IT maintenance for SMEs: preventive or corrective?

A broken computer in an SME is a person not working, files out of reach and, too often, data lost for good. Most businesses in Douala discover IT maintenance on the day of the failure. This article explains the difference between corrective and preventive maintenance, what each costs, and how to choose a provider, in Cameroon or anywhere else.

What a failure really costs

Take a workstation down for two days. The visible cost is the repair: 15,000 to 80,000 FCFA depending on the part. The invisible cost is elsewhere: two days of salary for someone waiting, clients not served, the quote not sent, and sometimes a dead hard drive with three years of invoices on it. On a fleet of ten machines, one failure per quarter is the norm when nothing is maintained.

Corrective maintenance: repairing when it breaks

This is intervention on demand: broken screen, unresponsive keyboard, battery that will not hold, grinding drive, system that no longer boots. It covers diagnosis, repair or replacement of the part, reinstallation if needed and data recovery when it is still possible.

It is essential, but it has two flaws: it always comes at the wrong time, and it costs more than it would have a month earlier. A drive showing bad sectors is replaced for 30,000 FCFA with all the data; a dead drive is replaced for the same price, but the data is lost or recovered for several hundred thousand FCFA.

Preventive maintenance: keeping it from breaking

This is a scheduled visit, usually quarterly, on each machine:

• Internal dusting: Douala’s dust and humidity clog fans and overheat components, the first cause of hardware failure.
• Updates of the system and software, including security patches.
• Drive health: reading the indicators that announce a failure weeks in advance.
• Backup testing: a backup that has never been restored is not a backup.
• Cleanup of useless programs, antivirus and user account checks.
• Fleet inventory: which machine, what age, what warranty, what planned end of life.

The visit takes one to two hours per machine, and ends with a report an owner can read: what was done, what to watch, what to replace before it fails.

System maintenance: in between

The third family concerns software: a clean reinstall of a system that has become slow, drivers, migration to a new version, cleanup after an infection, data recovery. It is often scheduled during a preventive visit, which avoids taking the machine down on a busy day.

What it costs

For a fleet of ten machines, a preventive contract costs less than a single serious failure a year. Our digital infrastructure offer details what our contracts cover.

How to choose a provider

1. A single point of contact who knows your fleet, rather than a switchboard number.
2. A written response time in the contract. We commit to 48 hours.
3. A report after every visit, in plain language, not a list of technical references.
4. An honest scope: a provider who says “everything” does nothing properly. We work on computers only, laptops and desktops, but for every kind of intervention; for servers and networking, we refer you to a specialist.
5. Your data stays with you: backups are on your media or your accounts, with credentials in your name.

The three habits that prevent half of all failures

Even without a contract, three habits protect a fleet: an automatic backup tested once a month, a UPS or a surge-protected power strip on each machine against ENEO’s cuts and spikes, and dusting every six months. The rest, a provider does better and faster than you.

Have your fleet audited

Describe your fleet, number of machines, age, current symptoms, on the contact page. We propose an initial audit, then a suitable contract or, if your fleet is fine, simply the schedule of visits to plan. Questions on maintenance after the delivery of a website or an application are also answered in our FAQ.