It’s that time of year, the end of 2021 is in sight and it’s time to start thinking about 2022. As we look forward to 2022, one important area for small businesses to focus on is budgeting for their IT. When it comes to planning your budget, there are a couple of areas we want to draw attention to for our clients when planning for the year to come.
Problem #1: Chip Shortages
The world is experiencing a computer chip shortage due to a perfect storm of problems including a global pandemic, a trade war, fires, drought and snowstorms. It has coincided with a period of soaring, unprecedented demand – in January alone, chip sales reached a record $40 billion. Chips are now in everything from watches to fridges and your car probably has several dozen. Manufacturers simply can’t produce them fast enough.
So what does that mean for your small business? You need to plan ahead big time.
If your company is planning on doing any kind of device purchasing in 2022 it is better to get those orders in sooner than later because there will be backorders. Honestly, get your orders in now and try to figure out some way to push the expense onto next year if possible.
Problem #2: The Domino Effect of Upgrading
What is the domino effect of upgrading exactly? Basically, it’s when you go to upgrade one thing then you have to upgrade a bunch of other things because they are not compatible with the new thing you just bought or upgraded to.
For example, this comes into play a lot when upgrading operating systems. Apple releases a new operating system every year in October or November. We only support Apple operating systems that are two years past the current version because any operating system that is three years old at that point doesn’t get security updates anymore. At that point in time, we will upgrade everyone to the newest operating system.
However, some older macs are not going to be able to run the new operating systems because the hardware is too old, therefore you have to get new hardware. As frustrating as this may seem, it could yield a very desirable outcome such as upgrading to the latest and greatest of Apple devices and getting to take advantage of newer technologies that are way more efficient than your older devices.
If you need help figuring out which expenses you will need to account for next year in your budget, our team of experts are here to help you. Contact us today!