT spend is gonna be, and this is what your life cycle's gonna look like. It's a little bit easier for them to, you know, when you go to them and say, Hey, I need, we need to spend this for the licensing that's coming up. Just so you're aware it's been in your budget and it's just easier for them from a business perspective to, to what you were gonna

Jason Null: say, Megan, I think you had some good input.

Yeah, I was just gonna

Megan Sullins: say, just just looking at it from a holistic standpoint, if you're really. Trying to capture every piece that you're helping them budget. You basically start with, you know, the internet. That's pretty much the first thing. So you have. Just to kind of expand on each category of it, right?

Yeah, yeah. Internet, obviously there's certain certain providers that you have to choose from. There's not too many of them, so you're helping with vendor management from that standpoint. So whether they have Spectrum [00:04:00] or Ulta fiber or any of that. And then helping them choose the correct type of internet as well.

And, and anything from the dmar as you, as you call it? Correct. So,

Duane Taylor: It's and, and we'll start with, I need a copy of your internet bill and, and, and the contract, right? Because if you're under contract for three years and it's with an old speed and you're paying three times what you can get it for now, then we'll, we'll remove the evergreen and you paying auto

Jason Null: renewals and all that.

You're paying for a speed that your firewall cannot support, right? I mean, we've walked into places and seen gigabit internet connections and the firewall will do 250 megs, right? And why are you paying for that? So, you know, obviously there's savings there.

Nate Jewett: There's also a learning thing that they have to go through too, because sometimes they see, oh, this is a good number, but they don't know that because they're not in the technical aspect of things, which is where

Jason Null: we come in too.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. So you got, you know, you're coming in from the dmar, right? And then you think about start moving forward.

Megan Sullins: Yeah, yeah. Then you think about the network as a whole as well, so as it relates [00:05:00] to hardware and everything else software that they're using as well. So if we talk about. Like firewalls for instance.

Obviously there's a license that's license that comes with that as well, so you have to keep up on the licenses and things like that too. And then obviously access points, need licenses as well. I guess it depends on what product you're using, right? But the products that we use you definitely need a license for it.

And,

Duane Taylor: and, and one of the really nice pieces about the software that we use, it pulls all this information together and it pulls it from the manufacturers and puts it together for us. And then we can go in and, and put in the price for, okay, this, this partner doesn't wanna buy computers, but every six years we like to do 'em every three or four.

So then we can tailor their budget to what their buying habits are. And, and then try to guide them in the right way. And it pulls it all together. And all this encompasses, builds into the budget. So you, you have your asset list, which [00:06:00] has your warranty, renewal costs, your license, renewal costs, your replacement costs, the end of life dates, date was purchased when the warranty's out.

And we'll, we'll even look at, at stuff on like hardware and say, you know, the warranty's up on this, but it's a thousand dollars laptop. I don't think it's a good idea to spend $300 on a three year old thousand dollars laptop. We can take our chances, we'll get one in a couple years, or we can just re renew it.

Now if it's a $5,000 laptop, I'm saying we need to my recommendation is we need to, we need to keep the warranty on it because it's not a thousand dollars admin, just a regular laptop. So all those things come into play and it just really helps them with a picture of. A, a, a view that they've

Jason Null: never had before.

Oh yeah. I can imagine. Most business owners, all of a sudden they see this number and they're like, wow, I never realized I was spending, you know, $25,000 a year on my it. Mm-hmm. [00:07:00] Wow. That's, you know, and, and now I understand that, that's cool. I can now start like building that budget and, and obviously we need computers, which usually is the biggest.

Spend, right? Mm-hmm. Now these business owners have the idea, like, you guys are coming to 'em going, well, you guys have, you know, 25 computers. How do we rotate this equipment out? Right? Do we wanna do it all at once? Right? And when you guys are doing that, you know, obviously you can do 10 this year, 10 next year, 10 the year after that or whatever.

Are you guys also looking at creative ways to finance for them, right. Or help them with their spends? Right.

Duane Taylor: So what Well, well, what I'll, one of the biggest, one of the questions that we, when we're doing our assessments in, in, in our software is does all the equipment expire on the same day? Because that's a huge capital spend.

Oh yeah. Then I'll work with, and we'll work with our partners and, I'll say, you know, look, all of, you're gonna have to buy 60 laptops again at the same time. So do we want to do that or do we wanna start phasing them in two a month all the way across the board [00:08:00] or, Do we wanna look at leasing the dollar buyout?

You know, how do we, how do we reduce the capital, ex the capital expense as much as possible or spread it out? And that's, that's a, people are interested in that cuz they don't wanna just speak told, well I gotta spend $75,000 next month on 60 new laptops or whatever. Yeah. You know,

Jason Null: so, I can imagine licensing too.

I mean, you brought that up. Software licensing. Licensing from, you know, like we look at Office 365 these days, it's just an this ongoing monthly, you know, which is cool cause it helps you, it does help you budget. So you know these costs, all of a sudden you're not, oh, we need to get the new version of Microsoft Office, like Word, Excel, PowerPoint version.

Right? We have to spend $300 a person. This is now integrated into our subscription, so, For our email and all these other services. That's cool because I think that helps a lot of small businesses start that budgeting process. But licensing, you know, I think it get gets forgotten a lot of times.

Duane Taylor: It does.

And, and we build that in too. We look at, you know, [00:09:00] is this a, is this a, a partner that is, doesn't have a lot of turnover that we can, we can reduce costs and, and save them money with the one, the annual Yeah. Versus, versus going month to month. And, and paying that extra expense of, you know, I, I can say, I'd say several people, you know, $300 a month just by saying you don't have a lot of turnover.

And if you do, you usually fill in that position. So unless you're in a downsizing pattern, I wouldn't recommend it. But if you're in, we hope that all of our partners are growing. So we want to try to try to maximize their spend.

Jason Null: Yeah. So if you're a company that's sitting at 25 users and that's pretty much where you're at, you're not fluctuating too much, it might drop down to 24 cuz somebody leaves it's 200 a month.

Yeah. You, well go annual. Right. The license, you're gonna pay for it, right? You can't take it away, but you're gonna save so much in the long run, so Right. And you're gonna hire that position back so you'll be [00:10:00] back to 25 anyways. And

Duane Taylor: I usually say, I just saved you $200 a month. Now can I buy something with that?

Jason Null: Now let's think. But we really need this over here, you know? That's great. I mean, I love that like, Here's where we've saved stuff. Right. And this is where we can reinvest it back into your it too. Absolutely. Right. You know, we talked about one of the original episodes early on. I mean, this is episode 10, so it's amazing that we've come this far.

But we talked about the car scenario, you know, going to work and getting to work really quickly. But as the car aged to taking you longer and longer to get to work, and we see that, and so having that ability to budget and be like, wow, my PCs are four years old. My team can no longer run, they can't run the current version of Windows, right?

If it's Windows 10, windows 11, whatever. And we need to be in that platform. Especially when we look at, like we were just talking about AI coming to Windows, right? And what, you know, the, the new co-pilot pieces with chat G B T built into the operating system. [00:11:00] Man, it's amazing. You're all of a sudden having this AI assistant with you at the desktop level helping you.

Right. Well, I want a PC that can run that for sure. Right. And if that's gonna help all of my employees, I want them on that platform too. Right. So yeah, definitely having that rotation, getting 'em moving forward, keeping their equipment current, makes some big difference on performance.

Duane Taylor: Yeah. You know and we, we, we say all the time, if we, if we're struggling with someone, I say, you know, You spend more on a Starbucks cup of coffee a day than you do on a computer for your employee.

Correct. You know, a computer for your employees over its lifetime is maybe 31, 30 $2 a month. Right.

Jason Null: It's a dollar a day. Yep. Right? Yep. And here you are. I mean, you're going to Starbucks every day for your, you know, non-fat latte and it's, it's five bucks. Right. Plus tip, because you know, now when you go to those places, you know, as they're hanging out the window and you're going through a drive-through and you're like, can you answer this question?

And you're like, okay, love it, man. No. Yeah, no, I don't tip the guy to McDonald's [00:12:00] either. So, yeah, sorry.

Duane Taylor: But it's a lot of, a lot of partners are very receptive to. The budgets. Yeah, and there's no surprises. Once we meet with them and we get things solidified and we get it all penciled in, then I can say, Hey, you know, I may, I may meet with you every quarter, but in between then, I've got a $2,000 spend that's been in your budget that we've reviewed five times.

You've, you've known about this for a couple years, so it might be a shocker to you right now, but it's always been there for us. Right. So we know. Right.

Jason Null: Well, hopefully it's not a shocker because over the time period of building the rapport with you guys and sitting down as you guys are doing your reviews, I, I am assuming that every review involves reviewing the budget.

Mm-hmm. Reviewing what expenses might come up. So all of a sudden this, you know, $10,000 server buy that we've been planning for three years shouldn't be a shock. You have it in the budget. Right. And that's, that, that's what makes you guys so valuable, [00:13:00] having that. Person sit down with you as a small business owner.

You know, lots of times you just get into running the business and you're forgetting about these right expenses and all, all of a sudden being able to grab that, get your arms around it is just gonna make you more successful. It's just a

Duane Taylor: better. It's a proactive approach. Yeah. You know, I mean, great word.

I always joke that years ago when I would've to call someone, it was because everything was reactive and no one wanted to talk to me because it costs a lot of money. Right. And they were like, I don't wanna talk to him. It's gonna cost me $25,000. Well, now I'm like, you've known about the $25,000 for months or years.

Yeah. So but they're, they're very receptive to it. And that knowledge sharing with them, because like you said, they get involved in, that's what they do is their business. That's what they do, and we take that it focus away from them so that they can focus on what they want to do, generate money. Be successful.

Yeah. [00:14:00] And we handle

Jason Null: the rest. We're spending team dollars to make you more successful in business, to make you more secure, to help you get to that next benchmark of success. Mm-hmm. And I, I love that, that, you know, budgeting plays such a huge role into that. I mean, even for as us as a business, for a long time we didn't have budgeting.

And it's funny now is we're using you guys to build our budget for it. Right. You know, we're kind of willy-nilly, like, oh, we need some new computers, we'll get them. But now it's sitting down and having our own equipment, our own data, our own. Spends for software and licensing into your systems. We have at least an idea of what we need to do.

Sometimes we follow it. Yeah. Sometimes we jump the gun and order things because we, you know, like we've been moving to the curve monitors because we like the look. Mm-hmm. One, it's, it's a beautiful look at an office. It is. And I think the guys are actually are, I know that we talked about when we went to dual monitors, people gained, you know, up to 25%, 30%, [00:15:00] you know, more efficiency.

Mm-hmm. And or a productivity increase because of having two monitors, all of a sudden you're looking at things side by side tried instead of trying to on a small device. Well, the curve, I think, takes it to the next level. Right. People get excited about it too. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Duane Taylor: Deployed. It's kinda like a, your employee feels important as well.

Yes. Because they have, yeah. But you ever sit down at somebody's desk and just has one regular monitor? Oh, I, I can't work there. Oh, no. Have to, I have to go somewhere else. I'm like, how do you work like this? I need to get you two

Jason Null: monitors. I struggle on my laptop when I'm stuck like that. Work on a laptop.

Well, that's why I pull my iPad out and have it next to it because I can throw my screen over to it. Right. And all of a sudden I have dual monitors, which I love, you know, so, you know, but that, that's, that is definitely, it's all of a sudden I feel very, Claustrophobic in a single monitor, which is interesting.

And then, you know, obviously with recent Apple announcement and their new glasses, I mean, you wanna talk about taking monitors to a whole, whole new level. Yeah. That is so cool. That's, I mean, you're talking about. [00:16:00] You know, augmented reality with virtual reality built into the same device, which is really interesting.

Mm-hmm. And to be able to sit there and throw up screens and watch how they were working and take phone calls and do presentations, I was like, I was actually amazed by that. I was just amazed at some of their presentation ability with just the regular products. But to step into this virtual alley. I can see, you know, in five years from now, like really not even having cubicles in here and just having chairs and all these guys are just sitting there.

Yeah. You walk in and it's all these gentlemen just with these goggles on. Have you you seen that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it's amazing. Yeah, it was absolutely amazing. Well, wasn't a watch party with like,

Duane Taylor: I love people watching it. Love for

Jason Null: that. That. Yeah. See, right now everyone start budgeting for that purchase.

I mean, yeah. I'd like

Megan Sullins: to see how that's gonna have impact on business in general too. Oh, yeah. When it comes to buying devices and things like who's, who's, who can get away with not having an actual computer in front of them. Like, it's just insane. [00:17:00]

Jason Null: It's, it's another way of thinking. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

But we, you know, but when phones came out, we never thought that you would use your phone. To actually, and you look at the younger generation out here, from a phone standpoint, they do everything on their phones. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like I, I'm kind of limited to like banking and some general stuff, some general browsing.

When I really want to do browsing, I get on a computer still. Right. But, I talked to these guys and they're like, I don't use a computer. This is, everything's right here. And I'm amazed by that. And they do everything on it. Mm-hmm. And it's just a different, my, my daughter's that way. She's 16 and she's like, and like she will sit there and just be like talking to me and she's piping.

I talked about this the other

Nate Jewett: day too, when we were talking about movies in one of our previous episodes where the generational gap of you like going to a movie theater and watching it on a big screen where. I'm content sitting at my desk watching it in the corner while I'm playing a video game.

True. Or laying in bed, watching it sideways on my phone [00:18:00] screen.

Jason Null: Yeah. But being immersive into those goggles. Yeah, yeah. Like throwing up that screen and being practically in it and then blacking out everything. That'd be cool. That is, and having that virtual 3D sound is gonna be absolutely amazing. I'm interested on the cost.

Do you, does cost $3,500? Yeah. $3,500 a piece. Okay. So start budgeting. Well, if I think about my monitor and a MacBook Pro and the accessories I need, it's there. It's there. Yeah. It is one device. I could replace everything. It's kinda

Megan Sullins: a little scary if you think about it from an MSP standpoint.

Jason Null: Yeah. Can you help me with my head?

Yeah. I need you to shake your head twice to reboot. Yeah. What's the hard reboot? Slamming your head down because

Nate Jewett: you break the glass, shatter a glass

Jason Null: in your face. Yeah. Talk about XL coverage. It's an interesting product, but yeah, I mean, it goes, it goes right back into budgeting as we're looking at newer and newer technologies.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Technology is the forefront of all these businesses. I mean, every business we have. Nobody is [00:19:00] sitting there with a piece of paper or writing out something, typing it up. They are sitting in front of a computer, fully immersed, minus, minus all day long. You know, but they're fully immersed in this system.

And this, you go back to it, it's $31 a, you know, a month. It's almost a dollar a day for the average computer. Yep. Over three years or four years, depending on your cycles. But that's eight hours a day. You use that whole device constantly. I'll,

Duane Taylor: I'll let people go. Some people wanna run it until the wheels fall off of it.

And I say, well you know, I think we need to have some, some hot spares at our office because equipment's harder to get. It's not, it's not here in two days anymore. Yeah. So there's different ways to budget and there's different ways to prepare for those that wanna run it until the wheels fall off.

But then there's also, you have to have that conversation with your partners as well and say, you know, you've got a hundred employees, you've got, you know, it takes 15 minutes for the computer to reboot. Right. If [00:20:00] everybody does that three times a week and you're paying 'em $20 an hour, how much does that cost you?

Those are the things that they don't see. Yep. They don't see that savings. They say, what am I gonna get with this new computer rather than a faster computer? I'm like, efficiency, right? Be employees is not waiting. We took over one particular partner and most of the employees would say that they would come in turn on their computer.

Go make a pot of drip coffee, come back to their desk, log into their computer, go back to the kitchen, pour themself a cup of coffee, come back, and then be able to launch Outlook. Okay, we're talking nine, 10 minutes a day. Everyone in the building and you know, with a little bit of budgeting, a little bit of foresight and a little bit of, persuasion, we were able to get them.

To better hardware.

Jason Null: You got them Keurigs. You got 'em Keurigs so fast. They gotta make coffee in 30 seconds. Right, right. It's a win-win,

Duane Taylor: win. Right. It's a win-win for everyone. So get a Keurig and a newer computer.

Jason Null: Yeah. Yeah. Nevermind. [00:21:00] Core seven and a Keurig baby. Yeah. Yeah.

Megan Sullins: We, we. I, Dwayne and I have talked to so many people, especially prospects, before they even become partners that just have no idea what an IT budget even should be.

Mm-hmm. Or anything like that, when in all reality, technology is running their whole business. Correct? Yep. And theyve, they have this. Like mentality of, well, I don't really wanna spend in that area, but it's truly the most important piece of the whole business. Yeah. In

Jason Null: my, in my opinion, it's not

Duane Taylor: broken, so why do I need to fix it?

Yeah. Well it's not broken, but it's not getting very good gas mileage anymore.

Megan Sullins: Yeah. You know, your pro, your

Jason Null: productivity is Right. Well, and then we fall into that budget too, because they're now paying for our services. Right. And they, again, you walk into these places and they're like, Well, we, we don't really spend anything.

I it, and then you find out they're calling somebody for break fix, you know, six, seven times a month. Mm-hmm. And it's, you know, $150 per call and you're like, you're already spending that. [00:22:00] Yep. Yeah. And you can get us in there. You get that unlimited use, you get that unlimited help desk from the eight to five, you then have a budgetable amount, right?

And all of a sudden it's, it's a thousand dollars a month for, you know, managed services or, you know, plus then my subscriptions fall into that, and now I have an overall picture of what I'm truly spending and my, my, my. My team is happier. Yep. Because now they're not like trying to call somebody hoping they can fix it or trying to schedule it.

They just know they have a group that's there and available to 'em. Many times you can improve morale pretty quickly. Having a good IT partner. Mm-hmm. I, I agree. Yeah. It's amazing. I mean, we, we've even walked into places. And have them say, well, if you guys just answered the phone, it's already gonna be an improvement.

You know? Or if you just get back to us, right, right. If you just say hello, they're like, wow. Someone answers. Someone answers. Wow. Right. So,

Duane Taylor: but it's all part of it. It's just all part of the process. The service, the budgeting, the vCIO [00:23:00] roles. It's really helped our partners grow and focus on what their forte is.

Yeah. What's the, what's in their wheelhouse.

Jason Null: That's what I love about the, the vCIO role, you know, being there. I mean, and that's just one piece of it that you guys do. Yeah. But the budget is a, is a massive piece because it does then drive it from there and how it's gonna, you know, move forward for that business.

But you guys provide so much more services than just that. But obviously getting their spend and their cost under control is, is a great value add.

Megan Sullins: Yes, software's another big piece of that as well. Just like, you know, software that they're using daily, like computer ease, for instance. Right. Or he was talking about that recently.

Yeah. That's, that's one of their biggest expenses. And that's the other piece that you guys kind of deal with as well, is just making sure that you know what they're using, right? If they want different options, they can kind of confide in you. You have recommendations on which way to go [00:24:00] and just kind of help 'em with that too.

But

Duane Taylor: that's, yeah, I'll, that's a huge piece. I'll say, I don't know. Your industry, right. So you can find the products and then I'll sit in on the meetings and then I'll say, I don't like this. Or this isn't really a hosted platform. Correct. You know, this

Jason Null: is Cause this

Duane Taylor: is just an off-prem

Jason Null: Correct. A product.

Yeah. Because you got the, the salesperson coming in saying, this is our cloud solution. Right. And we're looking at it and going, that's not cloud, that's not what you wanna do. So there's, you have that in your basement running on a terminal server that is not a cloud solution, just cuz you painted a cloud in the background and took a photo.

That's

Nate Jewett: one of those things too, as you get to know people, you can develop that relationship with them to say, let me be the conduit for all of your technology needs. You don't know what the answer is. I might not know it either, but we'll work together on it and find out and make sure

Duane Taylor: we make the best decision.

We, we always try to find out what they're trying to accomplish. Yep. And then we'll guide them in the best way. Mm-hmm. And I say that all the time. Don't take it [00:25:00] upon yourself. Let

Jason Null: us help, right? Because you don't want them to spend a hundred thousand dollars on an application. That actually doesn't work correctly and doesn't fit into their environment at all.

So having you guys be able to guide that, they might find a product that's the same price or cheaper that actually works correctly, right? And that saves them so much headache in the long run. So yeah, we, it's valuable

Duane Taylor: advice. I've done analysis to help them budget for what kind of phone system they want to buy and, you know, There's, I look at three vendors.

We sell phone systems. I'm not biased, I'm honest about it, and I'm like, well, this is what's gonna cost you. This much over five years, this one's gonna cost you this much over five years. This, and they all do the same thing. Right? So all of those things encompass what we do and then, and then we can build that.

We got recommendation roadmap as far of the budget, you know, I think we need to. Start replacing switches. So we build a recommendation roadmap as [00:26:00] well, like a project roadmap. And that that, that's part of the budget too. So it'll say, okay, in 2024 and July, I wanna be able to replace the switch over here.

That's a recommendation roadmap, not a requirement, but it's just a recommendation to keep them. Flowing. Yeah.

Jason Null: Because the switch could run two more years and be okay. Correct. But you know, we want to get ahead of that. We don't want to, we don't wanna have a failure. Right, right. So you're trying to get ahead of the failure so that the business stays up and is able to produce versus having outages and downtime.

And that's what I, that's another great piece of that budget because you're able to look down the road, you're looking at warranties, you're looking at. End of life of a product you're looking at continuity. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I mean, cuz you can run switches for 20 years, you're not gonna have any updates, any new versions of it.

Right. But it'll do general packet changes. Right, right. You know? But at some point in time they're gonna go to the next speed, or, I mean, we probably see it more in, I don't think Switchings changed that much. We're still at gigabit overall. I'm not sure why we're not [00:27:00] at 10 gig to the desktop. It seems like it's coming, especially with as much online material as we have.

It's not quite there, but you know, access points are a prime example of how quickly they change. Absolutely. You know, to roll out an AP and run it for 10 years, Absolutely makes no sense. No,

Duane Taylor: because, because the technology, the speeds, yeah, the, the two by two, the four by four, the eight by eights, all that stuff is different.

You can have dual connections to it. It, I mean, it

Jason Null: just, and the alphabet of spectrums, a, B, C, D, E N Z, Y N, you know. Right. And it, then all of a sudden we're at 2.3 to the five gigahertz ranges, and that all changes, especially for the type of buildings that people are in. So, yeah. And that stuff, I mean, we're already at what, V seven now for access points that are coming out.

Right. And they're, they're very heavy. I'm starting to wonder if they're even gonna hang on drop ceilings anymore. Right. They were like, you're like lifting them. Like the ceilings gonna start casing starts bowing. Aps used to be [00:28:00] very light. All of a sudden they're super heavy and you're like, they're like, I can see

Duane Taylor: all of your aps cause your ceilings bow

Jason Null: warm.

I don't have to look very hard. Oh, there they are. Yes. Yeah. That's very interesting that how, how, how much they have changed. Yeah. And, and what you get from that. And you know, the bubble is a little bit. Smaller. And so you need more sometimes because of that, but all of a sudden your throughput is incredible.

Right. And you're getting almost desktop speeds from aps. Right. So, yeah, I mean, I don't run a hard line to my desk anymore. I don't either. I'm completely on the, the wireless. Mm-hmm. And I know it seems like almost everybody, almost is. Which is interesting when I start thinking about that.

Megan Sullins: So that's another piece of budgeting too, is the cabling portion of it.

Oh yeah. And obviously we partner with people for that.

Duane Taylor: But yeah, I mean, just the, the, the budgeting is really important because it keeps the roadmap. In line. Yeah. And it keeps the technology to, we, we try to keep the technology that their [00:29:00] users are using to the latest and greatest. And, and it just to keep everything going, it just really helps that holistic view of where am I going?

Yeah. I have an access point over here just because it's, is it any good? Is it, are we getting what we need from it? And then the next thing you know, They're like, well, we have call quality issues. Our aps are seven years old, and well, let's put in some new aps. We'll get the, the latest and greatest and, and we'll be good for a few years.

But you, you're never just gonna set it and forget it and

Jason Null: walk away. Right. Well, and, and I like to. You know, this is a PSA to all people out there is that access points do require cabling, right? Yes. I think a lot of times we feel people think like, oh, you just put it in and it's like magic, but no, it has to run back somewhere.

Right? Right. It's not like even cell towers, when you think about cellular services, those are, you know, the tower has a cable coming down and then back hauls back. Yeah. So it's not magic. It's not [00:30:00] magic. No. You know, starlink, there's a wire somewhere. Starlink is magic. That's bad. But actually that's even laser communication between, you know, the satellites these days.

So there is still some type of delivery mechanism, but our access points, they, they require cabling and they require switches and they require p o e and so that ups the cost of everything. But that's the infrastructure people want today. Right. And it's, I mean, that's okay. That's what we wanna deliver.

You know, we wanna, we wanna walk around and have my 17 devices I'm have on me my watch, my. Phone, my glasses all connected, so I'm taking up three IP addresses just sitting here. Right.

Duane Taylor: Well, it used to be everybody had three devices, maybe, you know, a laptop and a tablet and a cell phone. Now they've got four or five.

Yeah. On them. Correct. So you have to account for that. Yeah. Probably

Megan Sullins: be even more here. Sound sure?

Jason Null: Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, I know Elon Musk just passed his [00:31:00] neural chip, so I think it's what it is. It's a embedded neural chip, so you know, so soon. So he is a robot so soon. Yeah, he is a robot. Yeah. She's smarter than a robot.

You won't need any of your devices. Right. You will just have a, a static IP dedicated to you. That'd be pretty cool. That's insane. Yeah. But I think, I think that was more for like issues with paralyzation and like rebuilding, you know, connectivity to the body and stuff like that. But I'm sure there's other applications for it.

That's very cool too. It's interesting. I mean, obviously it's the transition of the human race into cyborgs. So as we start chipping ourselves, we're almost there with our Apple watches. So, and Dwayne, I, that was the first one, depending how many hips you've had replaced too. You couldn't be kind of partial cyborg too, so, yeah.

But yeah. Well, I, I mean, I think this has been a great conversation. Yeah. Let me add

Ep10 : IT Budgeting-2: one

Megan Sullins: more thing. Oh. So just thinking about it from a D I Y [00:32:00] perspective, if you have an internal person that is dealing with your IT, that is not an msp, that is also another cost that you have which is pretty significant.

And this is the reason why. No offense to anyone. You know it people that work on site and work for specific companies, but this is the reason why MSPs do come in handy if you're trying to save cost on technology in general, because if you have a very experienced IT person that is on site, you're probably spending at least a hundred grand.

Yeah. So,

Jason Null: and you can obviously outsource to a managed service provider almost for half. Right. At times a fraction of the price. And you don't have one person now you have whatever, 25 people that

Duane Taylor: are dealing with different verticals, correct? Yep. That are dealing with the latest technology that ever stagnant.

Jason Null: They don't go on vacation. They never vacation. They use the restroom. They're

Nate Jewett: there 24 7

Jason Null: just for you. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. But it is a great point cuz that is a huge cost

Megan Sullins: savings. Yeah. And not to mention [00:33:00] benefits and everything else for 'em too. Oh yeah.

Jason Null: I mean we've seen, we've seen employers over the years look at that, or especially when somebody's retiring from there that was doing their IT or their.

Moving somewhere else, and they start looking like, well, to replace this person. And they start the interview process and halfway through it, they're like, ah, this is, we can't, we can't find anybody. And then they start talking to someone like us, and all of a sudden they're like, that's what we needed. Yeah.

And, and there's a savings in it. Yep. And there's an, and there's usually an improvement in delivery too. And other savings when you're partnering with someone like us, I mean, all of a sudden, if you're buying antivirus products mm-hmm. We come delivering that and we come delivering mdr, you know, the next generation of antivirus.

We also come delivering a patching solution for you, a monitoring solution that stuff that you don't have to buy. So if you had those products and you were subscribed to 'em and something like Office 365 or something, you can reduce those costs. Yep. You, you buy

Duane Taylor: the whole cake. For us, you don't buy the ingredients and then try [00:34:00] to put it together yourself.

Yep. Yeah.

Jason Null: So that's, that's a great, another, you know, businesses can save a lot. You know, you're spending three grand on, on antivirus, all of a sudden you partner with us. It's included in our cost. Yep.

Megan Sullins: Cybersecurity and everything else,

Jason Null: so. Yep. Yeah, Well's. Awesome. Good call. Whole package. Well, thank you guys again for coming.

Sure. I appreciate this. This has been, this has been a fun discussion. Yeah. On budgeting. We had some AI side notes in there and some other things, but squirrels an AI a little bit. That's, that's just the general, you know, vibe of the, of the podcast is too, sometimes we get squirrel on technology, so, cause we're always looking at the new stuff and love to see it coming out.

So thank you guys for coming, you know, Visit us on Facebook YouTube, Twitter, all your great social media, and also go out to mis.tech/diy and you can download all the episodes and get bonus materials too. And Adam's not here today, so he does have his MySpace page, I think. [00:35:00] I think he got another friend.

I think he has a friend. He has another friend on MySpace. Yeah, he has another friend of MySpace. I think he's got, he's got a great playlist on there. Yeah. But yeah, so if you want to check out Adam's MySpace page, Feel free to. So thank you guys for coming.

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