I have seen it time and time again, in many different industries. When you bought it the computer was “super fast”. Then it happens, slowly, over the years, It begins to run slower. We have all seen this happen. I would like to take a minute to talk about situations when a certain computer is just not right for a user. I would like to highlight one example; out of dozens that I can recall over the last few years, where you know you need to upgrade but you just cannot justify the expense of new hardware right now.


I visit this particular client a few times a month. I know most of the people that work there and their personalities. I noticed a particular person sitting at their computer, which was not going at full speed. I decided to take a few minutes and see if something was bothering her. When I asked if something was wrong she of course said “No.” I pressed a little and asked her more directly why she was working so half heartedly. Her reply shocked me even more, “I cannot work any faster; this computer cannot keep up as it is”. Laughing I decided to take a look at what was going on.

It was an older machine for sure, 512kb of memory in a XP machine that has had its software upgraded many times. It is not so old that it is useless. In fact it is one of the better hardware configurations at this office. I took a look at what she was working with. She had 5 or so Excel documents open, that where hundreds of lines each, a few rich text documents open, outlook, and a couple of file folders. It did not take long to make the leap that she was just doing more at once than this machine could handle. It was taking a good 10 seconds to switch between documents. Since her job was basically to move, compare and review the information between each of the documents, closing some of them was just not an option.

Okay, now I have identified a problem. A client has an employee who is not as productive as she can be because her computer hardware is inadequate for her needs. Now what do we do about it? How do I convince the company that now is the time to spend money on new hardware? The economy is currently “tight”, to put it nicely. I am sure they are dealing with their own issues due to that.

I decided to take the soft approach. I identified the exact problem, took it to the company point of contact and decision maker, where I added that some of the other machines in the office would benefit from having their systems reinstalled as well. I explained to the point of contact that the years of changes to their network environment have taken a toll on their PCs.

I decided to price out a machine that would be able to keep up with the employee’s. The price of PC is constantly dropping, so finding a machine in today’s market that can keep up with the employee’s was not hard. As it turns out I concluded that an adequate model would cost under $700.00, which included being energy star and having a flat screen monitor.

I pointed out that one of their users, in my estimation, was sitting there for at least an hour a day waiting on her machine. Armed with that information and the $700 price tag, I left the contacts to draw their own conclusions. They called me within a week with an order for 4 new PC’s.

Here was their conclusion, let’s take an arbitrary number of $14 per hour (easy math is good), that is $70 per week that the company is paying a person to sit there. With $700 for a new machine, the company can get back that time at $70 per week, which comes out to 10 weeks for the return on their investment. That is how upgrading hardware can save you money.