Why Total Cost of Ownership Should Drive Your Laptop Strategy
It’s no longer enough to invest in technology just to meet daily demands. A strategic approach helps reduce risk and minimise the long term operational effort.
At Dynabook, we believe that buying a laptop should never be treated as a one off purchase. Instead, IT teams should look at total cost of ownership (TCO), which is the sum of acquisition cost, maintenance, downtime, security risk, support burden and refresh cycles, as a long term investment decision.
Read on to discover why total cost of ownership should drive your laptop strategy.
The Hidden Price of Downtime and Poor Hardware
When a laptop fails or underperforms, the cost to the business goes far beyond just repair or replacement.
According to a 2024 survey from the ITIC, more than 90% of medium and large businesses estimate that an hour of IT downtime costs at least US $300,000 and more than 40% put it in the US $1 million to US $5 million per hour range. For SMBs with 20 to 100 employees, 57% of companies said an hour of downtime can cost their companies up to $100,000 an hour.
On top of the direct financial loss, outages or hardware failures can damage customer trust, slow project delivery and trigger compliance headaches, especially for businesses managing sensitive data.
Given how expensive downtime can be, it makes sense to treat hardware failures and underperforming devices as a genuine business risk. That’s why choosing the right hardware matters in today’s evolving digital landscape.
What Makes a Laptop a “Smart Investment”
A business ready laptop should:
- Be built with durability and reliability in mind, minimising hardware failures and the need for repairs.
- Support strong security out of the box, reducing vulnerability to firmware or hardware level threats and lessening the dependency on third party solutions.
- Deliver strong performance over multiple years, so refresh cycles can be extended, lowering capital outlay over time.
- Be manageable remotely, enabling IT teams to deploy, update, patch and monitor devices across a distributed workforce.
Laptops built to these standards deliver value through reduced downtime, fewer repairs, less demand on IT support and a longer, more reliable lifespan.
How to Evaluate Your Fleet for True TCO Efficiency
For IT decision makers or SMB owners planning their next device refresh, here’s a practical approach:
- Quantify your downtime cost: consider lost productivity, potential revenue loss and the cost of IT recovery. That gives you a baseline value.
- Assess hardware reliability and service history: older or lower quality devices often drive hidden costs in repairs, lost work time and support.
- Factor in security and compliance risk: devices without current firmware/hardware security may lead to breaches or compliance failures down the line.
- Consider refresh cycles strategically: extending the useful life of a laptop by even a year can significantly reduce the annualised TCO.
- Calculate total lifecycle cost, not just the purchase price: include support, security, downtime and replacement frequency into your budget planning.
This approach moves the conversation from “Which laptop seems like the easiest choice right now?” to “Which device will deliver the greatest long term value for our business?”
Treat Laptops as Long Term Infrastructure
In today’s digital and dispersed workplaces, laptops are more than just tools; they’re part of the critical infrastructure. Choosing devices designed with business needs in mind, such as durability, security, manageability and lifespan, transform them from recurring expenses into sustained business assets.
Dynabook’s business ready devices are built specifically for organisational environments, with enterprise level security baked into the hardware, remote management capabilities that scale and engineering that is designed and tested to withstand years of daily use.
Ultimately, your choice in technology should be an investment in success. Choose Dynabook for the reliability that keeps your team productive and your operations secure. It's proven performance, designed for business and built to stand the test of time.
