Learn how IT providers cost project services
Knowledge is power and I’m about to give you some in regard to being able to roughly estimate how much you should be paying for professional services when upgrading your network.
Every business at some stage will arrive at the time to upgrade their Server hardware and operating systems. For the most part these days hardware has become a true commodity, so once you have the various specifications nutted out, you can shop around for the most competitive quote and easily compare apples with apples.
Unfortunately the same can’t be said when it comes to the costs associated with the technical services required to install, configure and migrate to the new systems.
So to help understand what makes up the services required and how service providers calculate the associated costs we’ve put together the following guide based on a Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS 2011) new installation and migration. Below are the average timings used to calculate the costs of this type of project.
|
Task |
Hour Allowance |
|
Server Hardware Build and Operating System Installation |
7.00 |
|
Exchange Migration |
3.00 |
|
File System Migration |
4.00 |
|
Active Directory Migration |
3.00 |
|
Printer Migration – up to 3 Printers |
1.00 |
|
Migrating each PC / Laptop and moving profiles etc |
0.50 |
|
Post Migration Support |
|
|
Less than 6 Users |
3.00 |
|
6 – 12 Users |
4.00 |
|
12-20 users |
6.00 |
|
20-30 users |
8.00 |
So if we take a company with fifteen users the total equal 29.50 Hours.
Industry rates vary on project work however $160 per hour is average, so your total cost should be around $4,720 for the project.
Now keep in mind if you are receiving a fixed price quote, the provider will build in a contingency generally that will be around 5%, so that will add $236, they may also add 5% for project management so another $236 bringing the total price $5,192
There you have it, when the time comes to upgrade your network you can use these formulas to determine if you are receiving good value for money on the professional services.
