How to Maximize the ROI of Your Network Devices

Your network infrastructure is the foundation of your business, crucial to your ability to grow, adapt, and succeed. And like most IT projects these days, networking is moving from a big CapX project to an operational expense with regular, smaller updates and integrations, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be regularly evaluating your network’s ROI.

Ahead, we'll share our best tips to assess your network devices for how well they’re working for your business, and how to get more ROI from your assets.

Assess what features you’re not using or maximizing.

A great reason to regularly update and replace your network devices every 3-5 years is the rapid evolution of today’s technology. From significant energy efficiency improvements to software fixes and upgrades, there’s a good chance you’ll save money and/or see productivity improvements with hardware upgrades. And yet, for the best ROI, don’t forget to first assess and use what you already have.

We commonly see clients match features to their highest needs first, then move on to other work and projects, leaving many features unused or underused. It’s why our first tip for your network maintenance routine is to assess if you’re currently underutilizing what you already have.

For example, if you provide Wi-Fi in areas accessible to the public or customers—including lobbies and waiting rooms, meeting rooms, event locations, and classrooms—you can customize your settings to provide different onboarding experiences and prompt different behaviors, enhancing security, communication, and even revenue-building opportunities, yet this is one of the most commonly overlooked features we see.

This includes security.

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Cybersecurity events are costly and can take down your business’ reputation and customer trust. So, while it may seem like you can cut corners when it comes to security, you’re really taking on unnecessary risk and will likely end up costing your business far more in the long run.

With all its endpoints and connections, your network needs a robust defense in place. Ensure you’re maximizing your network devices’ security features, from firewalls to security monitoring. Secure your data, your business, and your ROI.

Assess your network for trouble areas and evolving needs.

Your network and its needs are unique to your business, so the network devices you use are a unique combination as well. You should develop a thorough and agile understanding your how your network functions and your business’ evolving needs.

Regularly conduct assessments where you watch the different devices and people connect to your network, in different situations and circumstances, to see how they perform. How does your network behave, and are there trouble areas or bottlenecks that emerge? Look for opportunities to fix something that’s broken, as identifying and troubleshooting problems can bring immediate benefits once they’re fixed, from improving productivity and efficiency to reducing employee frustrations.

By making this process a regular, proactive activity, you can get ahead of issues before they get too big—and expensive—and stretch out the ROI of your current network setup.

Keep your business’ growth goals top of mind.

Part of developing a comprehensive understanding of your network includes keeping growth top of mind. After all, every business has expansion and growth goals, albeit at different rates and capabilities. Which means your network will need to grow to support the business as well. The more flexible your network is, the better it will be able to scale up efficiently, helping you maintain a solid ROI.

How can you accomplish this? If you haven’t already, ensure your network is set up with modular components, so it’s easier to add to it and adjust over time.

Consider your devices’ total cost of ownership.

Total cost of ownership (TOC) includes the costs of owning a device for its entire lifecycle, not only its initial upfront cost. This includes energy use and associated costs, maintenance costs, licensing fees, and more. Often, a device that may be cheaper upfront may turn out to cost you more if it sucks up more energy as it runs or is unreliable, costing you both in terms of downtime, troubleshooting, and early replacement. The longer your devices run at optimal performance, the better your ROI.

Consider how you retire legacy equipment.

ITAD, or IT Asset Disposition, is “the practice of decommissioning and disposing of hardware and IT assets.” There are a few key reasons you want to take the time to properly complete ITAD. Number one is security: it’s mission-critical to your business that you take the proper steps to clear your legacy devices of any sensitive or protected data. Even big companies get this wrong more often than you might think, which comes at a cost. Not only are there legal and regulatory ramifications with hefty fees, but it’s difficult to rebuild your reputation and customer trust once it comes out that you carelessly failed to protect their data.

Then, of course, there are the sustainability costs to discarding equipment, known as e-waste. E-waste inflicts substantial damage, from the health risks of discarding device materials to the materials and pollution costs that come from constantly creating new devices from new raw materials. This means lost value for the economy and your business—to the tune of $47 billion in lost value from the 82.6% of e-waste that goes unrecycled, with still usable materials like cobalt, copper, and palladium.

To really maximize the ROI of your network assets and devices, it’s worth considering how you retire legacy devices and include their value as part of your TCO. Your devices, including servers, switches, and routers, can be sold to another organization or a reseller to help extend their life and maximize their ROI, even as you upgrade and refresh to newer equipment. Of course, it’s also critical to properly vet these vendors and partners and take the proper steps to ensure your devices are transitioned securely, no matter where they’re headed next.

Invest in network maintenance.

We all expect our networks to hum along efficiently at a high level in the background. So proactive maintenance may be something you keep out of sight, out of mind. Yet it’s like adhering to your car’s regular maintenance schedule: regular oil changes and other care tasks ensure your car can perform optimally and help prevent major catastrophes. By prioritizing consistent, regular maintenance, you can help prevent costly downtime, and with it, the revenue and data loss that comes with it—not to mention help ensure your network security is functioning as it should and at its best.

This is especially true if you include the strategic and forward-thinking practices we’ve discussed.

Learn how to proactively maintain your network to keep issues at bay and maximize your ROI.

It’s not always easy to prioritize proactive maintenance when you’re constantly tasked with putting out fires. Which is why we’ve built a checklist for you to help you outline and prioritize the key items that should be part of a proactive, consistent network maintenance cadence—so you know exactly what to do and plan for to stay on top of things.