Explaining How Opportunity Cost is Not Synonymous with Value

Sometimes, in business, you will hear about the opportunity cost of a decision. You may not be familiar with this concept that involves the investments you make in your organization's technology. In today’s article, we will discuss the opportunity cost of technology and why that cost may not be one you should be unwilling to take on. 

What is Opportunity Cost?

The opportunity cost of any technology is calculated by considering the features and benefits an organization is forgoing by making the technology decisions they do. For example, the opportunity cost of prioritizing paying less for a productivity suite is the sacrifice of many advanced and extremely useful modern functions, such as cloud access, integrated communication and collaboration features, and secure file sharing. 

The Value

The opportunity cost of a piece of technology is hard to quantify without knowledge of how it could affect your business’ efficiency and productivity. It takes some time to piece together testimonials from companies that function similarly to yours while understanding how any other technology will function to provide them value. Placed side-by-side, a comparatively “better” solution will ultimately provide a better ROI.

How to Make a Decision?

Well, this is where you need to make some interesting determinations. Typically, you need to identify which solutions will actually work for your business’ needs and what kinds of decisions can help you cut actual monetary costs by accepting a certain amount of opportunity cost. If your business is fine with cheaper software, and wouldn’t really benefit from spending more money on that type of software, not implementing the more expensive software isn’t such a bad decision. 

On the other hand, if you constantly see a certain degree of inefficiency with one particular software, and there is a much more feature-rich piece of software readily available that could make a decided difference in how your organization functions, then you should consider making that change. 

The IT Experts at Washington Works Can Help

We work with technology every day and have a pretty good idea of how certain software and hardware configurations can affect a business. Our technology professionals make a point to find the most value for any technology investment and assess your business’ technology in a manner consistent with that belief. If you would like to learn more about how Washington Works can help you improve your business through technology, give us a call today at 301-571-5040.