Should You Lease Telecom Hardware Or Own?
Although America is very much an owner society, sometimes it is not always the wisest idea to own your telecom hardware when you can borrow it instead. Newly formed companies, temporary organizations, nonprofits, and even businesses with less of an IT focus and much more of a sales or services focus could benefit a great deal by opting to lease out an entire telecom system rather than purchasing a new one. To put it one way, sometimes it is simply cheaper and easier to use somebody else’s toys.
There are ways to dramatically reduce the cost of buying your telecom hardware outright, such as through tax breaks (IRS section 179, for example) or by purchasing refurbished hardware. However it is worth considering that not only will you pay a higher price up front for the equipment, with ownership comes the responsibility to maintain the systems. You will need trained professionals to maintain your telecommunications and information technology. Yet with leasing it is often possible to negotiate an arrangement where the leaser handles that responsibility for you.
Leasing your equipment is probably not one of the soundest strategies over a long period of time, but it is a useful tool to save capital to purchase your own system or for a temporary organization such as a call center. The low initial costs will allow you to reinvest the saved capital back into your company, creating more jobs and higher profit margins to make buying a new system much easier.