I’ve discussed how I talk with a bunch of industry experts all the time and we can catch things here and there. One of the repair companies in New Zealand ran across a unique situation that reminded me of how much consultants can save you money.
In his situation, a company requested a quote on a new server for their office as well as requested internet access be installed at another physical building on the same property. The consultant quickly put together a very nice bid and all was well, until someone on the company’s controlling board decided to speak up: They were in the computer business as well and could beat the prices on the bid. This sounds fine, as some companies purchase their own hardware and have consultants install it, but something else happened. The second consultant overshot the original bid by a heck of a lot of money, thousands, in fact.
When the two consultants talked, an issue came up with the amount of servers that were required. The second consultant, we’ll call him “Mr. X” to avoid confusion, assumed that the first had made a mistake on the bid since they wanted Exchange and another type of major service that controlled logins and such (called Active Directory). This typically can’t be done (and shouldn’t, for good reason). Mr. X confronted the first consultant and tried to get an explanation for the mistake. The first consultant said there wasn’t a mistake, he had saved money by going with a Small Business Server (SBS) instead, which allows multiple things to be installed at once – making things cheaper. SBS is specifically setup for smaller environments and everything is integrated together.
Mr. X also mentioned that he had figured that there was another mistake on the networking portion since it would take a decent amount of money to run fiber to the other building. There wasn’t a mistake, the first consultant figured on using a wireless N based network with special antenna’s to make sure that things communicate better. The speed requirements for the second location didn’t require the speeds that Fiber would provide – it was just too expensive to run to that location for a few computers to surf the internet and check email.
In the end, the first consultant saved this company several thousands of dollars, and that was over someone else that was in the industry…
I’ve personally run into situations like this as well. Awhile ago, a situation presented itself with a computer savy business owner in Tigard. They had used a local company to work on a virus issue with a Dell workstation. The other company ended up charging a decent amount of money to remove the virus then said that Windows was so messed up that they needed to reinstall it for an additional fee. After hearing they needed to spend that much money, they just paid the original fee and got the computer back. While on-site, the computer showed up and they asked me about it and how much to reload Windows. Knowing the owner was decently computer savy, I asked if they had the restore CD. As a matter of fact, they DID. I told them that this computer could be re-setup, like new, within minutes just by popping that CD in. They did it while I was working on another computer and I answered a few questions for them as well. They ultimately ended up saving a lot of money since I had merely recommended using the Restore CD and I ended up multi-tasking to help out. This saved them time on Protocol16’s hourly fee as well.
Any business considering a project, new hardware, or even the standard computer user having problems should always consider a professional as this can save you money in the long run. For servers, networks, and such, consutants and computer companies can usually pay for themselves when your project is done as someone familiar with the hardware, software, and networks will usually purchase just the right mix of things you need instead of overdoing it. They’ll also setup the hardware or software correctly for you. If you have a larger project that needs to be implemented over the course of months, if done right, it can actually come in under budget.
Justin